 Roll call Oh, man He's excused Berg here Bonet Serta Graff he's excused Manny Montemayor Perez Peterson Windflash, he's he's excused Segali Stefan Akron Vanderweal Longham in Warner Three five seven nine present Okay, I need someone to move to approve the minutes of July 6 2004 Motion made and seconded to approve the minutes of July 6th any additions or I think we have to have a lesson to have a quorum I think we need 11 for community the whole form not a hundred percent sure I'm like 95 percent or more We are we're a majority of those problems Yeah Mike checked with the attorney and he said nine is sufficient for here So our Okay, we had a motion to And a second to accept the minutes of July 6th. Now. Are there any additions or deletions? If not all in favor Contrary carried okay tonight's presentation is from the building inspection department and our presenter tonight will be Matt Livingston So if Matt would come up He has two other individuals he would like to introduce also then and then after the presentation if there's any questions you'd like to ask just Press your buttons and we'll we'll get through tonight. Thank you Thank you. First. I'd like to introduce our supervisor Pete Fullerton. He's got a couple things you'd like to address Thanks Matt First of all, thank you Common counsel for letting us be here tonight to talk about building inspection Where we are today and some of the problems that we're facing Unfortunately for a year and a half we were without a housing inspector and I guess tonight we'd like to introduce Dean Hessling Dean if you'd like to stand Dean has been with us since June. I believe 15th of this year He's got a lot of work ahead of him He's doing a great job and we're happy to have Dean on board He'll be handing out his cards later. So if anybody has any questions you can call Dean regarding housing issues I also like to thank Matt Matt Livingston probably a lot of you know him as the sealer waste of measures. He's also does Housing inspection does some part-time block rant inspections for us. He's the Resident expert in the building inspection department regarding computers It's kind of a do-it-all kind of guy and we'd like to thank Matt for the powerpoint presentation for tonight And I'd like to turn over to Matt and it's about a 20 25 minute presentation and after that We'll be happy to answer any questions. Thank you Matt Okay, we'll get started Dean's gonna be passing out some information that we're gonna get to as we go through the program here First of all a special thank you to Marie Ellis the City Assessor For providing us the information we needed statistically to do some of the charts we did here and Hopefully we'll learn something from that and also Henry Miller from the engineering department for putting together the Plots you see in front of you here He took some scribblings that we put on some paper and made it look presentable. So we thank him for that I'm building inspection was the historic designation of that department and it was basically an essence of the duties We had a plumber a heating inspector carpenter contractor and electrician and a secretary and that's basically what they did Today Personal wise it hasn't changed much We do have a plumbing inspector a clear water inspector a north side building inspector south side building inspector an Electrical inspector and then the housing inspector and weights and measures inspector came over from the city health department When we had the city health department and also a permit clerk The duties and responsibilities are no longer as indicated Personnel hasn't changed again, but the the duties and responsibilities have Each one of these people now does licensing appeals plan approval zoning enforcement the issue citations Enforced the pet fan she's ordinance and numerous other collateral duties Fortunately with cross training. They're able to back each other up What that allows us to do is? Provide a 47 and a half hour work week 730 a.m. To 5 p.m. Five days a week with no overtime and no outside contracts The housing inspector that we're going to talk about tonight is formerly of the health department and came over to Inspection when that was closed down and went to the county He was primarily responsible for neighborhood preservation and inspect rental housing today we did a little bit of research and You're welcome to look at these We've got several documents here. Just just a quick internet search We looked at Fountain, Colorado Broward, Florida Costa Mesa, California Lancaster, California and Granbury, Texas and all of these are advertising for code enforcement officers And if you read all these the opposition summaries, it's exactly what Dean's doing. It's exactly what we've been doing for years So remember that name code enforcement officer That code enforcement officer inspects all buildings and forces zoning ordinance Handles nuisance complaints abatement procedures abandoned vehicles animal complaints rooming houses issue citations and Dean is also master electrician Enable to back up the electrical inspector We'll take a look at what a nuisance complaint is the complaint origin Comes from you comes from the community could come from the police Some come anonymously we we just take them by phone by fax however you want to send them to us We go out and inspect we send orders Allow 24 hours to one week to comply Non-compliance goes to an abatement procedure with costs assessed to the owner and we'll touch more on that shortly This is a good example here of a complaint and some of the things we run into if you look right at the top here on the roof that's a deer carcass and We don't explain