Atlanta tries to step up code enforcement

Forgive Atlanta residents if they are skeptical. Certainly they’ve heard this before. Atlanta has launched an ambitious, six-month project to fix its often-criticized code enforcement department. The city hopes to win back the trust and confidence of residents and leaders who regularly make jokes and snide comments about the struggling department.

“It’s not code enforcement,” said Jeanne Mills, a resident of Adair Park in southwest Atlanta since 1947. “It’s non-code enforcement. It’s the fact that it doesn’t happen. You can go for the more cynical position that it not their fault because the department is overwhelmed. If they had kept up, they wouldn’t be overwhelmed.

“This is not a new situation. This has been going on for 10 or 20 years.”

The new effort to fix the department comes at a crucial time for the city.

Neighborhoods like West End, Vine City, Pittsburg, and English Avenue are overrun with vacant, dilapidated houses caused by a crushing combination of mortgage fraud, rehabs gone wrong and falling values from the economic meltdown.

Since code enforcement provides the first line of defense against communities collapsing under the weight of the crisis, it’s suddenly getting attention from the top.

Greg Giornelli, the city’s top administrator, ordered the turnaround effort, saying heads would roll if it failed. He’s ridden around with inspectors and set up a weekly meeting to review progress.

“We identified code enforcement as something we didn’t do particularly well,” Giornelli said. “You don’t have to be an expert to see or understand that. Anybody who drives through the city can see it. People tell us all the time.”

Giornelli said the problems were management-related. Top administrators forced out the former director, Tim Hardy, and hired a replacement from Arizona, Mike Renshaw. The city started monitoring and measuring everything, such as how quickly the staff responds to calls, how many inspections are done daily and how quickly cases are resolved.

“This is one of those areas where there is no magic bullet,” Giornelli said. “It’s about hard work every day.”

Because of the housing crisis, the department had seen its number of complaints jump while the department fell behind in making inspections. At the same time, the city was cutting back positions because of its ongoing financial woes.

Atlanta averaged just over 7,000 complaints in 2005 and in 2006. The city is on course to average about 12,000 in 2007 and in 2008. Meanwhile, the department cut back to 22 inspectors.

A backlog of more than 6,000 cases grew.

Giornelli delegated the task to James Shelby, deputy commissioner for the department of planning, with very clear orders to fix it or else.

Shelby said they immediately assessed personnel, technology, organization and training. They demanded inspectors move faster in both visiting properties and pushing cases. And they began whittling down the backlog by assigning 10 old cases each day to each of the remaining 23 inspectors.

Shelby said the new goal is to get an inspector to every property within 72 hours and visible action on every case within 90 days of a complaint being filed.

“We are about 60 percent there,” Shelby said.

Atlanta residents are hopeful after years of inaction that this effort to fix code enforcement will succeed.

Some residents are so down on the department that they are ready to hail any progress or action. At the same time, they understand how difficult it can be to get compliance from out-of-state investors and banks forced to take back properties they don’t want.

“If people are in foreclosure, who are they going to go after to keep up the property?” said Sharon Collins of Mechanicsville, not far from Turner Field. “This is a very difficult situation. Whatever their plan is, I hope it works. There’s a need.”

Council members are also maintaining a healthy skepticism that hard-hit areas will see improvement soon.

Ivory Young, who represents Vine City and other communities near the Georgia Dome, said any real plan to fix things needs to include a proactive approach to prevent code violations from occurring in the first place.

“All we are doing is putting a Band-aid on open wounds,” Young said. “I don’t hear a plan to fix things.”