Code Enforcement Alternatives - Study Session December 2007ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES MEMORANDUM
May 20, 2009
TO: City Council
FROM: Jacob J. Winzenz, Director of Admin. Services/Asst. City Manager
SUBJECT: Study Session – Housing and Nuisance Code Enforcement
On December 12, 2007, the City Council conducted a study session on alternatives to
enhance the enforcement of housing and nuisance codes in the City of Janesville.
Since several current Councilmembers were not on the City Council at that time, I
thought it would be helpful to redistribute that report, in addition to the materials
prepared by Gale Price.
On March 24, 2008, the City Council approved several changes recommended in this
report including the re-inspection fee for nuisance violations, summary nuisance
abatement; and adding housing code, nuisance, junk vehicle, and residential nuisance
related zoning violations to the list of offenses included in the Chronic Nuisance
Premises ordinance.
Attach.
ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES MEMORANDUM
December 4, 2007
TO: Steven E. Sheiffer, City Manager
FROM: Jay Winzenz, Assistant Director of Administrative Services
SUBJECT: Alternatives to Improve Housing and Nuisance Code Enforcement
Executive Summary
Councilmember’s Truman and DeGarmo requested that the administration prepare a
report on the feasibility of licensing or registering rental property owners, including the
periodic interior inspection of licensed premises, and/or enhancing the code
enforcement process in the City of Janesville. To gain additional insight into their
respective code enforcement and inspection programs staff contacted fifteen (15) of our
peer cities. This report presents four (4) options for the City Council to consider that
would enhance code enforcement in the City of Janesville. Staff recommends that the
current ordinances be amended to allow nuisance abatement, charge a re-inspection
fee; and add housing and nuisance violations to the Chronic Nuisance Premises
ordinance. Additionally, staff recommends that Janesville require the registration of
rental properties, including a requirement that a local agent be appointed.
Background
The City of Janesville has approximately 24,000 parcels including approximately 9,900
rental dwelling units. As the City continues to age and grow, the task of enforcing
housing and nuisance codes becomes critical to prevent a downward spiral of our
neighborhoods.
In calendar year 2000, the City Council began a series of Neighborhood Listening
sessions. One of the common themes of these sessions was concern over the
timeliness of the code enforcement process and the ability to get code issues resolved.
There was particular concern with nuisance issues such as junk cars, and trash and
debris. As a result of these concerns the Administration undertook a comprehensive
review of code enforcement.
In August, 2000, the City Administration completed the comprehensive review of code
enforcement in the City of Janesville and submitted a report to the City Council. That
report made several recommendations including:
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Increase proactive enforcement
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Issue citation and abatement authority
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Implement ordinance changes and/or amendments; and
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Increase staffing
Over the last seven (7) years all of these recommendations have been implemented.
The increasing demand for the services of our code enforcement staff is illustrated in
the following graph:
10-Year History of Complaints
1400
1200
1000
734
1047
893
881
738
777
800
639
Nuisance
524
600
566
447
Housing
400
476
375
364
353344
342
303
275
200
248
230
0
1997199819992000200120022003200420052006
Year
The preceding graph illustrates several noteworthy points related to housing and
nuisance complaints:
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The number of housing complaints has remained relatively constant from 1997
through 2006. The average number of housing complaints during this period was
331 complaint per year with a high of 476 complaints and a low of 230
complaints
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Nuisance complaints have showed a steady increase with an average of 725
complaints received each year. The total increase in the number of complaint
from 1996 to 2006 was 600 complaints, or 134%. This represents and average
annual increase of approximately 9.9%
Survey of Comparable Cities
In preparing this report staff surveyed fifteen (15) comparable cities to determine how
they enforce housing and nuisance complaints. Most code enforcement processes are
not that dissimilar to Janesville, but several had some unique approaches. Some of the
more interesting findings include:
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Only two (2) cities license property owners
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Only two (2) cities conduct systematic interior property inspections of all rental
properties. One (1) city conducts interior inspections of rental properties in a
“core” area.
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Most cities conduct targeted exterior property inspections. Only three (3) cities
complete city-wide exterior inspections annually.
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Most cities (10 of 15 surveyed) have a procedure to abate exterior nuisances
without going through the court system.
