Code officers expect complaints to grow like a weed

Metro Atlanta code enforcement officers are gearing up for the ugly job of tracking down owners of homes — and yards — left to ruins in a housing market gone south.

Spring is just five weeks away and it may not be as pretty on some blocks, where weeds and overgrown lawns will detract from tulips and azaleas.

“Any time there’s a decline in the economy, you’re going to see a problem — especially with these mortgage foreclosures,” said Maj. Dan Branch of the Gwinnett Police Department. Branch heads the 32-member Gwinnett County Quality of Life unit responsible for identifying and enforcing code violations in unincorporated Gwinnett County. “It’s the slow season now, Branch added. “It’s cold. The grass is dormant. The weeds are dormant. So you may be riding by a house, and you won’t start noticing until the springtime that there’s nobody living there.”

Code violation complaints are up across much of the metro area. In Gwinnett, the department is currently working 577 cases. Of those, 130 involve vacant houses. Forty-six are foreclosed properties. In Fulton County, complaints have increased from 2006 levels, despite the loss in property and population to several newly formed cities. DeKalb’s 2008 numbers are also up from 2006, despite the incorporation of Dunwoody late last year.

“We do expect an increase in activity this spring, primarily (tied) to the growing season,” said Robert Quigley, director of Cobb County communications. “We do expect foreclosures to play a role in the increase as well.”

With the wave of foreclosures and abandoned houses that began last fall, Gwinnett officers have had to become better at tracking down property owners. “Mortgage companies are starting to respond more positively to us than they were before,” said code enforecement supervisor Kim Chassion. “I think they were a little in shock with the economy and what they were having to deal with from a financial aspect.”

No one is immune. Branch said an abandoned $1.4 million house off of Grayson Road has been vandalized for stolen copper.

Branch said the Gwinnett department tries to resolve complaints with warnings, but sometimes they have to issue tickets. Out-of-state property owners are the toughest to hold accountable, he said, because some are simply not intimidated by the threat of a misdemeanor from another state.

“We’ve actually sat and staked them out [by finding out] when they were coming to town,” Branch said. “We welcomed them to Georgia.”

Code enforcement complaints

*In 2008, Cobb County enacted an ordinance allowing action against properties with weeds higher than 12 inches.