Memo Housing Maintenance Code
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:. CITY OF HOPKINS
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MEMORANDUM
DATE: April 6, 1993
TO: Mayor and City Council
FROM: Tom Anderson
SUBJECT: Housing Maintenance code Discussions
Purpose of Discussion:
The purpose of the discussion is to get feed back from the City
Council on the ,city's housing maintenance program and possible
changes or improvements to this program and related codes.
The City'S Strategic Plan for Economic Development identifies the
need to examine, improve and aggressively enforce our housing
maintenance codes. The city's Housing Study also identifies the
. need to evaluate our rental inspection program and the housing
maintenance codes. The City council at the recent council retreat
set as a high priority the goal that the city have strong and
well maintained neighborhoods and that we implement a specific
program to maintain and upgrade the Westbrooke neighborhood.
Prior to the staff attempting to implement the goals established
by the City Council, it was felt that a work session to discuss
the current program and to get input from the council on their
perception of the needs to improve our codes was in order.
Background:
The Inspections Division has for many years had a housing
maintenance code program in place and this program has been
enhanced over the years. Currently the division enforces the
Uniform Housing Code 1985 Edition, a city Rental Registration
program, Manufactured Home code, the Section 8 program, the
Nuisance code and a Truth in Housing program. The Housing
Maintenance program has components to deal 'with all of the city's
housing stock but the major emphasis is on the multi family
rental properties.
The Housing program is enforced in the following ways:
0 All rental property in the city are required to be
. registered with the city thru our rental registration
program. This gives us a listing of the rental properties
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. and identifies the persons responsible for repairs and
maintenance.
0 The multifamily buildings with over 4 units. are formally
inspected by the inspection division every four to five
years. This inspection includes all common areas,
corridors, exteriors and ancillary structures. Both the
Housing Code and Fire Codes are enforced during these
visits. These buildings are also visited in between the
formal inspections upon receiving complaints either from
the tenants or management and during Section 8
inspections. These latter inspections normally result in
inspection personal being invited into the actual housing
units and can result in orders being written to the whole
building.
0 The four unit and smaller multifamily dwellings generally
do not contain common areas and therefore are not on a
regular inspection rotation. These units are inspected
upon the receipt of a complaint or if they begin showing
signs of disrepair as viewed from the outside. Many of
these buildings are occupied by section 8 clients and are
therefore inspected for that purpose.
0 The single family homes are inspected upon complaint or if
. they begin to show signs of exterior disrepair. The
division is in the community daily and is generally
familiar with the condition of the city's housing stock.
We have targeted a few homes each year for action that
are showing severe signs of non maintenance.
0 The inspection personal in cooperation with the PUblic
Works Department have a twice a year sweep of the
community to deal with general yard.nuisances. Public
Works personal on there regular garbage collection routes
identify and notify Inspections of accumulations of trash
and debris. These sweeps are conducted just prior to the
spring and fall clean up collections. Inspections personal
notify the residents and write orders so the residents can
take advantage of these fall and spring pickups. We write
orders and deal with other complaints as received.
0 The Truth in Housing program has resulted in some upgrades
occurring to the city's housing stock. Items marked as
hazardous are required to be corrected and other items
identified as below standard are in some cases being
voluntarily corrected. This program should have an impact
on our housing stock.
0 The manufactured homes in the community are covered under
. the city's manufactured home code. We have increased the
divisions activity in the pines Trailer Park recently due
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to the deadlines for compliance established in the code.
. The Manufactured Home code establishes minimum housing
maintenance standards that are applicable to the trailers
and are based on the Uniform Housing code.
The Inspection Division has increased its activity in Westbrooke
and at the pines trailer park in the last eighteen months. The
increased activity was driven by the deadlines for compliance
with the Manufactured Home Code at the Pines and by the
conditions of the structures at Westbrook, most notably the
condition of the headers at the town homes. We have also spent a
fair amount of time in south Hopkins dealing with four homes in
need of major repairs.
Future Action:
The Inspections Division feels that with the addition of the
Truth in Housing program and the Manufactured Home Code, and with
the improvements we have made to personnel and proceedures over
the last two years, that Hopkins has the proper level of
enforcement and a relatively effective program. It is our opinion
that no major changes are needed.
Staff is particularly interested in whether the Council agrees
that the level of enforcement is adequate or whether it should be
. increase in one or more areas. If the Council desires greater
enforcement it may require a shift in priority of Inspection
Division activities and we would be interested in your comments
in this regard as well.
In any event the Division feels that it is appropriate to update ,
our Housing code to be more specific giving the division personal
a better tool.
The Housing Code we currently use is the 1985 Uniform Housing
Code. This code is very general in nature and it would be helpful
to the division if a more descriptive code were in place. It
would not necessarily result in the code adding additional items
that need to be in compliance but rather describe in more detail
what is or is not acceptable. An example would be that, the
Uniform Housing Code declares that a building is substandard if
it has deteriorated or ineffective waterproofing for all exterior
surfaces, including lack of paint. The Uniform Housing Code does
not define what percentage of the wall must lack the paint for it
to be a substandard structure. This lack of detail makes the
enforcement thru court more subjective and difficult to prove. A
more detailed code should make enforcement more effective and the
process more efficient.
I will be at the workshop to get your perspective on our program
~. and improvements you feel should be undertaken.
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