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Nearly half of those surveyed had some ordinance to get at the problem of
chronic offenders. Several communities have added violations of their housing
and nuisance codes to the list of offenses that qualify a property for consideration
as a “Chronic Nuisance Premises”.
Beloit’s Rental Permit/Inspection Program
Beloit requires both an annual permit for rental properties and conducts interior property
inspections. Beloit has approximately 5,700 rental units and inspects each unit at least
once every three (3) years. In addition, they inspect the exterior of all properties
annually and respond to citizen complaints. Beloit employs five (5) full-time code
inspectors, plus two (2) inspectors that are shared with the Fire Department and the
Housing Authority.
The inspector that is shared with the Fire Department is responsible for inspecting rental
properties with three (3) or more dwelling units. These are considered commercial
properties and a fire inspection must be completed in the common areas annually. At
the time of the fire inspection, the inspector also completes an interior inspection of the
dwelling units as part of their rental inspection program. There are approximately 2,400
rental units in this category.
The inspector that is shared with the Housing Authority completes interior inspections of
units with tenants receiving rental assistance (approximately 550 units). The remainder
of the interior inspections (2,770 units) are completed by the five (5) code inspectors.
Beloit charges an annual rental permit fee of $25 per dwelling unit. With approximately
5,700 rental dwelling units in the City of Beloit, this fee generates annual revenue of
approximately $142,500.
Current Enforcement Process
Enforcement of housing and nuisance codes in Janesville is primarily by complaint.
After a complaint is received a Property Maintenance Specialist conducts an inspection
to determine if a violation exists. If there is a violation they attempt to make verbal
contact with the property owner. If they are unsuccessful in making verbal contact or
obtaining compliance, then either a 14-day or 30-day Order to Correct is mailed. Most
of the time the formal enforcement process ends at this step. A time extension may be
given if the property owner is making a good faith effort to comply.
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In rare situations compliance is not obtained and a Director’s Warning is sent which
gives an additional seven (7) days for compliance. Time extensions are sometimes
given at this stage in order to achieve voluntary compliance. The final step in the
enforcement process is the issuance of a citation or a referral to the City Attorney’s
Office. This only occurs in rare cases where all efforts to achieve voluntary compliance
have been unsuccessful.
In 2006, 53% of the housing complaints and 62% of the nuisance complaints were
closed in 30-days or less. For this same period, 74% of the housing complaints and
84% of the nuisance complaints were resolved within 60 days or less. There are
isolated cases that take an extreme amount of time to resolve, but these are unusual.
Proactive enforcement of nuisance ordinances began in 2005 with a sweep of the
Historic Fourth Ward neighborhood by the Janesville Police Department. In 2006, the
Neighborhood Services Department began proactive enforcement of exterior code
violations with the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program “Target”
area. In that same year, the Neighborhood Services Department and the Janesville
Police Department participated in a cooperative enforcement effort in the Historic Fourth
Ward and Look West neighborhoods. These proactive efforts continued in 2007.
Assumptions
1. Current City staff are fully engaged and additional workload will require additional
staffing.
2. Levy limits will continue and thus additional expenditures will either require
service reductions elsewhere or corresponding revenues to offset expenses.
Alternatives
Staff has identified four (4) alternatives for the City Council to consider in determining
how best to address over concerns about property maintenance in Janesville. These
options are not mutually exclusive – that is, any, all, or none of these options could be
implemented.
1. Enhance Current Ordinances - Staff has not undertaken a comprehensive review
of the housing and nuisance ordinances, but below are some ideas taken from
experience and the survey of comparable communities:
a) Nuisance Abatement – The authority to enter upon private property and
remediate exterior nuisance violations is referred to as “nuisance abatement”.
Our current Ordinance seems to permit this, but after reviewing the language
the City Attorney is not comfortable that it allows nuisance abatement.
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Pros Cons
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May reduce time for May be perceived as City
compliance since if property being “heavy-handed”.
