Fairfield council passes first reading of property maintenance ordinance

FAIRFIELD – The Fairfield City Council approved the first reading of an ordinance Monday to update its rental code and add a section on property maintenance.

The ordinance would entail the city adopting the International Property Maintenance Code. One of the changes in this proposed ordinance is that the property maintenance requirements would apply to all buildings, and it would allow the city to inspect buildings if there is an apparent danger to the occupants’ health and safety. The city would provide occupants with a 24 hour notice of inspection, though the city would not conduct inspections for commercial purposes such as buying or selling properties, financing or insurance.

Fairfield City Engineer and Public Works Director Melanie Carlson said current code does not give the city much freedom to inspect non-rental properties. She said the city can only intervene if a structure is abandoned or becomes a dangerous structure, and by then the building is past the point of repair. She hoped that the new ordinance would allow the city to work on buildings in disrepair before they became dangerous structures.

“Perhaps some can be saved or moved into the hands of an entity that could repair it before it’s beyond the point of repair,” she said.

Carlson mentioned a housing study conducted on Fairfield that showed the city has 33 homes in very poor condition, 104 in poor condition and 429 considered “below normal.”

Fairfield city council member Elizabeth Estey said the city works with Grow Fairfield Executive Director Joshua Laraby on finding grant opportunities for building owners who are struggling to maintain their property. Carlson said she believes the new ordinance will allow the city to help occupants who find themselves in a building they can’t maintain.

“The city recently took possession of a home in the last six months, and we were able to get [the occupant] into another location and get him out of horrible living conditions,” Carlson said. “We hope we can help people get out of those situations that are owner-occupied, and they need something like this to get out from under the weight of the building they’re in.”

Fairfield Mayor Connie Boyer asked Carlson if she expected the new ordinance to be applied mainly to residential buildings, and Carlson said yes, though the ordinance is written to apply to all buildings.

Carlson added that the city does not intend to perform regular interior inspections of buildings in the city, whether they be residences, businesses or industries.

“We intend to use this as an exterior inspection process unless there is a health concern,” she said. “We get a lot of complaints we have to sort through. We get complaints from other governmental agencies like DHS, or parole officers, or our own officers, letting us know about the conditions that people are living in.”

Carlson said that, when a resident registers a complaint, city staff take the complaint seriously, but the staff is also sure to ask follow-up questions.

“Is it someone who is getting evicted and wants to file every complaint possible?” Carlson said. “We still take them seriously.”

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Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com