Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
City monitors home occupancy
Fayetteville investigates complaints in certain neighborhoods
FAYETTEVILLE — City officials take a carrot-overstick approach when complaints of home over-occupancy spike in the fall after university students return to Fayetteville.
The city emphasizes compliance over enforcement, said Yolanda Fields, community resources director.
Three or more unrelated
people can’t live in a home in a single-family neighborhood. Four or more unrelated people can’t live in one residence in a multifamily area like apartments, according to city officials.
Building a case around over-occupancy complaints proves laborious, said Andrew Garner, city planning director.
“How can you enforce that from the city side of it?” Garner said. “You go out there, and you try to take photos of the different cars, and they’re like, ‘Oh, that’s my girlfriend’s, she was just here for the night,’ or, ‘We just had a party, and those people don’t live here,’ and things like that.”
The city’s approach has prompted at least one neighborhood group to take matters into its own hands.
Julie Minkel with the Wilson Park Neighborhood Association said young people’s disregard for the area has become more apparent since she moved there in 1986.
The association has decided to vigilantly monitor occupancy, insist the city follow up on complaints and get a listing of property owners who rent homes in the area, among other initiatives.
“We are saddened to see that we are facing situations that threaten to erode the beauty and sense of community in our neighborhood,” she said.
The city’s approach to over-occupancy may not be perfect, but the administration remains open to improvement if it’s needed, said Mayor Lioneld Jordan.
“I think we do a good job of keeping it under control,” he said. “I don’t think everybody would agree with that, but I think we do.”
SPOTTING OFFENDERS
The city adopted its over-occupancy ordinance in the early 2000s. College students cramming into homes far too small, and landlords taking advantage of them had become a substantial problem, said Kit Williams, city attorney.
The ordinance helped, but tackling the problem rounded a corner about five years later when the City Council passed its residential parking ordinance, Williams said. A single-family residence can have up to four cars parked in the driveway or off-street parking area not on the grass.
Multiple cars parked in front of a house indicates the number of people living there, making violators easier to identify, he said.
The City Council in December 2014 passed an ordinance requiring landlords to put the over-occupancy law somewhere in their leases. The measure prevents landlords from intentionally allowing more tenants than is legal, said Alderman Alan Long, who sponsored the ordinance. It also prevents tenants from claiming they didn’t know about the ordinance, he said.
The law took effect in July 2015. It’s still early, but it seems it has made good on its proactive intent, Long said.
Occupancy compliance is complaint-driven. The city’s four code officers act as the Planning Department’s eyes and ears when it receives a complaint, or service request, said Fields, community resources director.
Code compliance officers take pictures of cars or any other evidence. They give the evidence to city planners, who determine whether a violation likely has occurred, Fields said.
The Planning Department will send multiple letters to the property owner notifying him of the violation and allow him a period of time to correct it. The matter goes to the desk of the city prosecuting attorney if the people living at the residence don’t comply, or if the city gets no response, Fields said.
“It’s my understanding that is a lengthy process,” she said. “What usually happens is, by the time they get ready to do anything about it, the semester’s over, the kids are gone and it’s done.”
EDUCATING MASSES
City Prosecuting Attorney Casey Jones has his own investigator, Chad Ball. A visit from Ball will get an occupancy violator in compliance almost every time if it gets to that point, Jones said.
“That’s the main thing that you want out of these situations, is not a pound of flesh — you’re looking for compliance,” he said. “Since we’ve brought him over under our umbrella it’s been pretty successful.”
The city rarely prosecutes homeowners for over-occupancy. That’s a last resort, Jones said.
“What happens is a lot of these folks, they’re from out of town, and they’ll buy a home up here and go, ‘Oh good, we can pay our note on this house by renting it out to five or six kids,’” he said. “They just don’t know that’s actually against the law.”
City planners hand out pamphlets, make information available on the city website, talk to people and do whatever else they can to avoid over-occupancy in the first place, said David Carver, code compliance administrator.
“It’s a difficult ordinance to enforce, and planning just does the best they can to take care of it,” he said. “But again, one of our big things is education.”
Nancy Allen of the Woodland Neighborhood Association near Woodland Junior High School, said she feels the city handles occupancy complaints adequately.
Allen served on the Planning Commission from 2000 to 2006 and on the City Council from 2006 to 2008. She also heads Jordan’s re-election campaign. She has lived in the Woodland neighborhood for more than 20 years.
The association invites the neighborhood’s younger residents to its functions and meetings to keep them engaged in the community, she said.
