Staff
The city’s Public Safety Committee last week began considering a proposal to implement a “livability” ordinance.
Looking to an ordinance adopted last year by the Corvallis City Council, Councilor Jeff Goodwin proposed developing an ordinance like it.
City Attorney Robert Snyder told the committee at a Feb. 23 meeting that he would cross-reference and compare existing city codes to the Corvallis ordinance. Committee members are Dave Trask, Greg Mahler and Bruce Hobbs.
The Corvallis ordinance includes regulations about numerous public nuisances already prohibited by Sweet Home’s ordinances.
It also sets regulations for the interior of rentals and owner-occupied homes, prohibiting conditions that lead to mold and harbor vermin as well as conditions for maintenance of windows, doors and other parts of residential structures.
The detailed 48-page ordinance also outlines the abatement process and procedures allowing city officials to inspect homes, on a complaint-driven basis and if the director responsible for enforcing the ordinance suspects a violation. With unwilling occupants, city officials may seek a warrant to inspect homes.
The ordinance describes its purpose as ensuring and protecting the public health, safety and welfare to prevent or reduce urban blight by establishing minimum property maintenance and livability standards for all premises.
Goodwin told the committee he has been concerned for a long time about the quality of rental homes in Sweet Home. As an attorney, he often deals with tenant-landlord issues, and he is concerned about the amount of rental homes with holes, leaks, mold and cockroach infestations.
“The stuff I see is, frankly, atrocious,” he said. “Addressing this is critical for our future. We need to not have people living in substandard housing.”
Trask noted that the Corvallis ordinance is extensive.
“I like a lot of it,” he said. “How we’re going to enforce it, that is a different story.”
Around town are many places that are awful, he said. “And you can see it from the road.”
Trask said the council needs to research this and do something with it.
Enforcement is always a key issue, said City Manager Craig Martin. “You’re going be regulating the interior of private residences. You’re going to need to access private premises to conduct inspections.”
He noted that the council recently had a discussion about blue tarps used on roofs during an ordinance update, and the council continued to allow the use of blue tarps. The Corvallis ordinance limits the use of blue tarps.
“Regulating exterior appearance is going to be where beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Martin said. He asked to what level the committee might want to take it, whether members are concerned with whether a property ugly because it is painted an unpopular color or windows are mismatched.
“It can get fairly intrusive and regulatory from some perspectives,” Martin said. “Just like our nuisance ordinance, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
“It is one way to improve the housing stock. Opponents will tell you it will drive up the cost of housing.”
He added that a program like this would put the city in the position of an adjudicator between tenants and landlords.
As a volunteer firefighter with the Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District, Trask said, he has been in a number of homes that the ordinance would address.
“We just had a call, you couldn’t basically stand to go in there,” Trask said. “It is just a terrible living environment.”
“Some of that is from the people that are there, not the landlord,” Snyder said.
Mahler, who is also a volunteer firefighter, added, “The landlord has provided these nice rentals, but the tenant has destroyed the interior.”
Trask said the Corvallis ordinance is detailed about roaches and rats.
“It addresses some of that, what their responsibilities are.”
Mahler said it’s worth exploring the proposal.
Hobbs told the committee that it’s a very small number of landlords responsible for the rentals “we think of.”
An ordinance like this has a cost, he said, “but what’s the return? Would it be better to put a better rehab loan program into play?”
The city has an estimated 3,869 housing units, Martin said. Some 2,146 are owner-occupied, and 1,373 are renter-occupied.
Trask said that 200 to 300 of them are the type of place he’s thinking of, something that would be addressed by an ordinance like this one.
City staff will continue research related to the ordinance proposal and return to the Public Safety Committee with further information at a later date.
Police Chief Jeff Lynn told the committee that the city needs to think about how it would enforce this ordinance.
It has the potential to eat up staff time, he said.
Goodwin suggested that code enforcement could become a full-time position. Currently, a department staffer works half time on code enforcement.
“I know there’s a cost,” he said. “Imagine a town where we didn’t have the problems.”