As much as "quality of life" gets tossed around in this area, I don't see how this proposed change fits the bill at all. I know that I have a rental just two houses down from me, and another just around the corner, and it has gone through four "families" in the last eight years, and another one just around the corner has four or five girls living in it. This is a nice, planned neighborhood, with a signed covenant, but we had kids skateboarding off the roof, urinating off the back deck, beer trash all over the street on weekends, driving WAY too fast (we have very young children here), loud party noise till two or three in the morning. Well, you get the idea.

The law is not enforced because those in power do not want it enforced. I find it very disturbing.

Hello Mr. Snapp. Thank you for your thoughtful response.



That's a fair question. Yes. When the partying got really bad, in the wee early morning hours, we did call for law enforcement, and things quieted down.

Eventually, we also contacted the property management, as you later suggested. This particular property has out of town owners. The students who are there now, are quieter than those who previously lived there.



You would think so. The most recent call to the property management came when one of the punks drove his car through the support beam that separated the two sides of the garage. The damage was extensive. The previous night's party brought that with it, along with a broken bedroom window.

What's sad is that about 10 years ago, a nice family lived here, and it used to be a lovely home with a nice yard and beautiful wood floors. Now, it is a wreck of a shell.



Responsible? I'm not sure how it is irresponsible, but okay. I recall reading last year, when Mr. Conoboy refused to let this issue die, that the police do not believe the enforcement of this issue is a worthwhile use of their time. I cannot recall the specifics of it, but I do recall reading it and thinking to myself that I understood that, but didn't like it. There was a direct quote from someone at the PD about this issue. I'm sorry I cannot pull that up.

Beyond that, I don't need to look any further than the Bellingham Municipal Code to read: "It shall be the duty of the Director (or authorized employee) to enforce the provisions of this ordinance, or any conditions properly imposed by the Hearing Examiner or Council related to the use of land, and see that any violations are remedied through proper legal channels."

That isn't happening. Yet, the language above makes that mandatory.



Well, a crafty debater would look at the Bellingham Municipal Code, with its mandatory enforcement language, and then look at the inaction of the Mayor, Council and Police Chief, and say, with some validity, "They don't want to enforce this law."



I'm glad that you agree with that.

Flat,



I don't know how to bracket quotes like you did but this statement of yours above, I agree with. Since then we have a new Police Chief and we seem to have a more responsive department policy or at least direction. Community policing, as I understand it, is all about responding to neighborhood complaints and taking them seriously. I'm supporting Todd until I'm proven wrong about that. As to the Code and it's family enforcement statements, I don't like it. I don't like the Code defining family structure and changing three unrelated to four just worsens what I don't like.

Dick, I think there are more than two issues. I don't like the first about defining families for a bunch of reasons. The second issue about enforcing parking, litter, noise, etc. I do think we can do that with help from neighbors as they are on scene and need to call it in.
I also think there is a third issue and that's the absentee landlord that is just using and abusing everyone; the building and yard, the tenents, and the neighbors. I don't have numbers so I don't have any way to measure how much of the problem this situation represents. It may be that the only way to address this issue is with licensing but, I don't want to set up a licensing system until I know what percentage of landlords are local and rent to a few and care about their properties. Many of these folks came to town and bought a house, then later moved up and kept the first house and rent it out as an investment. I don't want to see us createing a bureacracy to get at the few. If there's no other way, or we find out that we have large numbers of absentee owners packing students into small houses and creating illegal and unsafe rooming houses as Dick says, then I'll support some form of licensing and stronger action to keep places from getting run down. I think there may be support on Council to do this.

I wish this problem were being worked on more swiftly. I am finding though that I feel that way about a lot of issues that Council faces. Nothing in the COB moves at a pace that I would like; I'm a type A and am just wired with impatience. Staff suffers for my relentless pushing. Don't give up on us.

Admin Note: Fixed the quote above for Stan.

Criticizing the city is easy, it can feel good but it doesn't contribute to solving problems. WWU could build adequate houseing for it's student's but I don't see that happening. Enrollments are growing and with it the need for student housing. It's easy to find fault but I don't see your solutions. Going to each suspected house and identifying who is related to whom and kicking out those not belonging to whatever is defined as a family doesn't do anything but put people out on the street. It doesn't generate low income housing and it doesn't make neighborhoods better. Where are the solutions in what you are asking the city to do?

I agree that condo's or any other new housing except the few units built by the Housing Authority or the land trust don't contribute for the reasons you stated.

I agree that if we license landlords it will probably apply to all landlords and would have the authority to require the license to stay in business. That is a lot easier to enforce than staking out houses, knocking on doors and asking to see signatures on leases and birth certificates. I'm guessing that only a percentage of these rentals are money makers and whatever we charge will be passed on to the renters or will come out of any upkeep that would be done. If it comes directly from the renters then we are soaking it to those least able to pay and in most cases, they are not necessarily contributing to the problem. We penalize the many to get at the few. I'm not saying we shouldn't do it but I'd be much happier if you critics were offering up suggestions.