how things happen. We just we just go after them But this is an interesting scenario here because it covers the nuisance complaint with the deer carcass We have a zoning issue here with the boat being parked in the yard We have garbage down here Busted up furniture and also the condition of the garage. So it's rather interesting complaint when we go out and take a complaint It's not necessarily so black and white that it's that easy you have to apply several ordinances and that's that that is a complexity of that position This is a home. We've been to several times. We've picked up several times, but Continues to happen and obviously you can see why he needs to get taken care of I'm here. We're looking at Batteries We're looking at hazardous materials. We're picking up batteries tires furniture. We've picked up air conditioners refrigerators Here's a home Piles of debris self-explanatory even in the front of the house off to the right side of the image here There's more garbage. There's another pile there And it was also a huge pile behind the garage and this this person was warned several times to pick it up And we finally did it for him We're gonna touch on this too and we get to to our charge here on acceptance. What happened here was a family Left this this rental unit left everything they owned in the rental unit The next person comes in says hey, I like the place But I don't like the furniture so he throws it all out in the big pile out in the backyard and there it's sad Everybody was happy with it until we went and picked it up Banded vehicles it's getting we're seeing more and more of those This is an abandoned vehicle. It wasn't even registered to this house and the tenants there didn't even know who owned it You'll notice that the windows are busted out of it all the plastic lights glass everything's busted up in this car The result is it ends up full of garbage They just threw it out the door it lands in the car and there it sat this car went from here to the crusher As a commercial property They've got recyclables Cardboard black bags white bags Obviously, they need to get a dumpster or make other means for pickup, but we we pick this one up as well The abatement occurs that there's no compliance after we sent letters given a reasonable time to do it It involves the public works department They supply the garbage trucks in personnel The cost assessed to the owner they get charged for that garbage truck loader Dump truck pickup whatever we need to do those pickups the full cost of that They've got it broken down what it costs to operate those vehicles per hour all the personnel time Insurance everything gets assessed to that homeowner Recently I said in the past year and a half to two years you passed an ordinance that we asked for The cost of that pickup plus 50% And what that did it it added a penalty phase to that to that assessment Because some of the owners appreciated the service we provided and that's again absentee owners Called us up and thanked us you know for picking up their property because Otherwise they would have had to drive two hours to get here pick it up find a way to dispose of it And of course they couldn't use the drop-off site there from out of town So they'd have to pay to get rid of it. So it was just easier for them to have us do it. It was a nice service Here's an example Of a pickup. This is what we start with we always take before and after photos and reason There's several reasons to do that. It's just a document. What's there? Because anything that that is stolen or removed automatically triples in value This is the other part of the front of this garage notice the truck. This is after Again, we have a before picture And we'll take after We'll take a look at housing complaints now and I put on here complaint or survey typically Survey was done in neighborhoods. We take a one block or two block or four block area and survey all the houses We haven't done that Because of the things that Pete brought up not having a housing specter for so long We've gotten behind and now we've dealt solely with complaints and complaints has really taken over and pretty much dictates Where Dean goes Usually the exterior involves the condition of the building will set will go to inspect will send orders to two weeks to 30 Days to comply in housing because it usually involves painting or some type of construction may be a permit in some cases Extensions are available depending on the complexity and you know We're always cognizant of the finances of of who's doing it and you know our whole Goal is to is to gain compliance. We're not we're never out to find or anything in that order. We want compliance first This was just a garage. Obviously you can tell there's a hole in the rough the windows are busted out of it siding This garage was removed promptly by the owners Sometimes that's all it takes is just a little prompt, you know just to get things done I mean they when they they called about it immediately and said yeah, you're right. We're going to take care of it and they did This one is still there Obviously you can tell by the condition it probably should be raised. There's no repairing this one. It's gone beyond repair This is some graffiti On a home refused to remove it It doesn't make a difference whether to send them a letter or not because we don't have an ordinance We'll talk about that later as well this home here if you look at the Trim paint here all the eaves all the windows and then the siding of course has broken up and cracked off it Looks terrible. I wouldn't want that next door to me This was a complaint too. This was just a general complaint that you just need