Agenda - Council - 06/26/2007 - Laserfiche WebLink

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CASE # 15 CONSIDER ORDINANCE TO ESTABLISH AN ABATEMENT PROGRAM FOR CODE ENFORCEMENT PURPOSES; CASE OF CITY OF RAMSEY By: Sylvia Frolik, Asst. Community Development Director Background: The current City Code enforcement program is complaint based. When City Staff receives a complaint, an inspection of the property is made to verify that a violation of City Code exists. If a violation exists, City Staff notifies the property owner of the violation and requests correction of the violation within 30 days. A follow up inspection is performed at the end of the 30 day period. If the violation has not been corrected, a second letter is sent to the property owner granting 7 additional days to correct the violation and also noting that if it is not corrected, the matter will be turned over to the City Attorney's office for prosecution. The legal procedure for resolving city code violations can be a very long and drawn out process. Because of their nature, these types of cases are very low priority in the court system. Often times the courts will continue the case to allow the defendant more time to correct the violation. It's not unusual for the penalty to consist of a fine with no order to correct violation. In these cases, City Staff must start the process all over again to try and achieve compliance. Over the past 6 months, City Council and City Staff have been exploring procedures that would make our code enforcement efforts more efficient and effective. One of the options is implementing an administrative hearing process to resolve code violations issues more expeditiously than the criminal justice system. Another option is to implement a City- initiated abatement program. At the May 1, 2007 City Council Work Session, Staff was given direction to draft an abatement ordinance for Council consideration that included an administrative hearing process. Observations: The enclosed draft of an abatement ordinance was modeled after the Coon Rapids ordinance. The City of Coon Rapids has utilized the abatement and administrative hearing process for more than 20 years and it has been a successful program for their community. Coon Rapids' ordinance applies to commercial and industrial parcels, as well as residential parcels. The abatement program gives the City authority to correct the violation if the property owner does not do so within a 21 day time frame. The City would then bill the property owner for the costs incurred to correct the violation. Failure on the part of the property owner to reimburse the City for costs incurred in correcting the violation will result in those costs being certified to the property taxes for that parcel. —325—