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Home My WebLink About3/12/2008 - STAFF REPORTS - SS.2. F DAVID H. READY, CITY MANAGER MEMORANDUM DATE: MARCH 1 1 , 2008 To: MAYOR AND COUNCILMEMBERS SUBJECT: MARCH q VIM AGENDA I am offe ' g the following items for your consideration to be discussed under Item SS.2 of the March Study Session: 1'v 1) Increase budget for clean-up abatements—currently $40,000 - $30,000 allocated to Purchase Order for outside contractor (Sem 1). 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, a3/ia f�aoS 8) In addition to setting the 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. (This would be similar in concept to the City's false alann 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 front 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. Descil I PE,com � Southern California Nees I News for Inland SOnIIICIII California Pa.ae 1 of 2 l eel L 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 ernpty and unkempt, Palm Springs has approved a new vacant-budding 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 said the ordinance is necessary because a single run-down vacant building can lead to blight throughout a neighborhood. "It's a get-Lough 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. "Is 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 city'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- moniloring ordinance for help. "It provided inspiration. We didn't adapt theirs wholesale," said City Attorney Douglas Holland, htfn•//lowly nc f n/gnno Desert I PL.com I Southern California News I News for Inland Southern Cahfol-nia Pale 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 - shape, promptly remove trash and graffiti and prevent criminal activity, ~'`^fin including loltering, on their property The ordinance, adopted by the City Council earlier this month, will be enforced by city code-enforcement officers with oversight by budding f , officials It goes into effect March 31, Holland said `�"• i „"�'? Steve Lyle, who owns downtown buildings and ovcrscos many more as a _ �I,• �' 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 .I buildings will perslst, especially since it is the city's code-enforcement department that will enforce the ordinance. [ g i Pougnet said the Palm Springs code-enforcement department has not been adequately staffed recently. But he added that the City Council isf . . committed to making code enforcement a top priority in Palm Springs. Z. The city is in the process of bringing in a new head of code enforcement rlh `. ?}: r I who, with council support, will have an opportunity to turn things around, { he said. , y`f r•; Dan Duckworth oversees Palm Springs' code-enforcement division as the - city's director of building and safety. - r He said the first thing the city will do is generate a list of vacant buildings d 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 city's version of the ordinance has been around for more than a decade, but was never put into practice. "When that ordlnance was adopted we were in a cycle of really down Rodrigo Pena/The Press-Enterprise times,the economy was dawn, 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," Drlve 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 d into effect, he said. Then the economy took an upturn and the issue of vacant buildings went away, Slater said Slater said he is curious to see how the ordinance will work in Palm Springs. "If bad times do come back, it wlll be good to have the ordinance right there," he said. h++..•//,,.,,,,,..,o ...,,,.,/1....�1«...,.,.�/Ao�o..+/..a..,-: /nII AT—, i .. 1 n A.,.,. f1') IQ—A-, h+—1 znn/l)nnQ