Form revised: August 9, 2010

FISCAL NOTE FOR NON-CAPITAL PROJECTS

Department:	Contact Person/Phone:	CBO Analyst/Phone:
Planning and Development	Diane Davis, 233-7873	Kristi Beattie, 684-5266

Legislation Title:

AN ORDINANCE relating to habitable and vacant buildings; amending Sections 22.206.040, 22.206.090, 22.206.130, 22.206.160, 22.206.200, and 23.91.002 of the Seattle Municipal Code to update habitable and vacant building regulations and related enforcement provisions.

Summary of the Legislation:  This legislation authorizes administrative changes to the Housing and Building Maintenance Code (HBMC) to make enforcement more streamlined both for DPD inspection staff and for property owners who have code violations on a property with a vacant building.  In order to facilitate these changes on parcels containing vacant buildings, all code requirements related to vacant buildings will be located in the Housing and Building Maintenance Code,  rather than having some violations in  the HBMC and others in Chapter 23.91 of the Land Use code.  This legislation also expands the premises maintenance requirements in the HBMC vacant building standards to specifically include removal of junk, vehicles, and hazardous vegetation from the premises.  At the same time, enforcement of junk storage and parking on vacant building properties is removed from Land Use Code citation enforcement. 

This proposal will also bring certain Housing and Building Maintenance Code requirements in line with current Seattle Building Code standards, which have changed since the HBMC requirements were implemented, so that standards in these two codes will be consistent.

Background: Regarding enforcement of the City’s minimum vacant building standards, currently the vacant building inspector must issue multiple documents for various violations located in separate codes for one building.   There may be as many as four separate enforcement documents necessary for a single building: a Notice of Violation for any violation of the vacant building standards, an Emergency Order for a building open to entry or otherwise immediately hazardous, a citation for junk storage or unlawful parking on the property, and a citation for weeds and vegetation overgrowth.  This multiplicity of documents is administratively burdensome for the inspection staff and confusing for the recipient.  It would be more efficient for the City and less confusing for the building owner to have all violations at the property encompassed in a single Notice of Violation, whereby the property owner would have only one set of deadlines and penalties to deal with.  It is believed that vacant building violations enforcement will thereby be more effective and more efficient.

The remainder of the amendments are in the nature of administrative “clean-up.”  Since the HBMC was adopted almost 20 years ago, the Seattle Building Code has been updated and the standards for residential buildings have changed, while the HBMC provisions have remained the same.  These amendments make the HBMC code provisions consistent with current building code standards in the areas of fire and safety standards, light and ventilation standards, heating standards, and owners’ duties.  Owners of those units that may not be able to meet current standards but were code-compliant when constructed will still have the option, as they do now, of obtaining approval of those obsolete but still serviceable building elements via the variance process.

Please check one of the following:

XX This legislation does not have any financial implications.  (Stop here and delete the remainder of this document prior to saving and printing.)

There will be some small administrative savings in the vacant building enforcement process.  The only other anticipated costs will be for minor updating of public information materials and enforcement documents.