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Board gives owner time to comply, continues Middletown code-enforcement hearing to July
Summary
After reviewing photos and testimony about long-running unpermitted auto-dismantling and occupied RVs on a property near Middletown, the board instructed staff to draft a legally enforceable compliance agreement, required a pre-application meeting within 15 days, and continued the hearing to July 14 to allow work on health-and-safety abatement and a compliance plan.
The Board of Supervisors heard a code-enforcement appeal concerning 19355 South State Highway 29 in Middletown, where staff alleged unpermitted structures, occupied recreational vehicles, inoperable vehicles, and rubbish strewn across a property owned by Michael G. Burns. Community Development code enforcement staff presented photos and drone footage showing occupied RVs and debris and recommended upholding the notice of nuisance, directing voluntary abatement within 30 days and authorizing abatement and cost recovery if not complied with.
Property owner Michael Burns, who testified he has run an auto-dismantling operation and had accepted some unsheltered people in RVs, said much cleanup has already occurred and asked for workable options rather than an immediate county-funded abatement. Supervisors raised groundwater, long-standing zoning changes, and the difficulty of returning a large parcel to compliant operation without an expensive major use permit and environmental analysis.
Outcome: The board directed staff to work with the owner to draft a binding compliance agreement and requested that the owner submit a pre-application for development review within 15 days. The hearing was continued to July 14 at 11:00 a.m. Staff and county counsel recommended a phased compliance plan with a possible bond to secure performance; the motion passed unanimously (5–0). The board emphasized immediate remediation of health-and-safety items (e.g., occupied RVs, sewage) while longer-term land-use and CEQA pathways are explored.
Why it matters: The case illustrates tensions between long-standing informal uses, public-health risks, groundwater/cultural-resource concerns, and the county’s land-use rules. Supervisors noted constraints of planning law: to reestablish an auto-dismantling use would require a general-plan amendment/rezone and major use permit; those require no current code violations and potentially costly environmental review.
Next steps: Staff will prepare a draft compliance agreement for legal review and return to the board July 14, and the owner will file a pre-application meeting request within 15 days to clarify pathways for a permitted use or orderly abatement.
Speakers quoted: "Our notices are issued because statutorily they require a 30 day correction period," Marcus Beltram said. "But I think reasonably, depending how the board finds, reasonable accommodation may be in order here to grant more time and reduce the abatement to a compliance plan."
