Milford City Council will vote on changes to building codes, adding a repeat habitual offender section
City Planner Rob Pierce, at the request of Milford City Council, recently presented a draft ordinance for their review to address habitual repeat offenders related to code violations. Pierce and his staff created the draft ordinance using research conducted among other municipalities.
“First, we would need to identify what a habitual repeat offender is,” Pierce said. “We would define it as any person owning property who receives a notice of violation from the city for violating code on three separate occasions within a 24-month period, exclusive of tall grass.”
The change in the ordinance would allow the city to require habitual offenders be summoned to appear in court immediately. The city has the ability to go cut tall grass and issue a violation charge for doing so, which is why it was excluded from the repeat habitual offender change.
“One thing to point out, we can send out a violation letter or take them to JP Court,” Pierce said. “Our fines are a minimum of $50, so we could go through the entire JP Court process and get a verdict of guilty and get a fine of $50. This would be after we spent three months or more leading up to the court hearing with staff, so we do recommend increasing that minimum charge to $250 and then max it out a little higher at $5,000 for these repeat offenders.”
Pierce explained that the violation rates had not been changed in over 15 years. The recommendation was to add under the habitual repeat offender provision a first offense fine of $250, second offense $1,000 and third offense $5,000. If the fines are not paid, they would be assessed in a similar manner as unpaid taxes.
“So, right now, you come out to my house and say you need to clean up your yard,” Mayor Todd Culotta said. “You then send me an official letter. How long do I have to respond.”
Pierce stated that it would depend on the infraction as some required response within five days while others could be 30. Culotta asked what happened if he did not respond in 30 days.
“Now, you’ll receive a court summons to go to JP Court who imposes the fines. We don’t have fining authority,” Pierce said. “We can issue violation fines for something we can remedy, like grass cutting, but it is only our costs. It is not really a fine.”
Under this code, however, someone who has been deemed a repeat habitual offender would not be given time to correct the violation but would be issued an immediate summons to JP Court.
“Let’s say somebody has a car in their yard and you tell them you need to remove this car, maybe because it has no tags, and they remove the car after you send a letter,” Councilwoman Madula Kalesis said. “They remove the car, then three weeks later, the car is back, and they are told to remove it again. Two months later, the car is back. Would that be considered a repeat offender?”
Pierce stated that was what the changes to the ordinance were designed to address. The current draft had three offenses in 24 months, but council could adjust that to 12 months or any other period they chose. Councilwoman Nadia Zychal pointed out that this ordinance could resolve what she termed “lather, rinse repeat, whack-a-mole situations.”
“We have to regiment this, but first we have to be sure it is documented,” Culotta said. “Sometimes there is a verbal warning, but that isn’t documented.”
The current process, according to Pierce, is for code officials to send a letter even after a verbal warning. The letter may be hand delivered, but there has to be a written notice given to the property owner. Councilman Michael Stewart questioned whether this would be difficult for landlords to enforce.
“As a landlord, I am the property owner, but if I have a tenant who is, let’s say a hoarder, I can tell them to clean up the yard,” Stewart said. “But I just cannot come on the property any time I please. I have to give them 24 hour’s notice. They can tell me I cannot remove things that belong to them.”
Stewart, who owns rental properties, stated that it was difficult to get out of a rental agreement and, if it ended up in court, any mistakes or errors in the case could get it thrown out.
“It is not always the landlord’s fault that there are violations,” Stewart said. “Maybe we do need to look at that because I don’t want a problem renter heading across town and becoming someone else’s problem either.”
Culotta agreed with Stewart, asking what rights a landlord had in a case like that.
“I believe the landlord tenant code of the state provides a path if a tenant is not following municipal codes,” Pierce said. “I believe a policeman has a right to enter the property.”
Councilman Jason James felt that a landlord tenant agreement should address these issues as he didn’t feel the city should get involved in telling a landlord what to do.
“If the city has a relationship with the landlord that is supposed to have, then enforcement is really incumbent on the person who is in that business,” James said.
Pierce will present the final ordinance to council at a future meeting in January or February.
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