UNIVERSITY CITY BREAKS GROUND WITH PROPERTY CODE

UNIVERSITY CITY -- One of the first cities in the nation to develop a comprehensive program to curb the spread of deteriorated housing was University City, a suburb of St. Louis.

Like many suburbs in older metropolitan areas, University City seemed likely to inherit the housing problems of St. Louis as the city dwellers flocked to the suburbs in the 1960s.

But local officials responded by adopting a minimum property maintenance code. An integral part of the code was the adoption in 1967 of an occupancy permit law to enforce the code.

The vigorous occupancy permit program is aimed at rental and owner-occupied units. The permit ordinance requires all new renters or owners in the city of about 43,000 people to apply at city hall for permission to occupy a building.

The permit application triggers an inspection by city officials, who determine the structure's capacity and condition.

The program was the brainchild of Al Goldman, still the city's planning director.

Goldman said that without the enforcement arm of the occupancy permit, the city's minimum property maintenance code would be all but worthless.

"For us, the occupancy permits were important," he said. "We stumbled on the opportunity, not really realizing what we had.

"Once we started that, though, we realized we had a real effective tool to make sure every property was inspected. I think it lets us use our resources effectively."

Goldman said an important aspect of the occupancy permit program is that it enforces building codes at a critical point when there's a change in occupancy.

"At the time a house changes hands or an apartment is being rented out, there's some money changing hands," Goldman explained. "At that time, we're able to get some critical areas looked at and make sure money is being spent in the right areas."

In other words, the occupancy permit procedure encourages maintenance at a time when the owner of the property has an incentive to make the needed repairs there soon will be a cash transaction to pay for the fix.

Carol Lewis became supervisor of the occupancy permit inspection office in 1970. She said enforcement of the law typically occurs when a homeowner puts his house on the market ... and then calls the city's housing code office to schedule an inspection.

The fee for inspection of a single- or two-unit building is $65. That fee includes two follow-up inspections. Any additional inspections will cost $25. For multi-unit complexes, the fee is $30 per unit, per inspection.

In the case of multi-family units, the inspection typically is triggered when the future tenant applies for an occupancy permit. The owner of the building is then contacted to arrange for an inspection.

Lewis said inspections also can be generated by a complaint, which often puts the city in the middle of landlord/tenant disputes.

"When we get a complaint from a tenant, we make sure they've reported it to the landlord first, before there's an inspection," Lewis said. "We make sure there's communication there before we send out an inspector."

Goldman added: "We do run into situations where you've got a difficult owner who says he's got a tenant that's tearing up the place and he can't evict him."

Lewis said that the city still must enforce the code. "We can't stop enforcing the code just because it's the tenant's fault," she said.

To ensure the city isn't missing any property, the public schools in University City require students to present a valid occupancy permit before enrollment. There also are special evening investigators whose job it is to make spot checks in apartment areas.

Lewis said the city also worked out an agreement recently with Union Electric, which provides the city with all new utility connections. Those connections can be checked with the city's occupancy records to assure no one "slips through the cracks," she said.

If code violations are found upon inspection Goldman said most inspections turn up some type of infraction a notice of violation is sent to the owner.

And the owner must address the problem. If a property owner shows, after repeated inspections, that he's not willing to make the needed repairs, he'll be summoned to court.

In University City, one-third to one-half of municipal court time is spent on housing matters. Up to half the cost of operating University City's municipal court represents the cost to enforce the city's housing, building and zoning ordinances.

"We're very zealous here in our code enforcement," Goldman said. "There are some people who won't have anything to do with us, and it's almost mutual."

Goldman conceded that rigid building code enforcement can force out developers who can save money and effort by building elsewhere.

"Dealing with zoning is costly; dealing with regulation is costly," he said. "But you have to look at anything the city does and gauge its political backlash.

"Of course with property codes, the people who were most unhappy were the ones selling their house and moving out of the community. The people most happy were the ones moving into the community.

"The unhappy people weren't going to vote anymore, and the people who were happy were going to be voting, so it made it easy, politically, to get this through."

But Goldman said he doubted University City, or any city, could effectively enforce such a program if it had a large percentage of substandard housing.

Urban renewal efforts that started in the 1960s eliminated much of University City's substandard housing.

"We had other programs to clear out the worst housing," Goldman said. "I think if you're talking about standard housing, this program will work. If you're talking about substandard housing, you're going to deal with abandonment."

But Goldman said the long-term result of no enforcement of building codes would have been the same in University City.

"Housing values in University City were very low for a long time," he said. "They were so low that if we didn't have a program like this to force repairs, we would have had a lot more neglected properties and abandonment."

Tuesday's installment of this series will look at how Columbia enforces a maintenance code with a three-year permit program for all rental units.