DeKalb County has launched a new code enforcement effort that, along with the hiring of a new director, is designed boost enforcement in the wave of record foreclosures.
The Cut to the Curb initiative teams county mowing crews with residents, homeowner groups and businesses to trim and tidy up community roadsides. It also reminds homeowners to mow all the way to the street, including the county right-of-way, the same way residents up North must clear snow from municipal sidewalks in front of their homes.
But for those who have asked the loudest for more help in cleaning up the county, the effort is just the first of many steps needed to go after homeowners who let their yards go native or turn their yards into makeshift car graveyards.
“There is a vacant property here that has grass up to the stop sign in front of the house,” said Cynthia Tucker, a public health consultant who lives in the Safari Woods subdivision near Stone Mountain. “Folks are more concerned about the homes like that next to them than they are right of ways.”
County leaders acknowledge the need to bring more homes -- in foreclosure and not -- up to minimum standards. The focus on mowing is the latest in a series of projects they hope will push properties into compliance by making them stand out as problems.
In the last year, the county changed how it notifies violators so that more cases can be handled in court. It also created a Neighborhood Ambassador program to encourage residents to help spot and notify problems and agreed to hire two more code enforcement officers.
Still, there are just 24 officers for a county of 700,000 residents and more than 200,000 homes.
“A clean community tends to be a safe community and a safe community tends to be thriving economically,” county CEO Burrell Ellis said. “We recognize we can’t do it alone. It has to be a team effort.”
Relying on resident complaints helped the county bring 23,000 properties into compliance last year. But it also generates controversy.
This spring, a code enforcement officer responding to a gripe about peeling paint on a neighbor’s home issued more than 100 warnings to other homes in Marbut Commons for the same violation.
Last week, after one extension was granted, new warnings went out. Many residents responded by saying they were more concerned with staying current on their mortgages, decrying the potential $1,000 fine as government threats.
Interim Planning Director Gary Cornell has since said it will work with any homeowners who can’t afford repairs, as long as they make the effort to bring up their properties.
Gil Turman, the president of the South DeKalb Neighborhood Association and head of the resident advisory council on code issues, said the increased enforcement and ongoing initiatives show that officials are finally getting serious about the problem.
They need to, if they want to encourage development, Turman said. The county, which has long had the third highest number of foreclosures in the state, briefly took the top spot, with 1,303 foreclosures in May, according to a recent RealtyTrac report.
“I think the CEO has taken a serious approach to getting the thoroughfares cleaned up and the vacant houses that are eyesores are cleaned,” Turman said. “These are the efforts we need so badly.”
More are coming. Marcus Kellum, a code compliance director in Duluth and Sandy Springs for nearly a decade, takes over the top code job in DeKalb on July 2.
Among his charges will be uniting various county departments involved in code issues, ranging from sanitation workers to employees of the county’s foreclosure registry, to ensure DeKalb becomes more responsive to problems.
Tucker is cautiously optimistic that having someone to handle a new level of coordination will translate into solving the ongoing problem homes like the ones in her neighborhood.
“Solving problems by looking at the big picture is priority one,” she said. “This is a good first step, but we have a long way to go.”
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