to check it out It wasn't a whole lot of information forthcoming just to check it out. Well, we did check it out This door here that doesn't belong here that belongs up here in the airing porch and incidentally there's no railing There's young children in this home as well now this here is a This is termite damage. These nails right here. We're holding this board The entire corner of this house started to collapse and you see the vinyl siding on it was going up in an angle termites of it would absolutely eat in the corner of this house Here was a home up on the north side that Roof members had rotted. This is actually the porch area of it and We worked with the homeowner for for a couple of years over a couple summers to get this done This house looks fantastic now. It's all been repainted Everything's been repaired masonry work on it's been repaired. It looks wonderful This house doesn't look wonderful and it still doesn't this on the south side We've had numerous problems run-ins with this owner, too And it takes a while to gain compliance Sometimes the the fines and enforcement actually take just doesn't get to them. So we're still working on this one This is a home the foundation is a Pretty much disassembled on it. It's falling down. It's standing on the columns there We'll see this one again the end result of what happened with this home This is a toilet leaking. It's leaking out into the basement The electrical box underneath it you can see is rusted up and you can imagine what type of problems that will That'll end up There was also raw sewage on the floor in the basement floor in this house with tenants young kids in it This home here This was this is a bathroom the calm the commode would usually be right here and This tile right here is what they're using to cover the the the pipe Something must have broke with the commode and they removed it here was the water supply to it took it out But they continued to use it This home has since been condemned. It is vacant and has remained so This is another apartment This was This was a mental commitment here. This individual had some problems But this is this is what he left behind the entire apartment was covered with this one to two foot deep of Books magazines food containers. You name it was in this place This is another one Engine parts all over the place this guy was working on transmissions and engines inside the apartment now It was cold outside and we'll show you some more pictures of this You can see the pistons on the bed a couple of engine components transmission This place was a mess oil all over the carpet and you know now the owner comes in and says just what am I? What am I gonna do about this? Again the windows are busted out guy just kept cranking the heat up Here's the plumbing held on by duct tape. Notice the bathroom window. It's missing Tape covering the windows This one was a Parking complaint. That's what it started out We got look got there looked at it and there's this makeshift building in the backyard and that is a cow This was sitting in the backyard. They were using it Hacking off pieces as they were ready to cook them and That's just some of the things we come across. Fortunately. This was in the winter. That was all frozen I'll take a look at the zoning ordinance the part that we enforce is Address of storage of vehicles and recreational equipment materials commercial vehicles inoperable vehicles and paving For instance here we have three bolts in a car in a yard We're not to say you can't do this. It just needs to be done properly proper setbacks for paving in that and or garage whatever they want to do there, but Those had those had to be removed and they were Here's another yard full No plates on the vehicle on the end here We consider that inoperable because state law provides it you have to have a registration in your vehicle to operate it And then notice the standing water and of course all the the lawn is gone from driving over it There is a garage Incidentally right here and they weren't using it Here's another vehicle Technically it is in the garage We don't know where the garage went so obviously the car had to go as well Here's a vehicle here the it's on it's on asphalt or concrete But the roof is crushed in all the windows are busted out of it And here was a complaint that vehicles in the yard. Well, there certainly is this vehicles in the yard But then we have other things notice the paint peeling off the building and the debris piled up junk and debris behind the behind the house Here's another yard full of vehicles This one here is becoming more and more apparent to us more and more complaints about commercial vehicles Families are using these vehicles to store meat and fresh vegetables in the vehicles They run an extension cord to the house through the trees on the city right away But they're parking these big commercial vehicles in residential neighborhoods and the ordinance for that is that Sight lines and the narrower streets in the residential neighborhoods aren't impeded by large commercial vehicles This street here is very narrow There's no one front of the house There are several of these we've answered numerous complaints with these commercial vehicles We'll touch on raze orders always a last resort When it the issue becomes public safety, it's we have to get them done Every time we've done raze orders It has improved the neighborhood and we know that because we receive phone calls after we've done it and thanking us for finally getting it down The cost again assess to the owner This was the house. We had talked about earlier with the foundation missing Because of numerous freezing thought cycles