A new code compliance specialist for Astoria hopes to educate business and property owners about code violations.
Victoria Sage joined the city’s Community Development Department in November in a newly created role designed to bolster the city’s ability to regulate code violations. Sage, who grew up on the North Coast, previously worked as a small-business owner and as a planner for Clatsop County.
Matt Brandmeyer, the city’s community development director, explained that Sage’s role is intended to ease the burden of code enforcement on other city departments.
“I think there was interest in creating the position because, essentially, our building division and our engineering division, and other departments within the city, weren’t able to take the time to fully address code enforcement issues,” he said. “So they wanted to kind of establish a role who was solely concerned with that.”
Because those departments were overburdened and dealing with staff shortages, Sage’s role includes working through a significant backlog of code compliance cases.
“They’re just kind of complicated issues, so there’s a lot of research that goes into even beginning to address them,” Sage said. “There’s a lot of asking other departments for the history behind things, researching the files … and I also have a pretty decent background with this city to stand on, because I’ve been here for a while. So I do have a knowledge of some of the issues already, too, so that is helpful.”
Astoria’s code compliance program is primarily complaint-driven, meaning Sage also spends her time taking calls from residents about potential code violations. Brandmeyer estimates that the department receives between 20 and 30 complaints each month.
“There’s a lot of just taking in phone calls and just working to problem-solve, and just trying to find creative solutions to problems that might arise,” Sage said.
In the downtown area, which sees a high volume of complaints, Sage is beginning the process of educating business owners about potential code violations. She spoke at a meeting of the Astoria Downtown Historic District Association this month.
“There are quite a few who are out of compliance downtown, and I really think that that’s because they don’t know what the rules are,” Sage said.
Sage plans to distribute flyers and work collaboratively with business owners to determine solutions for potential code violations. She anticipates the vast majority of compliance issues will be resolved quickly.
“(The goal) is voluntary compliance,” Sage said. “I just really think a lot of people don’t know any better, and once they see what the rules are, it should be really easy to change.”
Typical violations Sage sees are things like misplaced sandwich boards and trash cans, or tables and chairs that extend beyond their allotted space.
If business owners don’t come into compliance after the educational period, the city typically issues three citations, with the third citation coming with a fine. However, Sage said that collecting fines is not the city’s goal.
“My goal is for people to come into compliance,” she said. “I would much rather people spend the money on actually rectifying the violation. So it’s really like, I do absolutely everything I can to not get to that point.”
Jessamyn Grace West, the executive director of the downtown association, emphasized the importance of the education process, especially for new business owners and given code changes in recent years.
“It has to be an ongoing collaboration with the city — an ongoing conversation — to educate, to get that information out there,” said West, who used to serve on the City Council.
Sage said she hasn’t seen much pushback from business owners, except what she describes as a “fear of the unknown.”
“I really think most of the problems are going to be addressed very easily,” she said. “So I’m hoping to just kind of ease into it and just be as gentle as possible. And give lots of time, very reasonable deadlines for things. And also, I just want to be as helpful as I can.”
Source Agencies