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owner does not comply City
City may incur costs to
will remediate nuisance.
remediate nuisances that we
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Only penalizes those who do
are unable to recover.
not comply with orders in a
timely manner.
b) Re-inspection Fee – The City of Janesville currently charges a re-inspection
fee for building inspections when an inspection is requested and the work is
not ready for inspection, or when all the previously identified deficiencies have
not been corrected. A re-inspection fee could be charged for housing and/or
nuisance inspections when the work is not completed within the prescribed
timeframe. For example, if we give a 14-day order on trash and debris and
the violation is not corrected when we re-inspect, then we would assess a re-
inspection fee. The re-inspection fee could be assessed each and every time
we re-inspect and the property is not in compliance with our Order.
Pros Cons
??
May increase incentive for Could be challenged if fee
compliance in a timely exceeded our costs of
manner. enforcement.
??
Additional revenue to offset May penalize property owners
the costs associated with for the action, or inaction, of
enforcement. their tenants.
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Only penalizes those who do
not comply with orders in a
timely manner.
c) Reduce Timeframes for Compliance – The timeframes for compliance
previously described could be shortened. For example, the compliance
period for junk cars and trash and debris could be reduced from 14-days to 7-
days. Housing violations could be reduced from 30-days to 14-days.
Pros Cons
??
May decrease the amount of Timeframes need to be
time for compliance. realistic or may be perceived
as unreasonable.
d) Chronic Nuisance Premises Ordinance – The City of Janesville has a
Ordinance which regulates “Chronic Nuisance Properties”. This Ordinance
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contains a listing of acts that are considered “Nuisance Activities” and would
subject the property owner to the remedies including:
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A meeting with the Chief of Police and the preparation of an abatement
plan.
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The assessment of costs for additional City responses and
enforcement against the property.
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Fines of $100 to $1,000 for the first offense.
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Fines of $200 to $5,000 for subsequent offenses.
At the present time the acts that are considered “Nuisance Activities” do not
include violations of the housing or nuisance codes of the City of Janesville.
Pros Cons
??
Requires a meeting and Additional staff time to monitor
abatement plan for problem enforcement actions, notify
properties and provides property owners, and meet
significant sanctions for with them.
failures to comply.
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May force property owners to
proactively maintain their
properties to avoid the
meeting and abatement plan.
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Only penalizes the problem
property owners.
2. Licensing or Registration of Rental Property - The licensing or registration of
rental property is often discussed synonymously with systematic interior
inspection of rental properties. For this report they are being presented as
distinct alternatives because they accomplish different purposes.
The registration or licensing of rental property usually requires that the owner of
the property provide certain information to the municipality including, but not
limited to:
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The address of the rental property.
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The name, address, and telephone number of the owner of the property.
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The name, address and telephone number of a local agent, if the property
owner does live within a defined area of the city (in Beloit the agent or
property owner must live within the postal zip code for Beloit; in La Crosse
the owner or agent must live within 25 miles of the city limits).
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Some jurisdictions also require the property owner to provide and maintain
with the city a current listing of tenants, including telephone numbers.
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The primary advantage of a rental property registration program is to reduce the
amount of time it takes to identify and send notices to the owner or responsible
agent for a rental property. In about 10% of the cases staff has difficulty notifying
the property owner. Approximately 8.4% of the rental properties in Janesville are
owned by out of state residents, and 21.9% of the owners do not reside in the
City of Janesville. Requiring the registration of rental property and requiring a
local agent for property owners who do not live in Janesville would decrease the
time for staff to serve orders on the property owner and thus speed up the
compliance process.
There are approximately 3,750 rental properties in Janesville. Licensing or
registering rental property owners would require additional staff to maintain the
database of owners and process the annual registrations. It is estimated this
would require an additional 1.0 FTE Customer Service Representative ($48,200)
and other costs ($2,500) for a total cost of $50,700. To recover these costs a
registration or licensing fee of $15.00 per parcel would be necessary.
Pros Cons
??
May reduce compliance times May be perceived as penalizing
through quicker notification of the many for the actions of a
responsible party. few.
??
May reduce staff time and Increase in staff time and costs
costs for processing each to process registrations and
complaint. maintain database.
3. Exterior Property Inspections (non-complaint) - The most obvious and visible
signs of decay in a neighborhood are the exterior nuisance violations. Things
such as trash, junk cars, dilapidated buildings, etc. give an indication that the
occupants or owners of that property do not care. This can be contagious.
