The new ordinance, that the City Council will consider next month, would streamline city laws and procedures and make it easier for the city to force the cleanup of properties, or close them, without going to court. 

"A lot of the murders are related to drugs and crime. By making it less hospitable for drugs and crime, I'm hoping it will bring the murder rate down, " said City Councilwoman Jean Quan. "It's part of an overall solution." 

So far this year, 94 people have been murdered in Oakland, compared with 85 at the same time last year. Police believe the vast majority involved drugs. 

While the city has the power to try to shut crime-plagued properties -- from homes to motels to liquor stores -- by declaring them public nuisances, the current approach is a patchwork of procedures carried out by departments that often don't work together, council members said. 

As a result, it can take years to close a problem property plaguing a neighborhood.

For example, the city must go to court to have a property declared a drug nuisance, which requires evidence including police surveillance, buy-bust operations and arrests linked to the property, said Arturo Sanchez, a Quan staff member. 

The new law would allow the city to proceed using such evidence as testimony of neighbors, Sanchez said. 

"The threshold of proof is less than when you take it to court," said City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, who will introduce the ordinance with Quan. "We'll be able to move faster and shut some of these places down."

Quan also said the city will pursue special state legislation in effect in Los Angeles that allows the city to count problems within 1,000 feet of a nuisance property, not just on the property itself. 

Recently, Mayor Jerry Brown has been successful in targeting two blighted buildings in his neighborhood north of City Hall -- which has the second- highest crime rate in the city -- by focusing the attention of city staff on the crime and poor living conditions there. 

The new law would allow that kind of focus and coordination throughout the city, said Quan, who recently used many of the same strategies to force the scheduled demolition of the Hillcrest Motel on MacArthur Boulevard, which had plagued the Dimond neighborhood for more than a decade.