Agenda - Council - 01/24/2017 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

General Government `optional appendix' to the State Building Code to allow cities to utilize appropriate parts of those guidelines in their communities. Metro Cities also supports adopting the international energy conservation code to the state building code without amendments. Metro Cities does not support legislative solutions that fail to recognize the interrelationships among builders, state building codes and cities. Metro Cities supports efforts to increase awareness of the potential impacts and benefits of requiring sprinklers in new homes and townhouses and supports discussion and the dissemination of information around these impacts via the code adoption process through the Department of Labor and Industry. 2-G Administrative Fines Traditional methods of citation, enforcement and prosecution have met with increasing costs to local units of government. The use of administrative fines is a tool to moderate those costs. Metro Cities supports the administrative fine authority granted to allow cities to issue administrative fines for defined local traffic offenses and supports further modifications to enhance the workability of the authority. Metro Cities continues to support all cities' authority to use administrative fines for regulatory ordinances such as building codes,zoning codes, health codes, and public safety and nuisance ordinances. Metro Cities supports the use of city administrative fines, at a minimum, for regulatory matters that are not duplicative of misdemeanor or higher level state traffic and criminal offenses. Metro Cities also endorses a fair hearing process before a disinterested third party. 2-H Residential Programs Sufficient funding and oversight is needed to ensure that residents living in residential programs have appropriate care and supervision and that neighborhoods are not disproportionately impacted by high concentrations of residential programs. Historically, federal and state laws have discouraged the concentration of residential group homes so as not to promote areas that reinforce institutional quality settings. Under current law, operators of certain residential programs are not required to notify cities when they intend to purchase single-family housing for this purpose. Cities do not have the authority to regulate the locations of residential programs. Cities have reasonable concerns about high concentrations of these facilities in residential neighborhoods, and additional traffic and service deliveries surrounding these facilities when they are grouped closely together. Municipalities recognize and support the services residential programs provide. However, cities also have an interest in preserving balance between residential programs and other uses in residential neighborhoods. Providers applying to operate residential programs should be required to notify the city when applying for licensure so as to be informed of local ordinance requirements as a 2017 Legislative Policies 13