City of Clearlake to create specific ordinance to address neglected properties
- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake City Council has directed staff to craft a new ordinance laying out requirements for maintaining and securing vacant properties in the city.
Clearlake Finance Director Chris Becnel took the proposal to the council at its Thursday meeting. The discussion begins at the 2:29:34 mark in the video above.
After the recession, Becnel said the city saw an increase in neglected properties.
He presented ordinances from the cities of Richmond, Vallejo and West Hollywood which addressed such issues in their respective communities.
The idea, said Becnel, is to create specific guidelines for handling vacant properties so that the city doesn’t have to rely on a general nuisance ordinance.
He said the city wants to make sure owners clearly understand their obligations to secure and maintain properties within a specific period, and keep safety issues under control.
Becnel said the city doesn’t have the specific authority to remove squatters from properties that have been abandoned for awhile. To do that, they would need to get owners to post the property and provide authority to police to go in and remove trespassers.
The proposal includes a requirement to register vacant properties for a fee, he said.
“A lot of these owners have not looked at these properties in a number of years,” said Becnel. “They just kind of walk away and ignore them.”
He said staff was seeking direction from the council, including things council members would like them to include. “This would be the first step in a two-pronged approach.”
The second part, he said, will be dealing with the many substandard properties across the city that are occupied by renters or owners.
The initial ordinance also would look at undeveloped properties, requiring them to keep vegetation cut back sufficiently so people can’t camp out without being discovered, Becnel said.
Councilman Phil Harris said such neglected properties are a huge problem in the community, and he added that the proposed ordinance is a major step forward.
“Let's get as tough as we can possibly get on this,” he said.
The initial proposal also included a requirement to rebuild properties in a certain number of years, which raised questions for some council members.
Becnel said the idea is to require a rebuild rather than leaving a property vacant, mainly because if someone has insurance, the whole intent is to replace what was there. He said many people who lost homes in the county’s wildland fires took the insurance money and left.
He added that the city also needed to replace old housing stock.
Vice Mayor Bruno Sabatier asked about the city’s power to enforce such rules. Ahead of discussion on the proposed ordinance, the council discussed 10 property abatement cases where the owners ignored the city.
Becnel said the properties the council discussed earlier in the meeting involved owners who hadn’t been around for a long time, who had died, left the area or simply ignored the city.
“I don't know that this will necessarily solve this problem,” Becnel said.
While the city couldn’t solve a problem 30 years in the making, it can start to get a handle on it moving forward, Becnel said.
Becnel asked the council members to send him their comments and he would start to cobble them together into a proposal.
Harris said he appreciated they were not reinventing the wheel. “We’re just trying to figure out which wheel fits.”
Councilman Nick Bennett said a lot of the structures in question aren’t fit to be boarded up. “The majority of them need to be gone, period,” he said.
Public Works Director Doug Herren cautioned that once the city gets to the point of boarding up properties, it assumes responsibility for them.
“This is not about the city going out and boarding up houses,” said Becnel, but about creating an obligation on the part of owners to secure their properties. The city would only deal with such properties as a last resort.
Becnel thanked Bennett for raising the issue of properties that aren’t worth saving, and he suggested that maybe they needed to consider that in the draft ordinance.
At the Thursday meeting, the council also presented a proclamation declaring Sept. 22 as Native American Day. Members of several local tribes were in attendance to receive the document, along with City Manager Greg Folsom, who is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
In other business during the five-hour meeting, the council received an update from Becnel on Measure V, the one-cent sales tax measure for roads the city’s voters approved last year; appointed Stephanie Codling to the city’s marketing committee; approved a first reading of an ordinance setting procedures for expediting permitting processes for electric vehicle charging systems; approved the commitment of Community Development Block Grant Program income funds; and discussed a request to refund a portion of assessments the city collected in a tax default sale.
The council also accepted the donation from the Voerge family of a property located at 14180 Division Ave.; approved a resolution to adopt a list of approved projects for submission to the California Transportation Commission for SB 1 funding; and approved a resolution authorizing submittal of an application to the California Department of Parks and Recreation.
Also on Thursday, the council met the winners of the city’s photo contest, presented a certificate of appreciation to Lake County Superintendent of Schools Brock Falkenberg for his work with Lake County Youth Services and the Clearlake Youth Center, got an update on the Wildlife of Clearlake Youth Art Project, held a public hearing to confirm administrative penalties on a number of abated properties and finalized several abatement cases.
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