City eyes strategies for code compliance
DAVID SHOWERS
Addressing the “ring of blight” City Manager David Frasher has said girds downtown is critical in drawing new residents and investment to the area, city officials trying to improve building code compliance said earlier this week.
Planning and Development Director Kathy Sellman said the disrepair of some areas can cause unease about venturing too deep into downtown’s orbit.
“We don’t want people downtown to get to a point on the street and say, ‘I’m not going any farther,’” she said. “People need to feel safe. Part of safety is feeling you’re in a place where people take care of their property.
“We’re aware right now we don’t have a best foot to put forward in some areas of our city. That shouldn’t be the case.”
While acknowledging that the city can’t impose aesthetic mandates, the officials said the code requires that buildings be painted. It’s one of many regulations they said have gone unheeded, prompting the city to consider strategies for increasing code compliance.
“If you don’t keep your building painted, and the weather beats on it, the wood will rot,” Fire Chief Ed Davis said. “The paint is nothing more than a protection for the exterior cladding. It’s just common sense.
“We have people in Hot Springs that feel like they don’t have to apply the normal maintenance functions to buildings, and that’s something we must change.”
Sellman said a more vigorous enforcement regime that imposes fines with greater frequency would motivate unresponsive property owners. City officials met with district court judges Ralph Ohm and David Switzer earlier this week to ask that fines be meted out more regularly and code violations be adjudicated more swiftly. A non-mandatory court summons for citations is also being contemplated, allowing fines to be paid without having to go to court.
Putting more teeth in enforcement doesn’t mean the city is going to reflexively issue citations, Sellman said. They are a last resort for the small percentage of property owners who ignore repeated warnings.
“Our goal is to work with people and have them understand how to comply with safety requirements,” she said. “When you get down to it, maybe 15 percent of the people we deal with simply don’t respond. Not only do they not respond completely, they don’t respond, period.”
Davis said most of the downtown property owners with buildings deemed unsafe after wholesale inspections by the fire department in 2013 are making progress toward complying with the Thermal Basin District Fire Code, which imposed the existing building code on commercial properties that had previously been under the less stringent vacant building code.
He said the fire department has confirmed the installation of a riser for a sprinkler system at the Medical Arts Building. Davis said the vacant Mountainaire Hotel on Park Avenue is the lone property of the roughly two dozen structures assessed as unsafe that’s yet to submit plans for fire suppression and means of egress.
“There’s still unsafe aspects to the building, but it’s poured concrete,” Davis said. “It’s not going to catch on fire. There’s no contents in it. The primary issues are the upper floors and means of egresses.”
Sellman said the Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa is “working very hard” on a plan to address the notice of unsafe conditions the city sent it in June.
“They’ve contacted experts in the field of rehabilitation of similar historic properties,” she said. “They’re on track to get things done. They’ve been really, really cooperative.”
Police Chief Jason Stachey said enhanced enforcement is an element of the “Broken Windows” philosophy he and other city leaders subscribe to. It centers on policing minor infractions more diligently, creating an environment that’s less likely to enable crime.
“If you have a house or a block in a location that begins to deteriorate, it shows neglect and an uncaring attitude that residents no longer take pride in ownership or care what happens in the community,” he said. “Essentially, that invites the criminal element in.”
Stachey said the push to make Hot Springs the “safest, most inviting community in the state” can’t be a top-down mandate. The community has to provide the impetus. The city said more than half of its residents live on property that they don’t own.
“We have to have buy-in from every resident who lives in Hot Springs if we’re going to make Hot Springs the jewel of Arkansas,” he said. “We’ll be talking to the landlord association and other stakeholders about our new proactive approach moving forward.”
While code enforcement personnel will be more proactive about policing noncompliant building exteriors, Sellman said complaints will still drive enforcement of interior violations.
“If there’s something obviously unsafe or not code compliant on the exterior of a building, we’re going to start with that,” Sellman said. “We’re not going to knock on somebody’s door and say, ‘I need to see if something is wrong in there.’ If we don’t have a complaint, we’re not there.”
Davis said he sees the push for more enforcement as a continuation of the Central Business Improvement District that dissolved in 2012 and earlier initiatives to revitalize downtown.
“Hot Springs has a very large number of buildings that need maintenance,” he said. “It’s a huge number, so this is a gargantuan task we’re shouldering. It’s something that’s necessary for the future of the community, it’s health and safety and even its future economic vitality.”
More information is available by calling planning and development at 321-6855. Pamphlets explaining the building code are also available at the planning and development office in City Hall, 133 Convention Blvd.