Keeping your property in a deteriorated state them becomes the norm in that
neighborhood and it can become very difficult to reverse the trend.
The current program of targeted non-complaint exterior inspections could be
enhanced in two (2) ways. First, rather than being targeted, exterior inspections
could be conducted once per year citywide. This would require the addition of 2
FTE Property Maintenance Specialist. A second alternative would be to increase
the frequency of the targeted inspections to twice per year. This would require
the addition of .5 FTE Property Maintenance Specialist.
The following table summarizes the estimated costs for these two (2) programs:
Staff Vehicles Other Total
City-wide Ext. Inspect. $ 116,000 $ 8,000 $ 3,000 $ 127,000
Targeted Inspect. 2X/Yr. 29,000 0 500 29,500
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Pros Cons
??
Addresses most obvious Requires additional staffing and
signs of neighborhood decay. associated costs.
4. Interior Property Inspections – Interior property inspections go beyond the
exterior signs of neighborhood decay and attempt to improve or maintain the
quality of the rental housing stock. Staff estimates that Janesville has
approximately 9,900 rental units. Such a program is significantly more time
consuming than our current complaint-based program.
The two (2) peer cities that require interior inspections of rental properties (Beloit
and La Crosse) do so with different frequencies. Beloit requires an interior
inspection every three (3) years, whereas La Crosse is once every five (5) years.
In order to provide interior inspection of all rental properties once every five (5)
years, an additional 2 FTE’s Property Maintenance Specialist would be required.
If the inspection frequency was increased to once every three (3) years, 3.5
FTE’s Property Maintenance Specialist would need to be added. The following
table summarizes the estimated costs of each schedule:
Staff Vehicles Other Total
Interior once/5 years $ 116,000 $ 8,000 $ 3,000 $ 127,000
Interior once/3 years 203,000 8,000 4,000 $ 215,000
If a rental permit fee were established to cover the costs of these inspections
programs, that fee would need to be approximately $15.00/rental unit for
inspections once every five (5) years, and $25.00/rental unit for inspections once
every three (3) years.
Pros Cons
??
Improve the quality of the May be viewed as punishing all
rental housing stock. property owners for the acts of a
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few.
Insure that, on a periodic
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basis, all rental dwelling units Would require significant
meet the minimum property additional costs for staffing.
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maintenance code.
May cause some rental property
owners to discontinue investment
in Janesville.
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May increase rents.
A less expensive alternative would be to complete interior inspections of rental
properties on change of ownership. Staff estimates that 315 rental properties
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change ownership, or ownership is transferred from one entity to another
annually. This would be less burdensome on staff resources, and would, over
time, allow our inspectors into most rental properties for an interior inspection.
This would require the addition of .5 FTE Property Maintenance Specialist at an
annual cost of $29,000.
Pros Cons
??
Allows for interior inspections May take a very long time to get
of rental properties over time. into all rental properties, if ever.
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Less burdensome of staff
resources and property
owners.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Many options exist to enhance the level of code enforcement in the City of Janesville
ranging from amendments to our existing ordinance to interior inspection of rental
properties on a periodic basis. Costs for each of these various options range from
nothing to $215,000 annually.
Staff believes the current complaint-based system of enforcement with targeted exterior
inspections works well. However, additional tools would be beneficial in reducing the
amount of time it takes to resolve to complaints and address repeat offenders. Staff
recommends the following alternatives be implemented:
1. Enhance Current Ordinances
a. Nuisance Abatement
b. Re-inspection Fee
c. Chronic Nuisance Premises Ordinance – apply to housing and nuisance
violations.
2. Licensing or Registration of Rental Property – including the appointment of a
local agent.
With these changes the amount of time it takes to make contact with property owners
will be reduced and staff will have the ability to abate exterior nuisances. These
changes will decrease the amount of time it takes to resolve complaints. Including
housing and nuisance violations in the list of offenses in the Chronic Nuisance Premises
ordinance will give staff an additional tool in dealing with repeat offenders. Staff
believes these changes represent a cost-effective approach to improving code
enforcement in the City of Janesville.
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