rxlexi wrote:
While I agree the "developer phone call sweep" is a shitty way to enforce codes, I have to say it's generally a good thing, executed poorly, right?
It would be nice if this kind of responsiveness could be in the hands of the average neighborhood dweller, but this is nonetheless an example of the positive effect that investment in the urban core can have. People start to give a shit about the perceived value of the area. Assuming that removing codes violations en masse in a neighborhood on the comeback is a good thing.
It's beyond shitty (IMO) because, as others have noted, these citations tend to hit people up for relatively minor repairs that they can't afford. Or they hit people up who have just sunk tens of thousands making a house inhabitable after years of neglect/abandonment and were going to wait a year or two before spending more money on addressing the peeling paint. Those circumstances were both mentioned several times last night. Neither are too unusual when you're talking about 100+ year old houses.
I don't think the real problem is people not caring enough about the value of their neighborhood or homes.They're as aware of property values as someone in Armour Hills. Most of the people there last night had more passion than money. But codes enforcement isn't a magic wand. If people could make their houses look brand new, I'm sure they would. A lot of the frustration last night came from the fact that residents have gotten no help from the city with chronic problem properties that they've called into 311, but suddenly had the full force of codes brought to bear on them. And the problem properties fester on.
LCA brought up some good points about how the city handles these inspections:
-The language in the citations is vague, and the city doesn't send out photos of the violations along with the written citations. Some residents were able to have them emailed to them. Some tried that and were told that they would have to come to City Hall and sign a release for photos of their own house. The best approach would be to mail them out with the violation, to reach people who may not have email. But the explanation last night is that that doesn't happen because "it's not part of our standard procedure".
-The individual inspectors give wildly different levels of customer service. Some residents called the inspector listed on their citation and were granted extensions. Others had left numerous messages and heard nothing back.
-There is no accompanying outreach by the city to point low income residents toward programs that would defray the cost of repairs.
-Other neighborhoods, Hyde Park in particular, have been given 30-90 day warnings that a sweep was going to happen.