Dick,
I don't have time to read 126 blogs. I have read many of them in the last year along with the photo's of parked cars in front of houses. I agree with you that WWU building housing could help but it's unrealistic to think they will solve the problem. Dorms are expensive and generate zero return. I can't speak to why the current WWU President hasn't built any dorms in recent history while enrollments climb. I can't speak to whether the new President will have a different view. A letter from us won't change that situation any more than you've been able to by participating on the campus coalition committee. Adding students to the waterfront development will just add to the problem because no new student housing is being proposed that I know of. Also, the City has no say in the relationship WWU has with the Port. I've never understood why WWU, a customer of the Port's, has a seat at the Port's staff table currently. It makes no sense to me but the City has no say in that process. The Port seats whomever it pleases.

Affordable housing is another matter. How can you say the COB is not involved in affordable housing? Three Council members have been involved in bi-weekly meetings of the County-wide Housing Affordability Task Force (CHAT) which has been meeting for 17 months. It's representation consists of a wide range of participants in the affordable housing arena and is co-chaired by Councilmember Bornemann from the city and Fleetwood from the County. This group has realtors, finance people, low income housing groups like the Bellingham Housing Authority and Kulshan Land Trust and developers like Ralph Black and others that would like to build affordable housing. The facts are that without subsidies it's not possible to build affordable houses, regardless of the neighborhood. The housing authority, which is heavily subsidized, can't build housing fast enough and none of their efforts meets the need for student housing. Even the new Kulshan Land Trust housing in Fairhaven with the property all but donated by the COB still cost $250 K to build and with subsidies are selling for $150 K. The economics just aren't there. The CHAT report will be coming to the Council's; City, County and small Cities in the Fall, but, there aren't answers there that will help much. We need a local housing trust fund like the State has and other ways to get "gap" funding in order to build anything that could be called affordable. It's easy to point fingers at the COB and say we aren't doing anything. If you have any solutions, bring them on. After 17 months of studying this issue, if there is anything I know it's that there isn't a silver bullet on this issue.

As to licensing landlords, again the solutions are not as simple as you say. We need to decide how we'll do it, pass agreed upon legislation and I don't know if there are the Council votes to do that. Then a bureaucracy has to be developed to collect fee's, indentify landlords, locate them, gain permission to inspect houses, develop a way to prove who the tenants are and who they are related to, that's IF we decide to keep the family definition in place. This office of licensing needs a home and it won't be at City Hall, we have zero space for another office and who does it live with, Planning? Police? Fire (they do rooming house inspections now). What is the penalty for violations and who and how does it get enforced? Say, the owner lives in Texas and doesn't comply. How many resources do we throw at it or do we just shut the house down for non-compliance and kick the students out in the street or we could condemn the house and kick the students out. How does that improve your neighborhood or improve the situation? I'm told by staff that have researched this that for every city you cite that has solved this problem there are countless others for which those same solutions have not worked. Frankly, I don't have time to ride this horse. I have a drinking water degradation issue that I'm working on every single day plus a part-time Council job that is more than full time with no end in sight.

Dick, I do empathize with the issue. No one wants to live by folks that don't take care of their domecile and there are plenty of home owners who's habits are offensive if they live next door to you. In my forty years here I've lived all over town surrounded by good neighbors and bad. I've worked to solve my issues with the bad one's. I think that works part of the time but not all. Issues with local landlords are easier to resolve than absentee landlords but, as I've said, I have no idea what the breakdown is for local verses absentee.

I am surprised that there has been so little response to Council candidates or now Council members about this issue. I hear from four of you regularly but that's been it in over a year or your working to keep this issue alive. I'm not denying it's an issue I'm just not sure it merits the attention you say it does and I don't see or hear the community outcry either. Just to provide some comparitive numbers. The Cornwall parking/bike lane issue generated over 400 letters and emails plus the petitions and now three weeks after the decision by Council I'm still receiving emails daily. Okay, it's late and it's been a long day.

You cite that the document was not easy to find and not on the top ten. That's because the CHAT group just finished its work and none of the report has been officially presented to any of the Council's. Those presentations will be the public announcement of the results. Over seventeen months, no aspect of housing was left out of discussions. Since the focus was "Affordable Housing" a lot of the effort was focused on trying to find ways to get housing to low income people and to keep those units in place that house that segment now.

As to the Port redevelopment, I'm not downplaying the role of the COB. We have very good cards in this hand but WWU was seated at the table at the beginning of the Master Planning process while I was still a candidate, late last Fall. WWU and NOA could be key draws to this process so I'll not downplay their potential role. Since Council, unlike the Port is not in the development business we've formed a PDA to carry out the policies that we set and fund. I support this approach and expect it will serve us well. The Port is going a different direction as is WWU and that's their choice and both entities have boards that set their policies. The waterfront redevelopment process is a long one so we shouldn't get impatient that it seems to move so slowly. We're told the cleanup work is progressing well and I have no reason to doubt that. There is an update by the Port in every Monday's Herald.

I won't have any more comment on the CHAT report until it's presented officially to the Council's that commissioned the work. The schedule does call for the Title 20 Single Family definition to come to City Council at our August 4th meeting. Tune in to BTV10 or join us in chambers for that presentation from Planning staff.

Dick,

I was not able to make the council meeting last evening. Can you give us a brief on how it went? I see nothing on the Herald site about it, and couldn't get the KGMI news this morning. I was too far south. Prior to Sunrise, you lose the KGMI signal about 5 miles south of Bellingham.


EDIT: I see from the KGMI web site that the issue has been tabled for now.

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Thanks for the links!

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