Code Enforcement
The Codes and Community Services Division is responsible for addressing the concerns and requirements in public health, safety and welfare as they relate to the use and maintenance of existing structures and premises by:
- Enforcement of the City's property maintenance codes for the purpose of maintaining and preserving existing structures in the community
- Coordinating city efforts to promote compliance with housing, vehicle, litter, overgrowth and nuisance ordinances
- Working to eliminate blight and nuisance conditions through public education, code enforcement and programs
Measures We're Tracking
- Count of Violations Found on Properties - This is a measure of the number of violations found on properties by Code Inspectors each Month.
- Count of Blight Related Citations - This measures the count of number of violations that must be cited to City Court each month.
- Owner Occupied vs Non-Owner Occupied Violations - This City reviews data on violations on owner occupied and non-owner occupied properties; since no official registry exists, a general proxy must be used by marking properties owner occupied when the parcel's address matches the property owner's address
- Count of Properties brought into Compliance - This cumulative fiscal year measures the number of properties brought into compliance that were notified of a code violation or cited to City Court. The target for the end of the fiscal year in June 2019 is 9,142 properties brought into compliance.
Code Violation Escalation
Code violations are initially found after being reported to Code Enforcement or proactively found in the field by inspectors. Once these violations are discovered and confirmed, the Code inspector sends a letter to the property owner instructing them they are out of compliance and corrective action must be taken. If the property is not brought into compliance within 10 days when the inspector re-inspects, the property owner is then cited to City Court. Once cited to court, the property owner still has time until their court date to bring their property into compliance.
Overall Violations
We track all overall violations within the City. Below is a map of code enforcement violations in the past 90 days, which can be changed to any date range by clicking the drop down. The most common type of violation is overgrowth, which is expected given we're in the warm months.
Code Enforcement Seasonality
The below chart clearly shows that litter and housing violations remain fairly constant through the year. Overgrowth violations have dramatic swings due to weather and climate conditions resulting in a significant workload increase for staff in the warmer months.
Owner vs Non-Owner Occupied
Below is basic data on Owner vs Non-Owner Occupied citations. Overall, Non-Owner Occupied units make up a majority of Code Violations. Though they make up a majority of the violations, there is no difference in the rate at which the violations are resolved before being cited to City Court. Both Owner Occupied and Non-Owner Occupied are cited to court at a similar rate of 20% of violations.