City residents report a zoning violation each weekday
STAMFORD — It’s been eight months since the Land Use Bureau began ticketing property owners who violate zoning regulations.
Residents for years have called for the city to crack down on zoning violations, and as word of the new zoning policy gets out, officials are logging four or five complaints a week, Land Use Bureau Chief Ralph Blessing said Tuesday.
Complaints fall mostly into two categories, said Blessing, who is set to update members of the Board of Representatives next week on the ordinance they passed in March.
Blessing spent a good part of last year setting up a citation process and began issuing fines in October.
“It’s citywide. There are frequent complaints about industrial activity in residential areas.” City Rep. Virgil de la Cruz, D-2
“I would say that probably 40 percent of the complaints are about commercial use of residential property,” Blessing said. “Another 40 percent are housing-related — overcrowding and illegal apartments.”
The remaining 20 percent are “random” reports, Blessing said.
“It’s things like, ‘My neighbor doesn’t paint his fence,’ or ‘My neighbor keeps the light on all night long,’” he said. “Not all of
them are things we can address.”
His office takes a good deal of action against owners of residential properties who illegally operate commercial enterprises from their homes and yards.
“It’s that guy who runs a landscaping business out of his garage, and parks a big dump truck out front,” Blessing said. “That’s not allowed in a residential area.”
Add-ons
City Rep. Virgil de la Cruz, D-2, co-chairman of the Board of Representatives’ Land Use Committee, which will hear Blessing’s update when it meets June 26, said zoning enforcement is a challenge.
“It’s citywide,” de la Cruz said. “There are frequent complaints about industrial activity in residential areas. We were looking to do something about another problem — cases where one-family houses are converted illegally to twofamily, two-family houses to three-family, and so on.”
The board wanted to pass an ordinance requiring that sellers report the legally allowed use of a building to the buyer, de la Cruz said, but the state ties the city’s hands.
“Sometimes a person buys a structure and thinks it’s a three-family, but it is legally only a two-family,” he said. “We learned that a state law would have to be passed before a municipality could require that the seller list the zoning status.”
Riddle of rules
Zoning is a tricky business.
It’s the Police Department, for instance, that handles reports of excessive noise, Blessing said. But if the noise is created by illegal use of a structure, the Zoning Department handles it.
The same with large trucks parked at the curb obstructing traffic or sight lines. Generally that is a problem for the Traffic Department, Blessing said, but if the truck is part of a business operating illegally in a residential neighborhood, the complaint goes to his department.
He said FixIt Stamford, the city’s online service request platform, is designed to help residents direct their complaints, but kinks are still getting worked out. For years the city has had one zoning enforcement officer and two inspectors, but his office is about to hire a third inspector, Blessing said.
“With another person, we can certainly do more,” he said.
Many cases, though, are handled by more than his department.
“Usually with illegal apartments the complaint goes first to the Health Department because they have stronger powers to order people to vacate a unit immediately if there is a danger,” Blessing said.
Barking dog?
Residents can help by filing accurate reports, he said.
“Sometimes it would be better to have more precise information – saying that the house with the problem is yellow and is next to the house where the dog always barks is not very helpful,” Blessing said. “Sometimes, because of a little confusion in our system, people mix up their own house with the house they are calling about. Then our inspectors knock on the door and say, ‘We’re here to look at your house,’ and the person says, ‘I’m the one who lodged the complaint.’”
Until the ordinance was passed, the city had no sharp tools for pursuing zoning violators.
Enforcement officers could only take the violator to court for a cease-anddesist order, then wait months for a judge to decide what, if any, action to take. Now Blessing’s bureau may issue fines right away.
When a complaint comes in, an inspector visits the property and, if a violation is found, sends the owner a notice. The owner has seven days to correct the violation.
If that doesn’t happen, the owner is fined $100 per violation per day. Owners who need time to resolve a problem may ask for a resolution conference to set up a plan with the city. But if after 30 days the owner takes no action, the case goes to a citation hearing officer.
If the officer concludes the fines have merit, the city takes the owner to court and places a lien on the property.
In one case involving commercial use of a residential property, the Land Use Bureau issued a sixfigure fine, Blessing said.
“It’s in litigation,” he said. “Even if it goes in the city’s favor, we probably won’t get all the money we wrote the ticket for.”
Residents may register complaints by filling out a form at FixIt Stamford, found at www.stamfordct.gov.