Gwinnett.talk

By Kevin Roth

April 20, 2006 08:03 AM | Link to this

I would like to see the county codes inforced, give the officers some support. I have neighbors running commercial business out of their homes, construction trash, yards not being maintained, fish ponds with green water, weeds, and the cheapest house in the subdivision is $200,000. Can you say trash neighbor?

By Janet

April 20, 2006 08:10 AM | Link to this

We need this desperately. If you own a house, you are responsible for properly maintaining the house and the yard. If you are not willing to expend the money and time to do this, then you shouldn’t buy a house. Not maintaining your home or property reduces the value of the homes around you and is the same as stealing money from the pockets of your neighbors. A home is most people’s largest investment. Noone deserves to have their investment lowered in value because the house next door has been allowed to go to rack and ruin.

We have many lovely older neighborhoods with large trees and beautiful yards. Those neighborhoods should be going up in value, not down. Our county leaders need to make the reduction of crime and the deteroriation of our older neighborhoods their number one priority AHEAD of building new neighborhoods further and further away from Atlanta.

By Leaving Gwinnett

April 20, 2006 09:01 AM | Link to this

The deterioration of Gwinnett is appauling. I am so happy that I am only renting my current home. When I first moved into this house over three years ago, the neighborhood looked good. The neighbors actually thought I bought the place because I kept it so clean and neat. Now the neighborhood is declining. In the past year and a half the place has gone to heck in a hand cart. Crime has increased, and cars are parked in the yards. Oh, and by the way, the houses in the neighborhood were selling upwards of 245,000 before we had Spanish radio blasing at all hours and then Katrina. I’ve had it. I’m outta here.

By Exador

April 20, 2006 09:10 AM | Link to this

Gwinnett’s sound ordinance says that any sound (car stereo, etc) that can be clearly heard from 50 feet away is too loud. WHY IS THIS NOT ENFORCED? It’s the easiest thing in the world to enforce. I hear car stereos thumping from a quarter mile away every day in Duluth. The police could SO easily make a fortune in tickets, and my windows wouldn’t rattle from these soon-to-be-deaf morons.

By Debra

April 20, 2006 09:15 AM | Link to this

I have no problem with making Gwinnett look beautiful, the police officers of Snellville have already came through my neighborhood. I due disagree that they are more important issues that need to be handles before this does. I will take it up with the City Council on Monday during the City Council Meeting.

By Frances

April 20, 2006 11:18 AM | Link to this

I would lover to see the county codes enforced and maintained. I have had to call and complain about several trashy neighbors and they clean up just enough for the county to leave them alone and then it’s back like it was until you call again. I am sick of the neighborhood going down hill and hope that with the govenor signing the bill about illegals that it will also help in cleaning up and clearing out some of the problem. I have never seen so many white vans with ladders piled up on top in my life, a car in the yard or drive for every person in the house plus some, writing on the streets and stop signs or any other sign around. To be blunt, since the spainish speaking people have come to try and take over Gwinnett the neighborhoods have all gone down hill. To enforce these matters I feel a seperate division should be used so that our police officers could still try and keep order in the community.

By ultra elf

April 20, 2006 11:57 AM | Link to this

Best way to clean up Gwinnett is to clean up the illegals and their music blasting sound machines and send them the hell back home. America is for the Law Abiding Americans who speak and read and write English.

By Janet

April 20, 2006 01:12 PM | Link to this

I have to disagree that all of the decline is the fault of Latinos. I live next door to a caucasian that rarely ever cuts her grass, has trash piled everywhere, weeds growing out of her gutters, etc. In our neighborhood, we do have issues with Latinos overcrowding houses or parking too many cars there, but the majority of the trash and upkeep problems that we have are with caucasian residents.

Trust me, neglecting home maintenance is not limited to Latinos. In many cases, it is also the fault of absentee landlords that rent out a house and then move away. Marietta tried unsuccessfully to address that problem last year by ordering inspections of rental properties, but the GA legislature blocked their ordinance. There are plenty of laws on the books regarding upkeep of property, sound ordinances, etc., the problem is that there are not enough county employees to enforce them and the penalties are not stiff enough.

People who violate the ordinances repeatedly, will eventually get fined, but it could take up to a year or more or filing complaints and non-compliance for the violators to finally get a court date and be fined. We need to change the Gwinnett County laws so that repeat offenders of the ordinances, get automatic fines, just like a repeat traffic violator gets points on their license. Once you aquire a certain number of violations (and points on your property), then the County should have the power to issue automatic fines and if you don’t pay the fines, they should be able to put a lien on your property.

We also need to hold mortgage lenders accountable to make sure that they are making loans to people who have sufficient income to not only make the house payment, but to also afford regular home maintenance, such as gutter cleaning, yard care, garbage service, painting, etc.

There are a lot of factors at work that have caused the decline of Gwinnett’s neighborhoods and they all need to be addressed by our county commissioners and planning commissioners.

By Need A Break

April 20, 2006 01:39 PM | Link to this

Personally, the quality of life in Gwinnett (and the metro area) has gone down the drain. Although I give Gwinnett Kudos in their effort to enforce to county ordinances. The bottom line is they are overwhelmed, short handed, and most importantly folks decided to start reporting these violations when the problem was out of hand not when it was managable.

We need more enforcement on the streets if Gwinnett and America is going to win this battle.

By T. Jefferson

April 21, 2006 12:39 AM | Link to this

“Quality of life” is a sick euphemism for fascism. Barney Fife at best. Gestapo-spank at worst. The ‘uniforms’ who enforce these rotten codes needs to find honest jobs lest they Burn in Hell.

By Regularjoe

April 21, 2006 06:08 AM | Link to this

Gwinnett has it’s issues. A couple are the School Boards arrogance with secrecy and we probably have a few too many entrenched government employees who need to move on.

That said, some good has happened that may keep me here. We got rid of the former commission chair before he got to far out of control. The current total commission seems more responsive. We have had some huge drug busts. For the first time I can remember, an employer and the illegal immigrants they hired were arrested. The Quality of Life unit will make a difference because it is a common sense initiative.

We are tired of dilapidated neighborhoods. T. Jefferson, you had better tow that junk car, cut your grass and get that trash out of your front yard!