Barbara Tredway
sighs and rolls her eyes in disgust thinking of the putrid,
rat-infested, tire-ridden mess that sat next to her Forest Boulevard
home until two weeks ago.
Wolfgang Langner cleaned up his yard off Merrill Road and put up
a stockade fence, both at the request of the city. Yet Langner draws
the line when thinking of the countless trips code officers have
made to his house about two cars sitting in his back yard, invisible
to everyone but his neighbors who haven't complained.
Davetta Bryant is exasperated because she can't get anyone to
clear the beer cans, tattered clothes and other debris beneath the
tree across from her Northside home.
And Springfield preservation leaders can't understand why
homeowners with permits to fix up their homes are getting hassled
about historic features while abandoned buildings litter their
block.
In nearly every neighborhood in Jacksonville, problems with
nuisances and eyesores can be found, as can success stories of the
ugly duckling property on the block getting a makeover after
prodding from the city to make improvements.
The problems, and city leaders admit there are many, get the bulk
of the headlines. That rang true last week when a city audit found
management issues and training shortcomings in the Property Safety
Division responsible for getting landowners to mow overgrown lawns,
clean up trash-laden yards and fix crumbling fences and sheds.
The audit found that nearly half of inspections aren't done on
time, the city hasn't collected $6.2 million in fines, and code
officers aren't receiving the training they should.
Mayor John Delaney has pumped money and bodies into the
department during the past several years. He's added a call center
to better respond to complaints, more than doubled the number of
inspectors from 20 to 42 and boosted funding from about $2.7 million
to $3.7 million this year.
"We could fix this thing right now if we wanted to devote $20 or
$30 million a year to do it but, if you do that, then what else
can't you do?" Delaney said about prioritizing with the city's
planned $758 million budget.
Audits, budgets and training mean nothing to the homeowner whose
view out the front window shows crusty socks, candy wrappers and
empty 16-ounce beer cans piled at the base of a tree. The homeowner
just wants the city to solve the problem. Now.
"If there's a frustration from neighbors, it's that we can't come
and cut the grass tomorrow," said Don Severns, one of seven code
officers assigned to the Arlington area.
When a warning is posted, land owners are entitled to 15 days to
fix the problem before code officials issue a ticket.
"What I think gets lost is that this is supposed to be a slow
process," Delaney said.
|
Joe Brown of Waste
Management picks up an old stove and four tires from a
property owned by Wilfred MacManus on Forest Boulevard.
-- Crista
Jeremiason/Staff
|
Last week, a
5-foot-high pile of dead tree limbs and leaves -- with a cardboard
box and empty soda bottles mixed in -- was reported on a vacant lot
on University Boulevard between two newer homes with freshly mowed
grass. Severns took pictures of the pile from different angles,
wrote a warning on a bright yellow ticket and tacked it onto a tree.
For 15 days, that's all he can do.
The age-old dilemma with code issues is that government walks a
fine line between infringing on property rights and furthering the
public good by making neighborhoods presentable, City Councilman Jim
Overton said.
"On the one hand, you want to clean up the neighborhoods. But on
the other hand, you don't want the hard hand of government kicking
down doors and saying, 'Fix that gutter or we're going to arrest
you,'" Overton said.
Code officers must get permission to go on someone's property,
which can make things difficult if the owner doesn't comply, Severns
said.
With the house next to Tredway on Forest Boulevard, the tenants
wouldn't let Severns on the property to have a look around, though
violations were visible from the road. Wilfred MacManus, who owned
the property, was in the process of evicting the tenants, who he
says refused to leave.
Once the house was vacant, MacManus went to work removing tree
stumps, tires and car parts from the property after receiving a July
24 warning ticket from Severns.
"I don't expect anyone to have a perfect piece of property, but
this was a mess," MacManus said.
The city is working with MacManus and he says the rusted
mattress, stacked gallons of paint and old tires will be hauled off
soon. Severns is confident they'll be gone. He's seen the work thus
far.
"At least it looks like a house now," Tredway said, holding her
head to her forehead in relief. "Before, it didn't."
Langner's property off Merrill Road looks like a house, too. He's
the first one to admit the yard needed work when code officers
stopped by a few months back.
"My yard's not the nicest," Langner said. "It's not the best one
on the block, it's not the worst."
Langner replaced his fence, as asked, so his two cars in the back
yard can't be seen. He's still getting pressure from the city to get
rid of the cars after a code officer saw them from a neighbor's
yard.
He says there are other cars near him that have rested in
driveways untouched for months, but "why should I cause the guy two
blocks down the road any problems?"
|
Code inspector Don
Severns goes over paperwork from an earlier visit to the
former Precision Tune at 1611 University Boulevard. The
building had several violations, Severns said.
-- Crista
Jeremiason/Staff
|
That's part of
the no-win situation code enforcement officers say they face every
day, said John Curtin, director of the city Neighborhoods Department
that oversees code enforcement.
Code officers can be the best friends of neighbors who want a
problem solved, or the worst enemies of the homeowners they call on
-- or the worst enemies of residents who contend their problems are
never solved.
"If they make me happy by taking care of the problem next door,
they've made that person mad," said Shirley Dasher, executive
director of JaxPride, a non-profit group that focuses on aesthetics
in Jacksonville.
Bryant, in her home on Moncrief Road, hasn't been at this long
but already is growing impatient. She has called the police, code
enforcement, anyone who'd listen about the trash and beer cans
scattered near the tree on a vacant lot next door. Code officers
posted a notice about a week ago and are scheduled to return and
check the progress.
"It looks like a trash dump," she said. "You cannot tell me this
is all they can do."
Residents trying to fix up Springfield's older homes and turn the
downtown neighborhood around see the same struggles. They're getting
permits to renovate their homes and having to answer to code
officers, but abandoned houses down the street are untouched, said
Pam Edwards-Roine, assistant director of the Historic Springfield
Community Council.
"People will say, 'Next door they've got a fire trap, and I just
didn't get my lawn mowed,'" Edwards-Roine said.
Curtain said historic areas are the toughest, because the city is
trying to avoid tearing the older homes down and working to get
people to renovate them.
"The historic areas are very different and it seems that no
matter what we do, it's not right," Curtin said.
Complaints about code issues have gone up about 15 percent a
year, to more than 100,000 this year, Curtain said. Delaney stresses
that, as much as the department has improved, people's expectations
have risen and tolerance has fallen, creating the never-ending cycle
of code issues.
"We've raised the bar in our community," Curtin said. "As long as
we continue to raise the standard, people are going to want more,
and that's probably a good thing."
Staff writer Matt Galnor can be reached at
or via e-mail at mgalnorjacksonville.com.
