Petaluma cracks down on neighborhood eyesores

Dodd Stange was taken aback by the notice he got in the mail from the city of Petaluma saying the 21-foot boat parked next to his driveway constituted a public nuisance.

For the past 16 years, Stange said he’d left a trailered boat or jet ski on the narrow strip of bark-covered earth in front of his garage on Arlington Drive, where worked hard to maintain a tidy, landscaped lawn. But according to the official corrections notice, the boat must be moved because it violated a city code requiring all vehicles to be parked on a “durable, dustless surface.”

“I find that a little extreme,” said Stange, a maintenance mechanic for the College of Marin. “This is private property. I don’t see a little trailer out there as being an eyesore.”

Stange received one of the 42 notices issued in the past six weeks under a stepped-up code enforcement initiative by the city. The program is based on the work of two civilian volunteers dispatched by the city to find and document violations, such as refuse, overgrown weeds and improperly stored vehicles, officials said.

“These are quality-of-life neighborhood issues,” said police Sgt. Marty Frye, who supervises code enforcement. Left alone, eyesores like trashy or unkempt yards can depress property values and possibly encourage crime, he said.

“Keeping the community cleaned up and looking good can’t do anything but help,” Frye said.

The volunteers, who go out together once a week in a black or white city car, have canvassed six or seven city blocks, photographing the alleged violations and entering them in a computer system under the direction of Joe Garcia, the city’s neighborhood preservation coordinator.

“They’re in a learning process,” Garcia said, referring to the relatively small number of corrections notices issued.

Nineteen of the 42 code violation cases have been closed and 23 remain open, including four in which citations have been issued with a $100 fine.

Residents typically are given 10 days to correct a violation, and often are given more time if they request an extension, Garcia said. The program is not intended to be punitive, and the city will generally refrain from issuing citations as long as residents are “making an effort” to address the violation, the officials said.

Budget cuts prompted Petaluma to transfer code enforcement to the Police Department in 2009 in order to maintain a service that “enhances the neighborhood,” Frye said.

The two volunteers, whose work frees Garcia to handle bigger code enforcement issues, are among the cadre of 56 volunteers who help police with a variety of tasks, including administrative work, vehicle maintenance and even landscaping the department’s back lot.

Stange said Thursday he had moved the boat into his backyard, behind a fence, and left a kid’s toy truck in its place. He didn’t want to break the law, he said, but complained that the code enforcement effort appears to be unevenly applied.

There are trailers parked on grass and in the street in his neighborhood, as well as yards with debris, such as construction materials and car parts, Stange said.

“Some of these places around here are atrocious,” he said. “If they’re gonna enforce it a hundred percent, I think it’s good to get people to clean up their yards.”

Some neighborhoods are more poorly maintained than others, and officials know where they are, Garcia said. But code violations are spread around the city, including the “nicer parts of town,” such as the historic district in west Petaluma, he said.

“Eventually, we will get there,” Garcia said.

When Petaluma updated its property maintenance codes in 2010, the changes included better definition of improper parking and storage of operative and inoperative vehicles, Garcia said.

Vehicle storage on dirt was prohibited because it causes erosion when rain falls and when the vehicle is moved.

If Stange is unhappy with the rule, he should take it up with the City Council, the officials said.

Code violations may be reported to the city at 778-4469 and callers must leave their name, phone number and address on the message.

Anonymous complaints will not be investigated and callers’ personal information will not be disclosed.

Santa Rosa, which has five paid code enforcement officers, takes complaints at 543-3198 and does not investigate anonymous reports.

The city responds to about 1,200 code complaints a year and has about 1,700 active cases, said Mike Reynolds, senior code enforcement officer.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.