HILLSBOROUGH -- Hillsborough residents are making a second attempt to keep the historic Colonial Inn from deteriorating to a condition beyond repair.

The West King Street building, which dates to 1838, has been a sore point with many residents since its restaurant doors closed in 2001. The next year, it was purchased at auction by Francis Henry for $410,000, according to county property records.

It has never reopened. Year after year goes by without repairs. Meanwhile peeling paint, a leaky roof and broken windows leave it exposed to the elements.

The town tried to legally force Henry to make repairs in 2004 but Henry countersued that the town’s ordinance was unclear. After mediation he agreed to donate $2,500 to the town for local historical preservation.

Last year the town rewrote its Prevention of Demolition by Neglect ordinance to make it more effective. The goal of the ordinance is to get repairs made to buildings within the Historic District so that they do not deteriorate to the point that they can’t be saved.

Under the ordinance, planning staff and the Historic District Commission may consider only specific items addressed in a written complaint to the planning department. If after a public hearing the planning director determines the repairs need to be made, the owner gets a specific amount of time to make the repairs or the town makes the repairs and charges the owner for them.

In January, Henry told the Town Board he may reopen the inn as a bed and breakfast and hoped to begin construction in the spring. Last year he received a permit to demolish a poorly built dining room at the back of the property that was added in the 1950s.

That work hasn’t been done, said Stephanie Trueblood, the town planner.

Town resident Joe Rees wrote a formal complaint in late 2003 with seven bulleted points, including tumbling chimney bricks, rotting porch boards and an open upstairs door.

Rees filed the new complaint this summer, noting that the same seven exterior problems remain except that a failing downspout is now missing completely, causing the brick and concrete footing under one of the columns to come loose.

Trueblood has inspected the building and will present her findings to the Historic District Commission on Nov. 5. If that volunteer board finds sufficient evidence to invoke the ordinance, the commission will turn the matter over to the town planning department to call a public hearing, Trueblood said.

Henry owned the now closed Rathskellar restaurant in Chapel Hill and and was the agent for the now demolished Dey House in the town of Chapel Hill’s downtown historic district.

The Colonial Inn cannot be demolished because it’s a state building of historic significance, Trueblood said.