10/05/2004 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 10/5/2004 passed in the early 1990's to expand the real property maintenance program to residential properties. The current procedure that's in place is a complaint, followed by a personal introduction to the subject who is being potentially violated to seek aresolution-that is, they usually try to get a voluntary date of compliance usually within one week. After that, there is a written notice if non-compliance after one week. There will then be a re- inspection. If after the re-inspection the matter is not resolved, it is sent to the Law Dept. for further legal action. After it goes to the Law Dept., a letter is sent and at that point, if they don't comply within a period of 10 days, a matter will be commenced in the Rocky River Municipal Court to seek enforcement and prosecution of the person who has violated the property maintenance code. Our property maintenance inspector Mr. Schneider stated the procedure is currently reactive in nature. That is, we respond to complaints. There is no current patrolling of the city for problems which occurs in other communities. Mr. Schneider indicated that the rate of work he currently is doing which includes backlogs and getting through current inspections, does not allow much in the way of proactive policing of the city for problems in property maintenance. Mr. Conway commented that Mr. Schneider is currently one of the earliest in and one of the last people out each day. He noted that he is a North Olmsted resident who takes his job extremely seriously. Nobody in the room was questioning the job of Mr. Schneider. Since being brought on board, he has made a difference and his heart is in this job fully. Mr. Schneider commented that it was more than afull-time job. He currently has 60 active cases although he is to be technically apart-time property maintenance enforcer. He also stated it is a very paper-intensive position. He does some of the paperwork on his own, and he does get some assistance from the secretary in the Building Dept. Mr. Conway remarked that he believed the city needed afull-time property maintenance inspector in order to keep up with just the reactive component of our code, responding to complaints. He indicated that, if the City Council or the administration was inclined to be more proactive, that is to go out looking for violations instead of just simply investigating complaints, it's just simply going to have to take more manpower. Mr. Schneider did comment that he believes the code is vague to some extent. That complaint has been heard before. One member of Council pointed out that there wasn't any vagueness when somebody else was enforcing it, and we hadn't heard about it up until now. The committee felt the current pending Ordinance 2004-80 may be of some assistance to clarify some of that vagueness so that the code maybe more easily enforced. Mr. Dubelko remarked that the Law Dept. in 2004 had eight actions in the Rocky River Municipal Court concerning property maintenance. Five of those actions were convictions, two were pending and one was dismissed. When the letter is first sent out prior to actually commencing prosecution, a demand letter is sent. Seventeen demand letters for compliance were issued in July and August alone. Resident Jim Kennedy, who happens to be in charge of the division of property maintenance in Fairview Park, noted that the lack of manpower and the reactive nature of our system was a problem. He felt that it was diminishing the attractiveness of the City of North Olmsted because we are not keeping up on people who fail to maintain their properties. He noted that recent statistics compiled by our Planning Director reflect a downward trend in housing valuation, downward trend in condition and rate of appreciation and that concerned him. He compared those statistics to surrounding communities, which was included in Ms. '~' Wenger's compilation. He believes property maintenance, or the lack thereof, is playing ~,::. 11 ~,.4n~~,~, ~._. .. „~ ... ~,