New city code effort targeting problem corridors
Columbus code enforcement officers will be targeting problem properties along Cleveland, Parsons and East Livingston avenues for violations because of the large number of complaints, crime, and vacant houses along those corridors.
“We looked at 311 requests, criminal statistics for the area, (and) narrowed down more of the problematic areas within the city,” said Scott Messer, the director of the city’s Department of Building and Zoning Services. “That was really the driving force. It’s data driven.”
Messer said the new targeted effort will be done along the entire length of each street within city limits, but not into the adjacent neighborhoods, where normal enforcement will continue.
The Proactive Code Enforcement
(PACE) team includes code enforcement officers and representatives from the city attorney’s office. According to 2021 city statistics:
h Cleveland Avenue had 87 complaints to the city’s 311 service. Eighty code enforcement violations were issued that included 67 vacant properties.
h Livingston Avenue had 98 complaints to 311 and 86 code enforcement violations issued with 55 vacant properties involved.
h Parsons Avenue had 174 complaints to 311 and 59 code enforcement violations issues with 43 vacant houses involved.
“To further ensure the safety and well-being of all our neighborhoods, it is vital that we address those areas in which we are seeing comparatively high levels of code violations and concern,” Mayor Andrew J. Ginther said in a statement.
Using data, Ginther said, will enable the city to better focus its strategy and resources.
Jim Griffin, who leads the Columbus South Side Area Commission, said Parsons Avenue has at least two active drug houses near Sheldon Avenue. “We got one closed down on Jenkins,” he said. “It took about eight months.”
Griffin also said trash collects in the
parking lot of a vacant store at Parsons Avenue, and a used car lot he said looks like a dumping ground for cars involved in accidents.
Jasmine Ayres, engagement officer for the New Salem Baptist Church’s community development corporation, which is based on Cleveland Avenue in North Linden, said a targeted effort could help improve the corridor if the city goes after the biggest offenders and doesn’t nickel-and-dime people for minor things.
“Is there a lot of trash along Cleveland
Avenue? Yes. Are there trash cans every so many hundred feet? No there (aren’t),” she said, citing one of the issues the city must address.
The city is basing this effort on what it has done along Sullivant Avenue, which began after the Dispatch’s 2019 series, “Suffering on Sullivant,” which chronicled drug abuse, prostitution, other crime and problems plaguing a three-mile stretch of Sullivant Avenue.
The series revealed that vacant houses along the corridor and within one or two blocks of it were being used by prostitutes and drug addicts as places to live.
That’s where code enforcement efforts came in and are continuing, Messer said. In January 2020, the PACE team assigned an officer to inspect properties specifically along Sullivant using a systematic approach.
According to statistics the city provided, there have been 214 service requests to 311 along Sullivant Avenue so far this year. A total of 293 code enforcement violations have been issued and there are eight related court cases. That compares to 294 complaints to 311, 294 code violations and 32 related court cases in all of 2020.
But Franklinton resident Heidi Hughes said not nearly enough has been done. Hughes said that on Friday morning she saw 10 men lying on the ground at the corner of Sullivant and Brehl avenues, along with a woman disrobing. “It’s heroin heaven,” Hughes said. She said there’s still brazen drug activity every day, along with trash and urine. She also mentioned area shootings, including a July 1 homicide at the Patio Bar, 945 Sullivant Ave.
“I call Sullivant Avenue the three miles of despair,” she said. “It’s nothing but a fool’s paradise.”
Messer said that the new code enforcement effort has no time limit.
“As long as we feel we’re making a difference, the project will continue.” mferench@dispatch.com @Markferenchik