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HomeMy WebLinkAboutA014 - Staff Report - Property Maintenance Code 1 STAFF REPORT 3 PROPERTY MAINTENANCE CODE After receiving an influx of complaints regarding couches and weeds/grass heights, the City Council directed the City Attorney to draft a "property maintenance" ordinance that will deal exclusively with problems occurring on the yards of all residential properties. Maintenance issues dealing with exteriors of buildings were specifically omitted from the directive. Many of the yard maintenance complaints involving rental-housing units can be rectified through enforcement under the existing Housing Code. However, since currently there is no companion ordinance requiring certain maintenance standards for non-rental units, staff is not able to effectively respond to similar complaints received concerning owner-occupied houses. It appears from recent discussions among Council members that there is a desire to explore a comprehensive property maintenance ordinance for all residential properties in order to provide equal treatment for these types of neighborhood concerns, regardless of housing type. Property maintenance ordinances have existed in various forms in cities throughout the country for many years. Therefore, this type of ordinance should not be seen as extreme or radical. However, each ordinance is unique because it reflects the specific values of a community and the types of behavior that the citizens want to prohibit. What is acceptable in University City, Missouri, might not be acceptable in Ames, Iowa. The property maintenance ordinances in both cities could reflect these differences in values. Therefore, it would not be appropriate to "copy" a property maintenance code from another city. Before moving ahead to adopt a property maintenance ordinance unique to the City of Ames, the City Council might want to consider the following issues. Issue 1: Do the positive results of eliminating extreme behaviors of a few through the imposition of a property maintenance ordinance outweigh the possible negative impact on other homeowners? Many times, the actions of few in a community cause policy makers to create ordinances that effectively eliminate the extreme actions of a small group of individuals. However, if we are not careful, the new ordinances might negatively impact the actions of others, who are now subject to more stringent requirements that previously were not causing any problems in their neighborhoods. For example, in the proposed ordinance, the placement of boxes, bags, lumber, or metal that are visible to the adjacent property owner would now be a municipal violation. In the past, this type of storage might have been totally acceptable to a neighbor and, therefore, no complaints were made to the City about this behavior. However, if passed, 2 this new ordinance would place the owner participating in this less than extreme behavior in violation of a local ordinance. Council members should be aware of this possibility. If you choose to proceed with a property maintenance ordinance, you might want to consider only standards that are considered extreme behavior and, therefore, are deemed unacceptable in our community. Issue 2: Are the current monetary penalties enough to motivate people to correct the situation? Based on past experience, staff does not believe that a $50 fine (up to $250 for succeeding violations) will always result in the preferred outcome for the neighborhood, the elimination of the negative behavior. Often, this magnitude of fines is not a deterrent and, even when we do win in Court, the situation may continue for many months before it is corrected. This prolonged process serves only to further frustrate the complaining parties. If the City Council chooses to move ahead with a property maintenance ordinance, then consideration should be given to creating enhanced enforcement tools for the staff. • One approach would be to increase the fines to $500 for the first offense and $750 for each succeeding violation. • Another approach would be to revise the Municipal Code to allow for the assessment of costs to eliminate negative situations. In this procedure the offending property owner is notified if a violation is occurring and given a period of time to eliminate the problem. If this does not occur in a timely fashion, staff is permitted to make sure the violation is eliminated (either through our own efforts or through contract labor) and the cost of the work is charged to the property owner. Assessing costs for correcting such situations is governed by Section 364.12 of the Iowa Code. In order to be successful in recouping these costs, a staff member or contracted service provider with the expertise to make such judgments must be able to prove that the situation in question poses a health or fire hazard. Issue 3: Are you certain the traditional procedure for enforcing these types of problems is the best approach? The traditional approach for handling these types of complaints would be for the Council to attempt to incorporate its thoughts on objectionable behavior into an ordinance, and expect the inspection staff to investigate a complaint, interpret the ordinance, and attempt 3 to eliminate the offensive behavior through cooperative arrangements with the offending party or through legal means if all else fails. This type of enforcement activity is extremely time- consuming for the inspection staff. Often we find that after taking time to inspect the complaint, correspond with the offending party, and re-inspect the property to assure corrective action was taken, the whole process is begun again as the infraction is soon repeated by the property owner. In addition, in a significant number of cases, we receive complaints from neighbors who have strained relations. What you or I might consider to be acceptable behavior with our neighbors might be irritating to someone with whom you have a less-than-ideal relationship. While a property maintenance issue might be involved, it is soon apparent that there is also a deeper problem with their relationship that has stimulated this latest complaint. What is really needed is some form of mediation. Given these observations, the City Council might want to consider a non-traditional approach to handling these property maintenance complaints that could include any, or all, of the following steps: -Interaction Between Neighbors Require that the staff not accept a property maintenance complaint against a neighbor until the complaining party shows proof that they have attempted to resolve the problem by first discussing the situation with their neighbor. -Neighborhood Panel Create a standing citizen panel of neighborhood representatives to review property maintenance complaints. Standards would still have to be established by the Council in the form of an ordinance. However, in this scenario, the interpretation of the ordinance and/or mediation between neighbors to eliminate the violation would be performed by this panel, rather than City staff members. -Inspection and Enforcement by City Staff City staff would still have to inspect the situation. If the efforts of the citizen panel fail, then staff would proceed with the enforcement process, hopefully as prescribed in Issue 2. This non-traditional approach might reduce the staff time required for enforcing this type of ordinance and more effectively deal with underlying issue involved in these complaints. Some variations of this proposal are utilized in other cities. If you are interested in this unique approach, further research could be performed. Issue 4: Comments Regarding the Proposed Ordinance Ideally, prior to staff preparing a property maintenance ordinance for consideration, the City Council would discuss in general terms the types of behavior that you would want to prohibit in our community. 4 Given the lack of specific directions, the City Attorney has done a good job of attempting to anticipate the priorities of the Council. The proposed ordinance attempts to establish standards in five categories. -The Council should decide if these five categories reflect all of the areas that you believe should be addressed in a property maintenance ordinance. You should know that the staff continues to receive a number of complaints regarding (1) weeds/grass heights and (2) tarps on cars in driveways that are allowed on vehicles that are not moved. Should you consider additions to a property maintenance ordinance that would deal with these complaints? -Section 2a. The prohibition of outside storage of household furnishings has been discussed extensively over the past weeks. It should mirror and ultimately replace the language you found acceptable for the rental- housing ordinance. -Section 2b. Do you want to prohibit the storage for more than ten days of all types of bags, boxes, or lumber that are visible to a neighbor or from public property? -Section 2c. The section dealing with broken windows needs further clarification. Do you want to prohibit cracked glass as well as broken out glass? Does the prohibition include the whole window or just the glass? As emphasized in our overall approach to the newly established Neighborhood Liaison Program, "Instead of using regulations to respond to problems, the NLP should facilitate processes through which neighborhoods can work with their residents, property owners, and others to understand viewpoints and solve problems together." If you choose to adopt an ordinance to resolve property maintenance issues, it might be advisable to incorporate some form of this philosophy in our process to deal with these issues.