Mar 3, 2018 3 min read

A Washington city councilman has proposed a new way of dealing with blight and visible property maintenance violations throughout the city.

During a non-legislative meeting Monday, Matthew Staniszewski proposed to Mayor Scott Putnam and other council members a potential city ordinance called “quality-of-life violation ticketing.”

“It could provide our code enforcement with an additional tool,” Staniszewski said. “I think it’d be something we could use in our community here to improve the quality of life for the neighborhoods and business district.”

The ordinance would address visible property code violations such as high grass, indoor furniture on front porches, garbage dumping, junked vehicles and other similar issues that “negatively affect the appearance of the neighborhood,” Staniszewski said.

Staniszewski said the ordinance would work similarly to parking tickets, with increasing fines the longer the problem goes unresolved. He said one of the main goals is to speed compliance from property owners.

“A lot of these are common property maintenance violations that get tied up in court, and the property owners don’t come into compliance, and the issue isn’t resolved in a timely manner,” he said.

If property owners had to deal with a ticket instead of a court process, Staniszewski said it could speed up solutions. Under current city ordinances, if code enforcement is provided with a complaint, they typically inspect the property and give the owner a certain number of days to resolve any violations. If compliance isn’t achieved, code enforcement can issue a citation, which then proceeds to court.

“At some point these issues may still go to court,” Staniszewski said about his proposal. “Each day would become a separate violation, and it does escalate, and at some point they would be taken to court.”

Staniszewski said another goal for the ticketing program would be to bring money into the city by way of fines, typically between $25 and $100. He said the “ultimate goal,” however, is to clean up the community.

“Obviously, this is not going to solve every problem, but it provides an additional tool,” he said.

Staniszewski said other municipalities across the state have implemented the ticketing system, including Scranton, Allentown, Hazleton and Reading.

Putnam and other council members said they’d be interested in further discussion of the proposal.

“There will be several discussions with mayor and council and our solicitor to find out what will make the most sense for the city of Washington,” Staniszewski said. “Code enforcement officer Ron McIntyre will be heavily involved in drafting an ordinance and providing his expertise.”