City Council
MEETING DATE: 4/13/2016
TITLE:
Title
Ordinance Amending Various Provisions of the Cathedral City Municipal Code relating to Code Compliance
End
FROM:
Eric S. Vail, City Attorney
Nicholas E. Hermsen, Deputy City Attorney
RECOMMENDATION:
Recommendation
Staff recommends the City City Council introduce Ordinance No. ____ amending various provisions of the Cathedral City Municipal Code relating to Code Compliance, read by title only, and waive further reading.
Body
BACKGROUND:
As the City Council is aware, the mission of the City’s Code Compliance Division is to work toward preventing, discouraging and/or abating certain conditions which endanger the life, limb, health, property, safety or welfare of the general public in a fair, expedient, and cost efficient manner.
The attached ordinance is intended as a general clean-up ordinance and was prepared at the request of the Community Development Director. The ordinance was prepared as a routine update for several reasons, including:
1) To ensure that the City’s code compliance procedures and provisions are consistent and current with State law;
2) To ensure that the Municipal Code maximizes the City’s ability to effectuate full cost recovery from violators to alleviate the burden on taxpayers;
3) To ensure that the procedures are streamlined in a manner that is most practical and workable for the City’s Code Compliance staff while providing abundant due process protection for alleged violators;
4) To ensure that the Municipal Code’s code compliance provisions are internally consistent; and
5) To ensure that Code Compliance staff maintains appropriate legal tools in order to operate at maximum effectiveness.
The amendments proposed in the ordinance were proposed by the City Attorney’s office, the Community Development Director, the Development Services Manager, or the City’s Code Compliance Officers. The final ordinance has been reviewed and approved by the Community Development Director.
DISCUSSION:
The primary revisions to the proposed ordinance include:
1) The title of “code enforcement” is changed to “code compliance” throughout the Municipal Code to conform with the current title of the Code Compliance division. The primary reason the ordinance is so lengthy is because this change was made in many different provisions throughout the Municipal Code. (Numerous locations).
2) Addition of a provision expressly prohibiting occupation of any structure that is deemed uninhabitable and posted as such by the City. (Municipal Code section 8.34.137).
3) Addition of provisions granting attorney’s fees to the prevailing party in any public nuisance action in the administrative citation appeals provision of the Municipal Code, as well as a general provision providing for the same. This is already found in other provisions of the Municipal Code, but these provisions are added in order to make the intent of the Municipal Code abundantly clear. (Municipal Code sections 13.30.050, 13.58.160, and 13.60.160).
4) Deletion of Municipal Code section 13.50.280 declaring refusal to permit inspection pursuant to court-issued inspection warrant to be unlawful. This provision is duplicative of state law and therefore preempted.
5) Deletion of the requirement that the amount of the potential fine be included in a Notice of Violation. A Notice of Violation is a written warning and there is no fine involved, although failure to comply could ultimate lead to imposition of monetary fines. (Municipal Code section 13.55.020).
6) For Notice of Violation (written warning) unrelated to real property, deletion of the requirement that the Notice contain an order prohibiting the continuation or repeated occurrence of the described violation and listing the amount of the potential fine , and instead requiring the deadline by which to correct the violation. (Municipal Code section 13.55.030).
7) Amendment of the provisions relating to the City Attorney’s filing of criminal infraction complaints from mandatory to discretionary to comply with applicable law. (Municipal Code section 13.65.030).
8) Amendment of the misdemeanor chapter of the Municipal Code to provide that the second and subsequent infraction violations of the same Municipal Code provision within a single year are subject to misdemeanor penalties (changed from the current 4th violation within a year). (Municipal Code section 13.70.020).
9) Amendment of the definition of “visual blight” to allow for a citation to be issued for violations threatening public health, safety, or welfare rather than the public health, safety, and welfare. (Municipal Code section 13.80.115).
10) Deletion of several required provisions of a Notice of Public Nuisance and Order to Abate, including: (a) the number of times the violation has been cited within the previous 36 months; (b) the amount of the fine for the violation; (c) a description of the fine payment process; and (d) a description of the fine collection process. Since the City doesn’t impose or issue fines with the imposition of a Notice of Public Nuisance and Order to Abate, the ordinance would also delete a number of provisions related to the collection of such fines. (Municipal Code Chapter 13.90).
11) Addition of provisions allowing attorney’s fees and enforcement costs that have already been confirmed by a court to be included as a special assessment without allowing for further administrative appeal. (Municipal Code Chapter 13.120).
12) Addition of a brief reference to State law to ensure that the City’s regulations don’t violate the prohibition on enforcement of laws proscribing brown lawns due to the drought. (Municipal Code section 9.86.040).
13) Addition of provisions throughout indicating that if the City is not the prevailing party in a code proceeding, the prevailing party may not be awarded attorney’s fees in excess of the amount of fees incurred by the City. These provisions are found in State law, but it is unclear whether those State law provisions are self-executing or require implementation of an ordinance to make them effective. (Numerous locations).
FISCAL IMPACT:
None
ATTACHMENTS:
Proposed Ordinance