Keep it short

Sandy Bressner – sbressner@kcchronicle.com Marty Bradley walks her dog, Gus, past an empty lot in the Blackberry Creek subdivision in Elburn, where she has lived for two years. The number of nuisance property enforcement actions have increased throughout the area in 2009, mainly due to the stagnant housing market and the increase in the number of foreclosures.

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When the housing market stagnated, Dennis Erickson didn’t expect that he eventually would find himself hip-deep in weeds.

But for much of the last month, Erickson, a part-time officer with the Elburn Police Department, has spent much of his time focused on little other than weeds – or, more precisely, persuading the owners of some of the village’s numerous vacant lots to keep their vegetation properly clipped.

“We’ve got a good amount who just haven’t kept up with their weeds,” Erickson said. “But a lot of these are just owners who intended to build on the lots and haven’t, and their weeds have grown too tall.

“So now we have to go out and provide them with a friendly reminder.”

Throughout the summer, the reminders – both friendly and otherwise – appear to have occupied a larger share of the time of those responsible for enforcing municipal building and maintenance codes in Tri-Cities and surrounding communities.

In Geneva, for instance, as of the middle of September, the city’s Building Department had already dealt with 495 cases of violations of city code in 2009, according to figures supplied by Building Commissioner Chuck Lencioni.

That figure marked a 36 percent increase from the same period in 2008, when the city issued 364 code violation notices for such infractions as overgrown grass and weeds, improper posting of address signs, improper sump pump discharge, improper snow removal, inoperable vehicles and trash container violations.

Overgrown grass and weeds constituted one of the largest single categories of the code violations, as the city processed 62 grass and weed complaints in the spring and summer of 2009, Lencioni said. The category also posted one of the largest increases from 2009 to 2008, jumping 48 percent from last year when 42 complaints were filed with the Geneva Building Department.

Lencioni blamed the state of the housing market for much of the increase. In particular, the number of home foreclosures in the area, which has accelerated since 2007, have contributed to the spike.

“It’s the foreclosures, definitely,” he said. “On a lot of these properties – and especially with the grass and the weeds – we’re sending notices, only to have to eventually just go in there and clean it up ourselves and send along the bill.”

St. Charles also experienced a similar spike, as that city issued 574 notices of violation through the first eight months of 2009, an increase from the 529 it had issued from January to August 2008. Overall, the city issued 873 violation notices in 2008.

St. Charles did not break out the violations by category.



The troubles of the housing market, however, have not impacted code enforcement in every city the same way.

In Batavia, the number of violation notices have decreased this year, said Code Enforcement Officer Rhonda Klecz. She reported that the number of violations noted stood at 705 year-to-date, on pace to finish around 830 for the year. Last year, the city processed 949 code violations, Klecz said.

The city has also issued just two citations for grass or weeds that had grown too tall, compared to eight in 2008, city records show.

And in Elburn, the village has processed just 38 complaints for grass and weed violations through September, compared to 77 last year.

Officials in both Batavia and Elburn, however, noted that this does not mean the number of troublesome properties has decreased. Rather, the troubles of the economy have forced leaders in both communities to cut the amount spent in their building departments.

That, in turn, caused enforcement of the municipal codes to suffer through the summer, as some of the duties of the building departments were redefined or transferred to other departments.

In Elburn, for instance, the police department resumed the duties of code enforcement about a month ago, said Erickson, as building department employees were reassigned.

Since then, the village has issued 17 new weed growth complaints in September alone, compared to just four in July and August.

In Batavia, Klecz said, city budget cuts have limited the amount of time she and other city workers can devote to enforcement.

But Klecz said some of her time has also been occupied by a more gentle concern — helping those who in years past might have been fined for code violations take care of the violation without a court appearance. That might entail taking time to help them understand what needs to be done or, in some cases, even connect with a community service organization that could lend a hand.

“Some of these people, I know why their house has peeling paint or a deteriorating porch,” Klecz said. “They may have lost their jobs, or their just in a tight spot right now.

“Sometimes, and especially now, people just need a little help.”