in the foundation And being supported on the columns. We noticed that the floor was starting to buckle up in the basement So we had to get this one down and this was the end result. This is the front of it This is the back of it during this Contractors do bid on on this work another example And another example all of these were taken down this year And then these properties are returned to just to a grass grass surface Now we'll take a look at our housing condition and we had given you some handouts there This is some of the data that we had got from the assessor's office homes built prior to 1900 2696 dwelling or homes built prior to 1900 1900 to 1919 1861 1920 to 1939 2731 and 1940 to 1949 one thousand twenty of them now This is going to start showing up on on the first chart to the color chart Homestyles of note you've got more on your chart than what we showed here But we wanted to show a comparison here the ranch style homes very popular home many of them consider a newer type home They're still building them today 4533 of those homes in the city the average age is 1968 and if you think about that number many of those homes now are in need of major maintenance roughs windows siding Old-style homes now. It's going to be your Victorians your big farm houses and at 4555 of them average age 1908 triplexes 62 of them average age 1893 and duplexes 1560 average age 1909 Cape Cod newer style of home 1460 those average age 1949 Now we're going to take a look at our chart here and how this starts out What we're trying to show here is all of them started over here And then if you picture this graph moving left to right as these houses got older This is what happens to them now ideally you'd want them all to stay in the blue, but they don't Would like them to stay in the green, but they don't the older the home gets of course maintenance problems become an issue Through some research we found what they called it the tipping point and this is an interesting book to read I got this from the Meade library The tipping point by Malcolm Gladwell and he explains what a tipping point is and What happens with these homes is they reach a certain point and something changes to make them fall below that line what we call the tipping point here and Whether it was a change of ownership or a change maybe a single-family home went to a duplex something made that home Fall into falling some problems, and we're going to explain how that happens as well But as you can see is the older homes get it's just a matter of age if they're not maintained this is what's going to happen and Dean's job of course is to keep all those homes above that tipping point Part of the problem again here hierarchy and effect owner occupied single-family homes least of our problems. Those are all owner occupied and Pride of ownership owner occupied duplex another good thing because that owner's there Manager on-site multi-families manager off-site multi-families little more problems if we have somebody there that that always helps us Absentee owner any home that has an absentee owner any dwelling unit with an absentee owner We got problems with and just Incidentally the absentee owners of duplexes. That's the one we had the most frequent problems with Now we'll take a look at acceptance here That chart and I have that in here as well. We'll show you that Acceptance comes partially from from the research. We've learned here demographic shifts is what causes this Declining property and acceptance by subsequent tenant and that's what we showed you with that pile of garbage in the yard There's no intervention. We haven't had the housing inspector Recovery is near impossible once we lose control of these homes It's very difficult to get them back and usually then they fall quickly into that that bottom line with the raise order What happens is we have a code compliant home or a nice apartment somebody rents it through normal wear and tear They bring it down to some cosmetic issues faucet drip not a big deal. Maybe a little paint here and there We'd normally don't see these homes yet because it's not it's not that big of a deal So then somebody comes in they move out of this normal wear and tear they want to move back into a nice apartment so The next person moves in and accepts that normal wear and tear home He's not too concerned about cosmetic issues or a faucet drip and he brings it down into the next box So there's more code windows. Maybe you broke a window now the screens are pushed out Broken railing kids are starting to tear it up animals are starting to tear it up and He says wait a minute. I don't like this. I want to move back up to a normal wear and tear home Next guy comes in and says hey, I don't mind I'll take that I'll take the cracked windows and screens missing because the ranch cheap He takes it and he brings it down to major violations now. There's railings missing We got windows missing graffiti storm doors broken doors off hinges plumbing problems electrical problems This thing is really starting to fall apart now. We hear about it because somebody's complained and said they don't like this in their neighborhood so This is when when the housing inspector gets involved and tries to bring this thing back up If we don't get this home under control now It's going to fall down into borderline habitability because the next person's going to come in and say hey, that's cheap rent I'll take it. I don't mind. I'll accept this home the way it is now We got entry doors missing and broken. They're heating the home with stove and kerosene heaters Pets devocating in the unit and we've seen this units and complete disarray new tenant every couple