Council wants to ease up on code enforcement
After recent complaints from Fort Myers Beach residents and businesses, the Fort Myers Beach Town Council went into a lengthy discussion Thursday about how to handle code enforcement.
There’s two basic modes of operation for code enforcement: complaints-based, and proactive.
Council agreed that a complaints-based system is problematic, as it can pit neighbor against neighbor to voice their displeasure about someone’s overgrown lot or other aesthetic want.
But for some in the community, the proactive approach has been too punitive.
“I would like to stay with proactive. Just use common sense,” said Council Member Dennis Boback. “We don’t have to use a hammer to kill a fly.”
Town Manager Roger Hernstadt said the town needed to be proactive about some code violations, like building without a permit, as certain violations threaten the health and safety of others around that property.
“But some things, we don’t necessarily have to we can wait for a complaint to come in,” he said. “We will be happy to operate under whatever you want.”
Vice Mayor Joanne Shamp said there needed to be levels of immediacy, and a process to deal with the emergency and non-emergency violations. She drafted a warning letter that could be handed out to a violating property, which in more pleasant language, explains what they’re in violation of and how they can fix it, rather than a straight warning or a notice of violation. She also suggested “code enforcement” should be branded as “neighborhood services” to alleviate the stigma against the department.
“Neighbors don’t want to complain, that’s why we went proactive,” Boback said.
Council Member Anita Cereceda said she’d heard from people who felt “weighed down upon” by the current code enforcement policy. She was one of a town hall forum of speakers at a recent Estero Island Taxpayers Association (EITA) at which code enforcement was discussed.
She said a lot of people have told her they’re not getting responses when they call or email town hall.
“Communication is a big issue,” she said. “We should be servants to the public to make this place better in a helpful manner, not in a ‘here’s your fine’ manner. That’s intimidating.”
Hernstadt said there’s no excuse for town staff not to be nice when dealing with the residents and public, and not acceptable for them to not be responding in a timely manner.
“I’m not happy where we’re at. We have a lot of work to do,” he said, but also added that code enforcement is an issue for most municipalities, and it’s always a work in progress.
His takeaway from council discussion was to continue to be proactive, having code enforcement officers keeping an eye out for violations, but to reduce the fine to $100 a day for noncompliant violators if the violation is not threatening to public health or safety. Shamp drafted a letter than could be used in a nicer way to alert someone of their violation; Hernstadt said that language could be worked into the current language of the warning letter. Typically, violators are warned first, he said.
“We’re not trying to manufacture cases,” he said.
Right of Way rethinking
Along the lines of code enforcement, council delved into the issue of commercial businesses using the town’s right of way.
It’s a problem that recently surfaced after several businesses were told by town staff that they were in violation of town code by using the town right of way for parking.
In a majority of the cases, the businesses’ parking spaces were mostly on their property, with a few feet of the spot hanging into the right of way. For Rae and Rick Sprole, owners of the Sun Deck Inn, they had proof their parking spots had been configured as they are for many decades.
“When there’s a problem and people are unhappy, it’s our job to solve it,” Shamp said.
She made a chart that outlined the different business uses of right of way, and determined that some businesses don’t fit into the traditional parking agreement normally applied to businesses who want town right of way.
She suggested that pre-incorporation businesses with nonconforming properties should be treated differently, especially if the right of was “is not needed for a public purpose, we should let them use it.” She said the town should memorialize that the town is essentially renting the right of way to these businesses with a nominal fee to establish that it’s the property of the town.
“I think they have a right for us to treat them in a separate category, and treat them gently,” she said.
Hernstadt said the current process for a business to use the right of way for parking is an “administrative nightmare,” and the simplest way would be to have a permit with a fee, renewed annually.
“I’ve given this a lot of thought,” he said. “We really need to set a flat fee.”
Cereceda said the permit fee should be nominal, and would help the town catalogue properties that are “oddball properties” that could undergo redevelopment in the future. But she didn’t support setting a “burdensome” fee.
Since it was a planning meeting, the council did not take action on the right of way discussion. Hernstadt said he’d bring back a permit structure with associated fees back for a future meeting.