CC_Minutes_2018_0917 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Regular City Council Meeting Monday, September 17, 2018 Page 22 Mayor Roe wondered how the homeowner is going to know to register their va- cant property with the City. Ms. Collins stated the same argument can be made if there becomes nuisance is- sues, the City has to do the legwork to contact the owner. In terms of residential, she worked in a community that had this primarily for commercial purposes and as Mr. Englund suggested, it certainly starts the window on any non-conforming argument. Councilmember Etten stated if people agree with having a rental license program he did not see any difference. The only difference he sees is that no one is in the house, which makes it less likely it will be cared for and harder to find the person. Mayor Roe wondered how the City can let the property owners know about this proposed program. Councilmember Etten thought the City could find out if a property is vacant is whether or not water is being used. Councilmember Willmus thought the issue the City has with vacant property is being able to get a hold of the owner. Even if the City has the owner's infor- mation, he felt there will be the same issue of being able to contact them. The $35 will probably come at the point the property is sold and not upfront. He stat- ed he was intrigued by it and would be open to discussing it more but the focus for him would be on structures versus parcels of property. Mayor Roe stated he would like to get more information from other communities who have this program to see how easy it was to implement and the compliance rate the cities have had. He stated he would be open to more discussion on this as well. Councilmember Laliberte stated she would be open to further discussion but if it would be residential related, she would want it to be limited to a structure. She gets the benefit of this in a commercial situation, but she had the same reservation with the rental registration. She felt with rental, people are more likely to look in- to what the City requires of them than if only a vacant property. She did not know how the City is going to educate everyone to know that. Councilmember McGehee suggested if the City wants to go forward with this, to ask staff to come up with something reasonable about what is vacant and what isn't. Mayor Roe thought there needed to be a period of time associated with that as well.