Memo- Inspections
Memorandum
I Community Services Department I
To:
From:
Date:
Subject:
Hopkins City Council
Jim Genellie
July 6, 2006
Inspections
Attached are two memos from Elizabeth Page. The first provides information about the
City's nuisance abatement process and the second describes the inspection of rental
properties.
The purpose of these memos and the reason that staff is making an appearance before
the City Council is to:
1. Discuss how the nuisance abatement process, including Administrative Citations,
works; what happens when this process does not work; and how the process
might be improved.
2. Discuss rental licensing, inspections, and ideas for changes that could help
improve the maintenance and regulation of rental properties.
\Comm Ser MEMO.doc
MEMORANDUM
TO: City Council Members
FROM: Elizabeth Page, Housing Inspector
RE: Administrative Citations Update
DATE: July 11,2006
Overview
In 2001 the administrative citation process was adopted and implemented with the goal of being able to
handle most violations in-house instead of time and money spent in District Court. We still have to send
a small number of our cases to the city attorneys to be handled at the District Court level, but it is
significantly less than in past years when that was our only way of enforcing city ordinances.
The administrative citation process is fairly simple. Our office does an inspection and sees a violation of
a city ordinance. We send the property owner or occupant a notice to correct the ordinance violation with
a due date and state that we will be by after the due date to conduct are-inspection. If the violation is still
there at the re-inspection we issue a final notice giving them another opportunity to correct the problem.
We conduct another re-inspection and if the violation is still there I take a picture and issue an
administrative citation. The alleged violator has 14 days to contact our office to make an appeal. If they
choose to appeal the citation we have a hearing with a third party hearing officer.
The hearing officer will hear both sides of the issue and make a decision based upon the evidence as to
whether or not a violation occurred and whether or not to uphold the fine. We can issue a citation every
day there is a violation, but do not. I usually give the time allowed to appeal the citation and then conduct
a follow-up inspection on the 15th day after the citation was issued. If the violations still exist I issue
another administrative citation.
I usually issue about three administrative citations before either issuing a district court citation or sending
it to our City Attorney for a formal complaint to be filed in district court. This requires a person to go
before a Hennepin County Judge and the case are heard or a bench warrant is issued for their arrest. We
are also currently exploring the option to use Hennepin County District Housing Court instead of
Criminal Court.
In the future, we will need to come before the Council to adjust the fines. Currently there are some fines
that I feel should be raised because they are too low to even begin to cover the costs associated with
enforcement. A couple of examples are junk vehicles is a $100 fine and open storage is $50. If someone
were to appeal their citation we pay $100 for the hearing officer, it doesn't matter if they win or loose.
Number of Violations
)- In 2005 there were approximately 263 notices to correct violations of the property maintenance
code; nuisance, property maintenance or other city ordinances. This includes violations found in
the sweep inspections conducted, but excludes routine rental inspection results.
)- 208 out of the 263 corrected the violations.
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Administrative Citations Issued
)- In 2005, 55 administrative citations were issued for violations of city ordinances; junk vehicles,
property maintenance issues, off-street parking, etc.
)- Out of the 55 citations issued, 36 corrected the violations, 9 are still in violation*, 10 citations
were voided due to individual circumstances not warranting a citation and the violation corrected.
*These 9 that are still in violation are from three properties; one is in the process of complying; one
property will be sold and then should be in compliance; and the last one will be going to the attorney for
further legal action.
Appeals Hearin2s
)- There were three appeals hearings were held in 2005.
)- Two out of the three appeals hearings were for the same case. At their first hearing the officer
found: Violation occurred - fine 200.00 - agreed to complete siding and garage door by Nov. 1,
2005. At the second hearing the officer found - Violation occurred -fine $200.00 - failed to
complete siding of house by November 1,2005 as agreed.
)- At third hearing the officer found that the violations occurred. The officer decided to suspend
$25 of $50 for first violation and suspend $100 of $200 for second violation and required
immediate payment. The fine was assessed to the property due to non-payment.
Financial Aspects
)- Cost of hearing officer ($100 per officer per visit) x hearings = $300.00
)- Citations paid:
1. Property Maintenance - failure to maintain clean and sanitary apartment = $ 240.00
2. Failure to remove open storage, garbage, litter, etc. $700.00
3. Property Maintenance - roof, doors, backflow prevention, gutters, etc. $1200.00
4. Rental License $250 x 2 =$500.00
Total Fees Received = $2,640.00
Minus Costs = $300.00
Total Income = $2,340.00
)- $5,525.00 was certified to property taxes in 2005 for outstanding administrative citations.
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MEMORANDUM
TO: City Council Members
FROM: Elizabeth Page, Housing Inspector
RE: Rental Properties Update
DATE: July 11, 2006
Overview
The City of Hopkins is made up of about 60% rental dwellings units.
We have approximately 5,131 rental units: 696 single family, condos units
146 duplex units
108 townhouses units
4,181 apartment units
We currently inspect the common areas of all apartment complexes on an annual basis
and about 15-20% of their rental units every three to four years.
2006 (so far) - 50
2005 - 56
2004 - 21
2003 - 15
2002 - 136
2001 - 93
The rest of the rental dwelling units (single family, duplexes, townhouse, condos) are
inspected on a complaint basis and by section of the city on an "as I can get to them"
basis. They are included in the spring and fall sweeps inspections.
2006 (so far) - 8
2005 - 25
2004 - 18
2003 - 21
2002 - 70
2001 - 50
Future
Where do we want to go from here? Weare looking for some direction from the Council
as to where you would like to see this program go.
Do we want to increase the number of routine rental inspections that are conducted on
annual basis? If we do, we will need to dedicate more labor hours to these
inspections and are not currently staffed to do so.
Do we want to require an initial inspection before a property can be rented out?
Do we want to require all properties obtain Crime Free Multi-Housing status?
Do we want to give owners a financial incentive to be Crime Free Multi-Housing by
offering reduced rental license fees for those obtain that status?
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It is extremely important that our housing stock is well maintained. Most often absentee
landlords do not take care of their rental property as they would their own home, so it is
important to enforce the minimum property maintenance code standards to ensure that
they are safe and sanitary. However it is not always rental property that is the problem.
We deal with many home-owner occupied problem properties too.
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