Association members let the city know when college students continuously host rowdy parties and ignore neighbor complaints, she said. Police increase patrols in the area, which sends a message and gets them to calm down, she said.
“The best way, if you have a real nagging problem, is going to be the squeaky wheel,” she said. “But, it’s real hard to enforce.”
WELCOME NEIGHBORS
Members of the University Heights Neighborhood Association, which spans the west side of the hill near Razorback Stadium, often try to take care of matters themselves, said Ethel Simpson, 79, who has lived in the area since 1969.
Members will take photos and send letters to any unruly residents. The idea is to remind them they’re part of a community, Simpson said.
The University of Arkansas’ Off- Campus Housing staff try to get the word out on the rules and how to be neighborly, but student’s aren’t required to listen, said Samantha Higgins, assistant director for off-campus student services.
The over-occupancy law sits in plain view on the off-campus housing website. A screen with rotating messages adorns the community lounge. Everything is spelled out in the off-campus living guide, of which more than 2,000 get doled out each year. The university puts out as much information as it can whenever it can, Higgins said.
The responsibility for enforcement falls on the shoulders of the city, she said.
“They don’t see a lot of these, and it’s more community members than students,” she said. “Everyone thinks it’s a student problem, and it’s really not. Normal people can have too many people in their house as well.”
Having a rental registry would help track offenders, Higgins said.
Requiring landlords and property owners to put the over-occupancy law in the lease made for a level playing field, said Greg House of Houses Inc., a Fayetteville real estate development and management company.
If a property owner wants to go through the process he can request rezoning or a variance to the zoning, House said.
“It’s fairer to the folks and to the property owners in the rental business if everybody follows the law,” he said. “If guys are skirting the law, they have an unfair advantage.”
The over-occupancy ordinance also helps prevent damage to the property, House said. Cars parked on lawns and people roaming all over a residence can take a toll, he said.
“Part of it is just good ol’ health and safety,” he said. “These places are only designed for so many people.”
OTHER APPROACHES
The over-occupancy law in Lawrence, Kan., home of the University of Kansas, mirrors that of Fayetteville. Having a citywide rental registry makes it easy to know who lives where and to find people living out of compliance, City Code Enforcement Manager Brian Jimenez said.
Residents have to sign a form stating they know the city’s occupancy limits. The city also conducts regular rental inspections. If a code enforcer finds too many people living in one place, he’ll contact the landlord and someone has to move out, Jimenez said.
Athens, Ga., home of the University of Georgia, takes a restrictive approach to occupancy, said John Spagna, administrator of the city-county government’s Community Protection Division. No more than two unrelated people can live in a home in a single-family zone. The police handle some issues of over-occupancy, like cars parked on the front lawn and loud parties, Spagna said.
Code enforcement officers in Athens prefer residents admit their violations and resolve the issue themselves. If not, there are more creative solutions, he said.
College kids don’t usually own their vehicles. When cars continuously clog a neighborhood, Athens code enforcement will use the license plate information to call the offenders’ parents.
Springdale bases its occupancy limits on square footage of the household, according to city code. Homes with three to five residents must live with a living room of at least 120 square feet and a dining room of at least 80 square feet, for example.
A building inspector will measure the square footage of a residence and take into account the number of occupants when the city receives a complaint, said Melissa Reeves, Springdale spokeswoman. The homeowners will get a violation notice and 30 days to correct the situation.
The city will issue a citation if it gets continued noncompliance, Reeves said.
Rogers moved its code enforcement to the Police Department a few months ago, said Officer Keith Foster. Police can issue tickets if they find violations, but usually refer complaints to the code enforcement officers who moved over to the Police Department, he said.
Rogers has the same square-footage requirement for occupancy as Springdale, which is based on the International Property Maintenance Code, Foster said.
Fayetteville planners have investigated 30 over-occupancy complaints so far this year with 45 in 2015 and 43 in 2014, according to the city’s numbers. Many of those complaints turn out not to be violations, and others are repeat residences, Garner said.
The remainder usually get into compliance once they receive a violation notice, he said. The city has issued 17 violation notice letters so far this year.
The city is open to making changes to its approach to code compliance if the residents voice concern, although the problem doesn’t seem to be a rampant one, Jordan said. It’s a matter of keeping up with a surging student population of more than 27,000, he added.
“You can’t just go into somebody’s house and say, ‘ We know you’re in violation,’” he said. “The last thing you want to do is accuse folks of something they’re not guilty of.”