of months We call them professional tenants They know how to move in pay a couple hundred bucks and stay there because they know how long the eviction process is These are the ones who had the major problem with because there's such a turnover in them that we just don't catch up to them What happens there to follow the complaint versus prevention the complaint inspection when somebody calls us is always after the fact So the things that we just talked about have already happened The key to neighborhood preservation is again neighborhood surveys We need that inspector going out and surveying those neighborhoods preventing anything to happen prevention That's the whole key to to having these neighborhoods survive Numerous studies have been done and this is probably one of them the the most popular one March of 1982 in the Atlantic Monthly There was a article written called broken windows and it was about police and neighborhood survey or neighborhood safety and This thing was just was tore up by a lot of other media Several of them don't live with broken windows National League of Cities wrote divided we fall Greensboro housing coalition and they all mentioned this article This was done in California does broken windows law enforcement reduced serious crime The housing situation of low-income families in Milwaukee all of these studies have gone on to say The or deny what was said in that article But the one thing that does remain is that the neighborhood success or failures dependent on intervention by concerned entities the residents police and code enforcement And that's all of us code enforcement, but primarily it rests with the residents We have to get them on our side first and that's part of Dean's job as well Another book that I did get from the library here Fixing broken windows and this explains a lot of the things that they talked about originally and goes through the the procedures for taking care of some of those problems I'll just go through quick here some of the stuff that's in that book Where he says disorder demoralizes communities undermines commerce leads to the abandonment of public spaces and undermines public confidence and the ability of the government to solve problems What happens there is that people that can leave that neighborhood do and that's people moving to Outlying suburbs in that because they went out of there and they leave the people that are there to take care of this problem What happens when they vacate that property who moves in somebody that accepts it and says I don't mind So we've lost that neighborhood when they asked us to do this presentation they asked what we need and After conferring with with Pete and Paulette and our lead inspector Larry We'd we determined that the one thing that we do need is to bring our department in line with all the other departments in the Country practically and that was to change our to code enforcement officer Because this person is going to be writing citations and issuing orders to remove vehicles and whatnot and code enforcement officer Just sounds good when you put a code enforcement officer in somebody issuing a citation. We're going to get we're going to have a little more authority And particularly maintain that full-time code enforcement officer Having that housing inspector gone from November of 2002 to June of this year We really got behind. I think we totaled up was it 1200 inspections That I did in the time that he was gone in addition to trying to keep up with the other stuff So we need we can't let that happen again Additionally a fuller part-time nuisance complaint officer would be ideal Just to take care of the garbage complaints because the housing inspector is busy doing the critical neighborhood Preservation been nice to have someone just take care of the garbage a Municipal court that's in the works And we thank you for that that's going to work out well for us because we have citation authority We've always had it now. We're going to start using it An ordinance to abate graffiti. I think you have that one as well If you pass that one out, did you get the examples of that? That was just some that I pulled off from other cities other communities and It's actually just a matter of making the graffiti a nuisance Declaring it a nuisance and then we can go ahead and get rid of it on that house We looked at earlier that had the graffiti on there's nothing we can do about it Businesses normally take care of it themselves, but if we have someone that just refuses to do it it looks terrible and We need to be able to we need to have the authority to go on that property and abate that nuisance The next one has been talked about repeatedly Over the past several years and that was a replenishable contingency fund to expedite enforcement actions Anytime we have to do a raise order even on some of the small garages in that It takes us months sometimes years to get those done because of what we have to go through to make sure that we have All the documentation necessary then we have to get bids on it and Go to the court several times to get these things done if we were able to get them done sooner It would eventually come full circle and nobody would allow that to happen if we started taking garages down after a 30-day notice Or taking abandoned homes down that are in bad enough condition in 30 days It would it wouldn't continue to happen people would realize that we mean business and we're coming to get it unless they take care of it I'm a clarification of the abandoned vehicle ordinance Sergeant Tarkowski and myself have met with Chuck Adams on this ordinance What happens is the police department's ordinance is a