Code violations pile up in Valley

Most homes have a couch, a stove and a sink inside.

But Marilyn Hood used to keep those items outside her house on 11th Avenue.

The 51-year-old Spokane Valley resident said she was saddled with a bunch of junk after a family member moved out. Her carport was crammed, and the neighbors couldn’t help but notice.

“My problem was I didn’t have a truck to haul the stuff away,” Hood said.

A letter from the city of Spokane Valley’s code enforcement department prodded her to find a solution. Someone had filed a complaint that Hood was violating two laws passed last year: one prohibiting junk vehicles on residential property, and a nuisance law that outlaws general trash from piling up.

If she didn’t take action, Hood would have had to pay $500. If she complied with the request to clean up, the fee would be forgiven.

Hood cleaned it up. A friend lent a truck and two loads later, her yard is in better shape.

“I feel better that it’s cleaned up, but I’ve still got more to go,” she said.

Since Spokane Valley incorporated March 31, 2003, it has put great emphasis on code enforcement. During the first 10 months of this year alone, that department’s two employees have addressed 772 new complaints filed by citizens about junk cars, trashy yards, illegal signs and other violations.

Of those cases, 115 property owners weren’t in violation of the law; 384 cases have been cleaned up; and 213 cases are pending, meaning the officers either are investigating them or the owners are in the process of removing the items voluntarily.

Four cases will be resolved in Superior Court and 20 others are close to heading in the same direction, code enforcement officer Chris Berg said.

The situations have ranged from unattractive to downright dangerous. In one case, a property owner stored fertilizer chemicals in a building in the southeast part of the city. Over time, the chemicals expanded – so much so that the walls of the building were bulging like a football player wearing a child’s shirt.

“Basically they had a 2-megaton bomb sitting next to Shelley Lake,” Berg said.

Tom Scholtens, the city’s building official, added, “It was a potential for a catastrophe.”

In another case, transients had broken into a boarded-up, vacant house owned by a family in Western Washington. Once the property owners were told they had uninvited tenants, they kicked the people out. They plan to bulldoze the house and sell the land, Scholtens said.

A lot of times, there aren’t happy endings for everyone. Sometimes tenants are evicted. Once, residents removed 40 bags of garbage from their house and simply dumped it in the railroad right of way.

John Baldwin has noticed junk problems in Spokane Valley for years. The volunteer with University SCOPE – which stands for Sheriff’s Community Oriented Policing Effort – has put his signature on dozens of complaints to the city. (Code enforcement in Spokane Valley is complaint-driven, so the officers must receive formal complaints before they can investigate a property.)

“People started calling once the new city took effect,” Baldwin said. He and other SCOPE volunteers put their names on complaints to protect the privacy of the residents who first notice the problems. University SCOPE volunteers alone are responsible for about 200 of the complaints the city has received, he said.

Baldwin said the city looks better since officials began enforcing the new laws last year. One home had garbage inside stacked so high you could see it piling up through the windows. Then, a church group helped the homeowner remove everything so he could comply with the law.

When Spokane Valley incorporated, it inherited more than 500 complaints about junky cars and yards from Spokane County.

“Sometimes the county has been lax on ordinances and enforcing them,” Baldwin said. He added that he didn’t think the county had the personnel and the right laws to deal with the problems in the Valley.

“The (law) adopted here has more teeth to it,” Baldwin said.

Bill Benish, the county’s codes administrator, said the county’s hands were tied somewhat in the past. The Washington state Legislature made a law change recently that allows counties more power to abate nuisances, and Spokane County has an ordinance under review now related to this, he said.

And while the city’s code enforcement officers can focus on the junk cars, trash, illegal signs and other violations, Benish said the county’s department also has to also tackle fire code, plumbing and a wide variety of other regulations and violations.

Finally, the city’s laws have more immediate consequences than the laws in the county, he said.

He warned, though, that a debris-free yard can be temporary.

“Many chronic compliance cases, even if you get them cleaned up, they have a nasty habit of coming back again in a year,” Benish said. “Sometimes you can change the appearance of a property, but you can’t change the behaviors of the people who live there.”

Berg told the City Council recently that the garbage removal charge is high in Spokane Valley and that contributes to the trash problem. Steve Wulf, of Waste Management, said only 60 percent to 65 percent of Spokane Valley residences subscribe to the optional service.

Spokane Valley residents, as well as unincorporated county residents, pay $14.39 a month for weekly pickup of one can of trash, Wulf said. Two cans cost $20.89.

By comparison, Spokane charges $14.46 a month for weekly pickup of a 32-gallon can and $22.32 a month for a 68-gallon can. Kent charges $13.73 a month for a 32-gallon can. Federal Way charges $11.15 a month for a 32-gallon can and $16.56 a month for a 64-gallon can. Kent and Federal Way have populations similar to Spokane Valley.

Hood, who has the home on 11th Avenue, doesn’t fault the city for strong-arming her into cleaning up her yard.

“I know that they’ve got to do their job,” she said. “I’m glad that the stuff’s gone. It was a mess.”

But Grant Lundin, 85, doesn’t agree with the junk-vehicle ordinance. His friend, Garth Peterson, was able to prove this year that the old cars at his Spokane Valley home are collectibles – not trash.

“Garth had gathered his cars over many, many years and they were only objectionable to people who knew nothing about cars,” Lundin said.

Lundin is a retired mechanic who used to own the Antique Auto Ranch. He talks excitedly about working on his 1916 Studebaker “with a top so high you have to stand on your tiptoes to reach it,” he said.

Lundin encloses the six cars and the automobile parts on his Spokane property with a fence, which is allowable under the Spokane Valley law. But forcing a person to hand over their passion – not to mention their property – isn’t fair, he said.

“You’re talking about my whole lifestyle,” Lundin said.