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HomeMy WebLinkAboutItem 01 Nuisance Code Enforcement in the Urban Transition Area AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY Meeting Date: 3/17/2014 Meeting Type: Work Session Staff Contact/Dept.: Greg Mott, DPW Staff Phone No: 726-3774 Estimated Time: 30 minutes S P R I N G F I E L D C I T Y C O U N C I L Council Goals: Provide Financially Responsible and Innovative Government Services ITEM TITLE: NUISANCE CODE ENFORCEMENT IN THE URBAN TRANSITION AREA ACTION REQUESTED: Staff requests Council direction on whether or not to evaluate the steps, costs and consequences of establishing the City of Springfield and the Springfield Municipal Code as the jurisdictional authority for nuisance code enforcement in the Urban Transition Area (UTA). The Lane Code and Lane County government currently have sole jurisdiction on this matter. ISSUE STATEMENT: Should staff investigate the various possible outcomes and consequences of transferring nuisance code enforcement authority in the UTA from the Lane Code and Lane County government to the City of Springfield and Springfield Municipal Code? ATTACHMENTS: 1: Council Briefing Memorandum DISCUSSION/ FINANCIAL IMPACT: The topic of effective code enforcement in the UTA has been the subject of several previous Council discussions primarily because the Springfield Municipal Court, and by extension the effective implementation of Springfield’s codes, has no jurisdiction outside the city limits. This condition has persisted ever since the County transferred UTA planning and building authority to the City in 1987. All of the City’s efforts to date to enforce land use and building codes in the UTA have relied upon cooperative compliance or in extreme circumstances, an appearance at Circuit Court. The City recently tried to assist a property owner in Glenwood with nuisance type violations but without success because 1. The County’s code did not address these activities; 2. The City’s Municipal Code, which does address these activities, is not in effect in the UTA; and 3. The mechanism to enforce the Code, the Municipal Court, has no jurisdiction outside the city limits. The probability that such circumstances would continue to be “un-fixable” prompted staff to bring this matter to the City Council for discussion and direction. The attached Council Briefing Memorandum includes some history on jurisdiction in the UTA, a brief description of the status of program enforcement in the UTA, and identifies several possible solutions to achieve a change in the status of enforcement in the UTA. M E M O R A N D U M City of Springfield Date: 3/17/2014 To: Gino Grimaldi COUNCIL BRIEFING MEMORANDUM From: Len Goodwin, Development and Public Works Director Greg Mott, Current Development Manager Subject: NUISANCE CODE ENFORCEMENT IN THE URBAN TRANSITION AREA ISSUE: Staff requests Council direction on whether or not to evaluate the steps, costs and consequences of establishing the City of Springfield and the Springfield Municipal Code as the jurisdictional authority for nuisance code enforcement in the Urban Transition Area (UTA). The Lane Code and Lane County government currently have sole jurisdiction on this matter. COUNCIL GOALS/ MANDATE: Provide Financially Responsible and Innovative Government Services BACKGROUND: The City of Springfield has been responsible for administration of all planning and building programs in the UTA since November, 1987, when the City and Lane County entered into an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) transferring enforcement of jointly adopted comprehensive plans, zoning regulations, and building codes to the City of Springfield. The effect of this transfer is that all development requests and all required building plans, permits, and inspections are submitted to the City of Springfield for processing and approval/denial. The provision of these services in the UTA has been just as successful as the service delivery provided within the city limits with one noticeable exception: the City cannot enforce compliance with these standards and regulations through the municipal court as that jurisdiction does not extend beyond the city limits. The City can pursue enforcement through circuit court, and in several instances, has been successful using that court’s jurisdiction. However, in most cases property owners have cooperated with the City’s requests for compliance therefore the absence of a local enforcement process in the UTA, though an obvious missing piece of our jurisdictional responsibility has not arisen as a priority. The program that has never been transferred from the County to the City in the UTA is nuisance code enforcement. There are several reasons this hasn’t occurred, but the primary stumbling block is the inability to apply Municipal Code provisions (and their enforcement) to land outside the city limits. The City Attorney’s Office has undertaken some research on the subject in the past, but owing to the presence of Lane County’s nuisance enforcement program and an extremely busy work load for nuisance enforcement inside the city, the subject of transferring this program has not been included in any previous departmental work program. However, a recent involvement of City staff attempting to assist a resident in the UTA with several nuisance issues [not addressed by Lane Code] has at least temporarily elevated this matter, particularly as it relates to the limited scope of items identified in the Lane Code as nuisances, and the lack of City jurisdiction or City enforcement authority. This situation can be addressed through the following actions: 1. Ask the County to adopt into Lane Code the same nuisances identified in the City’s Municipal Code and thereby expand the County’s enforcement program to bring it on par with the City; 2. Ask the County to adopt the Attachment 1, Page 1 of 2 3/11/2014 Page 2 City’s nuisance ordinance into Lane Code but then transfer enforcement jurisdiction to the City; this would include transferring the administrative civil penalties procedure the County uses to levy fines, withhold other required permits, enter property to abate, and to attach liens; 3. Annex the UTA and thereby bring all of this land into the City’s jurisdiction without any participation from Lane County. The merits, costs, or the probability of success for these options have not been analyzed to the degree necessary to provide the Council with realistic options to consider hence the request for Council direction on this issue as that question is posed in the Issue section of this memorandum and companion AIS. Very much related to this question of expanded jurisdiction within the UTA is the circumstance of ineffectual enforcement of existing City programs identified in the earlier in this Background discussion. For the Council’s information, in addition to planning and building, the City’s jurisdictional responsibility in the UTA includes other major programs, none of which include an enforcement mechanism. These programs include hazardous materials regulation and Fire Code enforcement, and Stormwater Illicit discharges. Even if the Council does not choose to investigate a change to nuisance code enforcement in the UTA it may be of interest to evaluate adapting the County’s administrative civil penalty process for application to all of the City’s UTA program responsibilities. RECOMMENDED ACTION Option 1: Maintain status quo; take no further action. Option 2: Prepare an action plan to implement nuisance code enforcement in the UTA. This should include cost estimates, draft IGA language, public information strategy, enforcement and appeals process. Attachment 1, Page 2 of 2