The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink About5/14/2008 - STAFF REPORTS - 1.B. D"ID H. READY CITY MANAGER MEMORANDUM DATE: MARCH 1 1 , 21306 TO: MAYOR AND COUNCII-MEMBERS SUBJECT! MARCH 1 9'H AGENDA I am offering the following items for your consideration to be discussed under Item. SS-2 of the March 19`h Study Session: 1) Increase budget for clean-up abatements—currently $40,000 - $30,000 allocated to Purchase Order for outside contractor(Sem J). Owner of record billed to recoup costs or property is liened. 2) Revise Vacant Building Ordinance to require lenders to register properties with the City upon any foreclosure, etc. 3) Vacant Property Ordinance -Adopt a fee resolution as provided for in the Ordinance, establishing a fee to be paid by owners for monitoring of vacant properties. 4) Revise Vacant Building Ordinance to provide a requirement for the maintenance of trees on vacant properties. 5) Add"illegal dumping"to Administrative Citation Ordinance and establish a minimum S500 citation. 6) Establish"tan" as the color for fencing for all construction/demolition sites. 7) Create a permit for all temporary fencing, with permit to be approved by the Planning Director or Chief Building Official. ds-/i�ZooB 8) In addition to setting Ore amount of the fee for monitoring, require an enforcement response fee for each time a city inspector is required to visit or inspect a vacant building site. (Tlus would be similar in concept to the City's false alarm regulations) 9) The current Vacant Building Ordinance provides for a fine of $1,000 for the first violation and for each subsequent calendar month the building remains vacant in violation of the code. In lieu of this flat fine approach, a penalty of$1,000 could be imposed for the first violation as currently provided; however, the penalty could be increased to up to $5,000 for every 30 days for every subsequent violation. 10) Require the posting of a notice in a conspicuous place on the fxont of the building stating the name, address, and phone number of the owner of the vacant building property. Attached for the Council's reference is an article from the Press Enterprise dated March 12, 2006, the date following the Council's action approving the City's current Vacant Building Ordinance (PSMC Chapter 8.80). This article does a good,job of describing the ordinance and its genesis. Desert I P$.com I Southern California News I News for Inland Southern California Page 1 of 2 i Deseft, Palm Springs approves vacant-building ordinance CODE: Owners who fail to maintain unoccupied properties face fines of up to $1,000 a month. 12:03 AM PST on Sunday, March 12, 2006 By DAVID HERMANN / The Press-Enterprise PALM SPRINGS-Tired of buildings that are languishing empty and unkempt, Palm Springs has approved a new vacant-building ordinance that targets landlords who do not maintain their property. Under the ordinance, buildings that are vacant for longer than 90 days must be maintained as If they were occupied and meet all city codes or owners must have an active building permit and be able to demonstrate that work Is being done. Violators face fines of up to$1,000 a month. Councilman Steve Pougnet Bald the ordinance is necessary because a single run-down vacant building can lead to blight throughout a neighborhood. "It's a get-tough policy," he said,adding that the ordinance will discourage long-term vacancies In downtown commercial buildings stimulating economic development. On a recent weekday, Pougnet walked around Indian Manor, a long-vacant hotel on North Indian Canyon Drive that is an example of the type of property that he said would be targeted under the ordinance. Renovations on the property, which borders the city's high-priced Movie Colony neighborhood, started about two years ago. But Pougnet said little progress has been made. "Ts this contributing to blight?Clearly it is," he said, pointing over a sagging chain-link fence toward a broken window above planters choked with weeds and trash. Pougnet sounded the call for a tax on landlords of vacant buildings last summer in the midst of what some were calling a crisis in the oty's downtown. Businesses, including some longtime merchants, were leaving town creating patches of darkened storefronts along Palm Canyon Drive. A vacancy tax appealed to some including Pougnet as a tool to ensure that vacant storefronts did not remain empty. But Pougnet and other vacancy- tax proponents abandoned the idea after learning that no other California cities had such a tax. Instead, Palm Springs looked to Long Beach and Its vacant-building- monitoring ordinance for help. "It provided inspiration. We didn't adopt theirs wholesale,"said City Attorney Douglas Holland. hftn•//Ixnrnnrne Xr—___ r Deseli. I PL.com I Southern California News I Ncws for Inland Soulheni California Page 2 of 2 Under the new Palm Springs ordinance, building owners must ensure that landscaping is maintained, keep paint and other exterior finishes in good - •e• ••mr shape, promptly remove trash and graffiti and prevent criminal activity, -r.Y�r,.,,,�, f.�rp including laltering, on their property, The ordinance, adopted by the City Council earlier this month, will be enforced by city code-enforcement officers with oversight by building officials. It goes into effect March 31, Holland said. Steve Lyle, who owns downtown buildings and oversees many more as a j ;M property manager for other owners, said he doubts the new ordinance will have much impact. In the past, a proactive city code-enforcement department ensured that + empty buildings remained in good shape, he said. But the city's code- enforcement department today is understaffed and only responds to complaints instead of actively going out and monitoring buildings and ` "-- neighborhoods, he said. Until that changes, Lyle said he thinks the problem of vacant blighted buildings will persist, especially since it Is the city's code-enforcement department that will enforce the ordinance. , Pougnet said the Palm Springs code-enforcement department has not been adequately staffed recently. But he added that the City Council is committed to making code enforcement a top priority in Palm Springs. The city is in the process of bringing in a new head of code enforcement who,with council support,will have an opportunity to turn things around, he said. •�i " Don Duckworth oversees Palm Springs'code-enforcement division as the city's director of budding and safety He said the first thing the city will do is generate a list of vacant buildings that are potentially subject to the ordinance since as of now, nobody knows how many vacant buildings there are, Duckworth said code-enforcement officers will then use the list to monitor the buildings and ensure their compliance. Tom Slater, head of Long Beach's code-enforcement division,said his r city's version of the ordinance has been around for more than a decade, _ but was never put into practice- "When that ordinance was adopted we were in a cycle of really down Rodrigo Pena/The Press-Enterprise times, the economy was down, people were upside down on their Indian Manor is a vacant hotel on North Indian Canyon mortgages and we had a mass exodus of people leaving their buildings," pnve in Palm Springs, he said. Slater said the ordinance was passed by the City Council without any examination of what the Costs would be to enforce It. once it was passed, the city did not have the money to put it into effect, he said- Then the economy tools an Upturn and the issue of vacant buildings went away, Slater said. Slater said he is curious to see haw the ordinance will work in Palm Springs. "If bad times do come back, it will be good to have the ordinance right there," he said. hfh -//