little different from how we enforce it we enforce it to a zoning issue So what happens is the police come up and they tag a vehicle tell them to get it off the street Or does he put it? It puts it in his backyard So then we go in and we tell him to get out of his backyard and we're of course where does he put it back on the street? So we need need to clarify that how we're going to handle those abandoned vehicles and just make it a universal ordinance They can't be there they can be in the garage what have you but they can't be on the street or in the yard This is just the listing here. We're of course. We thank you for your attention This is just the listing of our personnel Larry Hilbelink's our plumbing inspector and lead inspector Jack Vanderweel Northside building inspector Pat Irak Southside Mark Summers our electrical inspector Dan Bonversy is our clear water inspector now. You've just met Dean Hessling co-enforcement officer Myself and Tracy Herman is our permit clerk What takes some questions future questions can be answered by calling inspection department 459 3477 You can give Dean a call at 459 3491 you can call me 459 3490 and ride-alongs are encouraged We recently went out and that's what prompted a lot of this with mr. Berg and Bonnie Serda and Anthony Bonnet here, and I hope we enlightened them It was entertaining some of the things we saw But they're out there and we want to make sure that you're aware of it And we welcome any of yous to come and come and ride along with Dean or myself or anybody in the department and see what we do any questions For me or Dean or Pete? Some of the concerns that I get generally from the residents in my district is the individual a homeowner Who owns the home and after receiving a citation after citation and they have no Desire to sell the home and they're never gonna pay those fines. Is there anything we can do to help your department to be more effective in those areas? That's the worst-case scenario. I know I kind of knew you're gonna ask that Because we've talked about it That's a difficult one because we've we've gone that route We're hoping the municipal court will help with that What we can do now is we send those we package that all up and we send it over to the attorney's office And it gets into the court system and and kind of sits for a while When we can go out and issue them a citation they have to answer to it so we're hoping hoping that that's gonna boost them a little bit to get because they're gonna have to come down and And go to the court and they can either ask to have it go to the circuit or whatever But it's still gonna require action on their part So hopefully that that'll help the citation and the municipal court will help with that Yes, I know we've had some conversation about Possibly adopting an ordinance that's much more strict and helpful in getting buildings that need to be taken care of either taken care of or raised What's the process with that right now? Um, I I think that we distribute that to all did everybody get one of those on that ordinance for Abandoned buildings and raise orders. There were some issues that then had to be ironed out with that With the way our ordinance was written and what class city it was Um, so we haven't got those resolved yet But that would that would certainly help if the if that ordinance was tighter It may not be so much an ordinance issue as it is a program issue the way we handle it So we're looking into that as well because we that's again working with that with the replenishable fund Would get that done a lot quicker Matt, are you suggesting that the receivership program could possibly be implemented in the city of shabuagan even with its classification or Um that those of they might not be aware of what the receivership is you might want to explain what that is We've talked to other communities about how they Take care of problems like that and one of the ones that the bonnet just brought up was that was the receivership What they did was if the home was was deemed to be abandoned If there was some method of us deeming a home abandoned We could ask the court to appoint A receiver a receivership for that home i.e a contractor or a property management company Whatever and the requirement would be that once they took this receivership. They had to maintain the property Bring it back into code compliance and at some point down the road Of course, there would be some financial issue with the owner to pay that money back or whatever, but There were some communities that had used that They had worked with their with their circuit court on getting that done and it seemed to be effective. I it seemed to work Any other questions? wonderful once again Dean Dean Hesselink is a housing inspector He's done a great job for us jumped right in Cold feet jumped in but he's doing well and and the community has embraced him. I think So and again, thank you Thank you. Matt Mr. Fullerton That uh takes care of our program for this evening. So now I'll entertain a motion to adjourn the committee of whole meeting Motion made to second to adjourn the committee to whole meeting all in favor Contrary we're adjourned Bonet Soda graph Manny Montemay or Perez Peterson Rindflash Excuse Segali Stefan Van Akron Vanderwheel Wongamon and Warner 14 present Forums president Alderman Warner I think you're on our move the minutes of the last common council meeting be approved And that's the same stand as entered on the record second Move to second half the minutes of the previous council meeting stand approved under discussion Hearing none all in favor opposed Motion carried Bonet Soda graph Manny Montemay or Perez Peterson