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General Government <br />parts of those guidelines in their communities. Metro Cities also supports adopting <br />the international energy conservation code to the state building code without <br />amendments. Metro Cities does not support legislative solutions that fail to <br />recognize the interrelationships among builders, state building codes and <br />cities. Metro Cities supports efforts to increase awareness of the potential impacts <br />and benefits of requiring sprinklers in new homes and townhouses and supports <br />discussion and the dissemination of information around these impacts via the code <br />adoption process through the Department of Labor and Industry. <br />2-G Administrative Fines <br />Traditional methods of citation, enforcement and prosecution have met with increasing <br />costs to local units of government. The use of administrative fines is a tool to moderate <br />those costs. Metro Cities supports the administrative fine authority granted to allow <br />cities to issue administrative fines for defined local traffic offenses and supports <br />further modifications to enhance the workability of the authority. Metro Cities <br />continues to support all cities' authority to use administrative fines for regulatory <br />ordinances such as building codes, zoning codes, health codes, and public safety and <br />nuisance ordinances. <br />Metro Cities supports the use of city administrative fines, at a minimum, for <br />regulatory matters that are not duplicative of misdemeanor or higher level state <br />traffic and criminal offenses. Metro Cities also endorses a fair hearing process <br />before a disinterested third party. <br />2-H Residential Care Facilities <br />Sufficient funding and oversight is needed to ensure that residents living in residential <br />care facilities have appropriate care and supervision and that neighborhoods are not <br />disproportionately impacted by high concentrations of residential care facilities. <br />Historically, federal and state laws have discouraged the concentration of residential <br />group homes so as not to promote areas that reinforce institutional quality settings. <br />Under current law, operators of certain residential care facilities are not required to notify <br />cities when they intend to purchase single-family housing for this purpose. Cities do not <br />have the authority to regulate the locations of group homes and residential care facilities. <br />Cities have reasonable concerns about high concentrations of these facilities in residential <br />neighborhoods, and additional traffic and service deliveries surrounding these facilities <br />when they are grouped closely together. Municipalities recognize and support the <br />services residential care facilities provide. However, cities also have an interest in <br />preserving balance between group homes and other uses in residential neighborhoods. <br />Providers applying to operate residential care facilities should be required to notify the <br />city when applying for licensure so as to be informed of local ordinance requirements as <br />a part of the application process. Licensing agencies should be required to notify the city <br />2016 Legislative Policies 13 <br />