THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 8, 1995 TAG: 9502080504
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
Cut the grass. Get that old tire out of the yard. Slap some fresh color on the peeling paint. The city's ``sweep team'' of code enforcers may soon be in your neighborhood.
The City Council opted Tuesday to enforce property maintenance requirements through a team of inspectors patrolling neighborhoods and tagging violations. It's a change in the city's policy, which now focuses more on responding to complaints and gliding quietly through neighborhoods in unmarked cars.
The change came at the end of a contentious meeting, where a group of council members chided City Manager James B. Oliver for not doing enough to maintain neighborhoods.
``What I'm hearing from this council is that code enforcement is on the same level of importance as police, fire and education,'' said Oliver toward the end of the 1 1/2-hour discussion. ``We will treat it that way.''
The shift was spearheaded by council members Herbert Collins, Paul Riddick and Randy Wright. The three peppered Oliver and city staffer Sherman Edmondson, the city's top code enforcer, with questions about why Norfolk wasn't able to put more heat on sloppy property owners. The council members have badgered city staff members since last summer about this issue. Tuesday, they told Oliver that they felt they had not been heard.
The actions by Wright, Riddick and Collins are another sign of how the ward system is shifting the council's focus toward neighborhood and grassroots issues. The three are the only council members first elected under the ward system.
``The goal is to not let certain sections of the inner city decay before our eyes,'' said Collins, in one of several sharp exchanges, after Oliver asked for greater guidance by the council.
The sweep effort is patterned after what the council considers a successful effort in East Ocean View last year. There, a team of inspectors from several departments scoured a 16-block area. In one day, the team surveyed 262 properties and found 149 violations. Just the sight of the team walking the streets, plus the advance publicity, prompted many owners to spruce up their properties.
The specifics of the new policy have to be worked out. But as discussed Tuesday, the city will examine perhaps a neighborhood a week using a team of five inspectors that will look for violations ranging from health to safety to zoning.
Once property owners are notified of violations, they will have a set period of time, usually 30 days, to do necessary work unless they persuade the city to give them more time. Eventually, a property owner can be taken to court.
The city may choose which neighborhoods to inspect based on priority lists given to the staff by council members. The neighborhoods Riddick, Collins and Wright suggested Tuesday include Coleman Place, Esterbrook, Ballentine, Lindenwood, East Ocean View, Ocean Air, Fox Hall, Lafayette Residence Park and Huntersville.
Already, the city has 20 inspectors working on building and housing code enforcement, probably the highest number in the state, Edmondson said. Some localities, in fact, do not enforce code inspections at all, while others do so only selectively, she said.
Council members debated whether the new ``sweep team'' would be drawn from the ranks of the 20 inspectors, or whether additional positions should be created. The council agreed that the city would not stop responding to complaints, or performing quieter neighborhood inspections, but the ``sweep'' style of code enforcement would now have priority.
City Council members said the city must make sure that code enforcement does not force people from their homes and that elderly or low-income residents are given time or city assistance to make repairs. The council discussed several ways of doing this.
City Attorney Philip Trapani said the city could not arbitrarily select neighborhoods to enforce code requirements, or the courts might throw out violations brought by the city. by CNB