Welcome to the new blog portion of my website. I'm going to be discussing issues that arise in code enforcement and invite comments and ideas from you. In today's difficult economic environment, we're all struggling with how to perform our jobs with decreasing resources. We're being confronted with new challenges daily due to the foreclosure crisis (ever try to find a live person to speak with about pipes bursting in subzero weather in a foreclosed house with mold growing so bad the residence can't be salvaged?) In my practice as a municipal prosecutor, I deal with these questions daily. I'm also interested in how effective code enforcement can reduce crime in a community and I will be writing about that issue. While I can't give legal advice on this blog, I will be pointing out interesting cases that may be useful to you.Demolishing Homes to Avoid Fines
In Victorville, CA a lender decided to tear down new homes and other structures that hadn’t been completed to avoid future fines from the local government for code violations.
Officials of Guaranty Bank of Austin, Texas, which took over the development last year, were unavailable for comment. But Victorville city spokeswoman Yvonne Hester said the bank decided not to throw good money after bad.
“It just didn’t pencil out for them,” she said. “They’d have to spend a lot of money to turn around and sell the houses. They just made a financial decision to just demolish them.”
You can read the entire story in the L.A. Times at this address
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-demolish5-2009may05,0,4930126.story
Local governments frequently use fines as a way to motivate defendants to come into compliance with the code. Sometimes buildings have to be torn down if they’ve suffered too much damage from being open structures. But, this is the first time I’ve heard of tearing down brand new buildings as a way of coming into compliance with the local codes.
Category(ies): Code Enforcement, Fire Prevention, Foreclosure, Law Enforcement and Codes, Uncategorized, training
In the last 13 months we have had two demolished and will have a third by the end of summer. Sometimes, unfortunately this is the way to go.