Jamestown housing committee details code-enforcement backlog, heirs'property and auction limits

The Jamestown housing committee on Wednesday described a backlog of housing code cases, challenges prosecuting violations after ownership changes and ongoing work to identify rental-property owners.

Committee chair Billy, a council member, told other council members he had circulated a constituent letter summarizing longstanding housing complaints and urged coordinated contact with state legislators. "I just thought I'd share that with you so that if we ever had an opportunity to, let our legislative officials know how serious and how far reaching some of these problems are," he said.

The committee discussed several recurring obstacles in pursuing property-maintenance violations. Crystal, a code-enforcement staff member, said some properties are effectively immobilized because they are in probate or classified as heirs' properties, which delays or prevents city enforcement. She said the city must close old cases and open new ones each time ownership changes, even when the underlying violations persist.

"The new owners will get copies of all of that, but we have to start our prosecution of those violations over there," Crystal said, describing the requirement to open a new case for a new owner.

Council members also raised a staffing concern: a committee speaker said the city currently has four code officers handling roughly 1,000 open cases. That workload, the committee said, limits how quickly staff can pursue long-running violations.

The committee said Land Bank properties and those sold at tax auction are creating administrative delay. A committee member said a tax auction in August concluded recently and the city is still determining who purchased several properties; the city noted an ownership transfer generally requires reinitiating enforcement work.

Members discussed a new quality-of-life ticketing program and a rental-property registration effort aimed at identifying LLCs and other corporate owners. The committee said the ticketing program has led to some fines and improved compliance, and registration is helping the city identify owners for enforcement and service of notices.

Committee members and staff also described coordination between code enforcement and the Jamestown Police Department to share information on properties and complaints.

The committee did not take a final council vote on new code-enforcement laws; members discussed seeking county or state legal changes to limit predators who use multiple LLCs to acquire and re-acquire properties without remedying violations.

The committee closed the item by noting plans to continue monitoring demolition queues and contractor availability for property cleanups and to circulate a project-status list of targeted properties.