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 You can still enforce your blight regulations, provided they are not part of your zoning ordinance. “Grandfathering” is a colloquial term commonly used to describe a nonconformity, meaning something that predated a regulation that later rendered it unlawful. However, this concept only applies to zoning ordinances—not to general law or “police power” ordinances, which regulate activities rather than land uses. In the zoning context, a use or structure can generally be characterized as lawfully nonconforming and exempt from zoning regulations if it: 1) was lawful at the time it was established; 2) was later rendered unlawful by a change in zoning regulations; and 3) was never abandoned. An example of this would be a gas station that was established before a township adopted zoning. Even if the township adopts a zoning ordinance that prohibits gas stations in the district in question, the property owner possesses a vested right in their previously established use, and can continue to engage in that use, so long as it is not expanded. However, blight or nuisance ordinances are generally not zoning ordinances, and as a result there is no “grandfathering” in of violations. This means that even if a resident has kept junk on their property for decades before you adopted your blight ordinance, the resident still has to comply with that ordinance.