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Staff Report <br />To: Mike Morrison <br />From: John Malenick, Fire Chief <br />Date: Jan.18,2008 <br />Re: Department of Property Maintenance and related Ordinance Changes <br />The establishment of the Department of Property Maintenance within the Fire <br />Department will require several steps and changes to our current city ordinances. <br />Primary to accomplishing this is the adoption of the International Property <br />Maintenance Code (IPMC). In addition, we are proposing a new section (1336) to our <br />ordinances that will specifically govern all rental residential property including single <br />family dwellings and amending our current Housing Maintenance ordinance (1335) to <br />govern all residential and commercial properties in regard to maintenance and <br />appearance. <br />To enforce these changes will require a more formal inspection program which <br />would be governed by the IPMC with regard to administration and procedure. A <br />Deputy Code Official will be required to perform annual inspections prior to the <br />approval of rental housing licenses. New in this process would be the review of <br />disorderly conduct violations and the ability to revoke licenses for non - compliance. In <br />addition, a new appeals process has been added to allow for erroneous interpretation <br />of our codes by inspectors, owners or occupants. <br />We are also proposing that this new department have a separate budget, controlled <br />by the Fire Chief, similar to the Emergency Management budget. Funding for this <br />budget could be derived from rental property licensing fees. Currently, our fee <br />structure is considerably lower than market rate and does not include single family or <br />duplex rental properties. In addition, the possibility exists to develop a fee structure <br />that would include leased land within manufactured home parks. At this time, a <br />phone survey of neighboring communities revealed that we would be breaking new <br />ground on this issue and that legal advice should be pursued prior to recommending <br />a fee schedule for leased land. Regardless, an increase in fees and the inclusion of <br />all rental property should be more than adequate to fund the new inspection <br />activities. <br />• Page 1 <br />