The Abridged version:
- The Sacramento City Council’s Law and Legislation Committee will weigh in on a proposed enforcement program aimed at vacant buildings and storefronts deemed a “public nuisance.”
- The proposed program would place more scrutiny on vacant properties, and landlords could face up to $600 in monthly fees.
- A separate effort for a vacancy tax is losing favor and does not appear headed to the ballot anytime soon.
Landlords with vacant lots or empty storefronts could face more severe penalties under an enforcement program the city of Sacramento is considering.
The city aims to add more teeth to its vacant property ordinances that could add up to $600 in monthly fees for properties considered a “public nuisance.”
The Sacramento City Council’s Law and Legislation Committee will weigh in on the proposed enforcement program on Tuesday. If approved, it would go before the council in April for a full hearing.
Meanwhile, an idea for a tax on vacant properties has lost favor.
Sacramento has more than 5,000 vacant lots
Sacramento has some 5,115 empty lots scattered across the city. Under the city’s current vacant lot program, only about half of those properties have registered with the city, and about 149 are considered a “nuisance,” with overgrown weeds or rubbish filling the site.
Under the proposal, the city will substantially increase how often it monitors those empty and overgrown sites, and all landlords with a vacant lot or empty storefront would have to register with the city. From there, they would be required to monitor their properties biweekly and provide documentation that they’re complying with city codes, according to a draft of the proposal.
The program would be aimed at helping the city identify nuisance and dangerous properties earlier and would “reduce repeated responses to chronic properties” by fire, police and building code staff.
Vegetation, fencing regulated
The proposal would limit how high vegetation could grow on the properties and impose new requirements for fencing. Vacant, boarded up buildings would also be deemed a nuisance property as well as any buildings with signs for an inactive business.
Parking lots, community gardens, farms and sites with an active building permit would be exempt from the monitoring program.
Steep fees for nuisances
Properties declared a nuisance would face an initial $1,079 fee for lots and a $2,146 fee for buildings. The city would then monitor those properties and charge monthly monitoring fees of about $600 aimed at clearing any violations on the site. Properties would have to go 24 months without any violations before they could be taken off the monitoring list, according to the draft proposal.
To accommodate those additional inspections, the city would have to add between 10 and 25 new city staff positions. Fees for the program would fully cover the cost of more staff, according to the draft proposal.
‘Ineffective’ approach, opponents say
Wayne Winegarden, an economic researcher with the Pacific Research institute, said that the policy was an ineffective way of dealing with vacant properties. He warned that such penalties could make it harder for landlords to sell their properties or build on them.
“This strikes me as the wrong approach,” Winegarden said. “We know that the big problem in terms of building is the fees, the time, the administrative burden … that drives up the cost of building.”
City continues to explore vacancy tax
The council committee will discuss the vacancy tax on empty properties, which would result in thousands of dollars in penalties. But city staff recommended that the idea be shelved to pursue the enforcement program.
In recent months, city staff met with a series of local real estate and business organizations and found that most don’t support a vacant property tax, according to a separate staff report on the vacancy tax.
“Participants emphasized that property owners should not be penalized for holding property vacant, particularly in situations where market conditions or regulatory barriers make development infeasible,” the report states.
Felicia Alvarez is a reporter at Abridged covering accountability. She’s called Sacramento home since 2015 and has reported on government, health care and breaking news topics for both local and national news outlets.