Ohio State, the city and other organizations are partnering to fix common code enforcement issues in the off-campus area. Credit: Josie Stewart | Campus Editor
Two years ago, code enforcement officers walked the University District and off-campus areas, finding hundreds of city code violations.
Three months ago, they only found 11.
Code enforcement is responsible for making sure the housing and zoning codes, among others, are being followed in the City of Columbus. One of the code inspectors, Jeremiah Evans, attributes the drop in violations in part to roundtable events Ohio State has hosted in recent years including homeowners, property managers and anyone else who is part of the campus area, to discuss the most common problems inspectors or code officers face and how to fix them.
“The sweep started, and we brought in extra code enforcement officers because there was a significant amount of properties that had quite a bit of trash left over the weekend,” Evans said. “We would walk the off-campus area, and we would cite the violations and serve it to the property owners, landlords, managers, responsible parties throughout the city.”
Evans and other officers seek offenses such as vacant structures, buildings in disrepair, overcrowding and — as he mentioned — a lot of trash in the off-campus areas.
“There’s a lot of party trash that happens throughout the weekend,” Evans said. “It will often blow around the neighboring properties. That is the most common thing we see in the campus area.”
A recent roof collapse at 74 E. 13th Ave. has led some to wonder who was at fault and what the zoning protocol is after such an event. Anthony Celebrezze, deputy director of the Department of Building and Zoning Services for the City of Columbus, said the cause was an overloaded roof, not a structural issue.
“A roof on a porch like that is designed and built to hold itself up and a certain amount of snow load based on the amount of snow we get,” Celebrezze said. “So when you have additional loads on there, such as people going out on the roof, you start to stress it, and in this case, it failed.”
Building and Zoning Services has been in touch with the management company and is currently waiting on the insurance company’s investigation, Celebrezze said.
“Once they complete that, they are planning on removing debris and rebuilding,” Celebrezze said. “So they will need to employ a design professional, like an architect or an engineer, and provide us with building plans on how they are going to rebuild it and connect it to the house and secure it adequately.”
Due to the house being located in the University Impact District, the builders will have to go before the University Impact District Review Board before rebuilding the roof.
According to the board’s website, the construction or exterior alteration of a building or structure that requires a certificate of zoning clearance, registration certificate, building permit or installation permit cannot occur without first obtaining a certificate of approval from the Review Board.
“They will have to go before the Review Commission to make sure that the materials and the design they’re going to use meets the criteria for the neighborhood,” Celebrezze said.
Following the collapse on 13th Avenue, some rental agencies instructed their tenants in an email to not go on their roofs and included that for many houses, it is a violation of their lease, according to an email obtained by The Lantern.
Buckeye Real Estate said in an email if a person is seen on the roof of the property with such a clause in their lease, the agency will schedule an inspection of the roof at the tenants’ expense. The email said the tenants will also be financially responsible for any repairs due to misuse of property.
“We want to protect our property as well as we do not want any of our residents to be injured. These roofs were put on the building to protect the porch floor from the weather and to give our residents protection from the effects of the weather when entering the building,” Buckeye Real Estate said in the email. “They are also aesthetic additions to the main building and were not intended to be used as decks or for sunning areas.
The Lantern does not know if the 74 E. 13th Ave. property had such a clause in its lease at this time.
Evans said, oftentimes when code officers cite a violation at the start of the week, especially regarding trash, they’ll give the manager and tenant until Friday to fix the issue. Depending on the problem and if it’s not solved in a timely manner, the matter can proceed to court.
Mike Huggins, supervisor of code enforcement for the area including Ohio State, said at a University Area Commission meeting on March 22, while landlords are responsible for many aspects of rental properties, tenants do have some responsibilities when it comes to maintaining housing: picking up trash, keeping it clean and not disabling or interfering with their smoke detectors.
`“You can’t believe how often we go into a house in the campus area and find that they have bagged the smoke detectors,” Huggins said. “It’s frustrating, it’s aggravating and we get on them harshly for it. They’ve gotten some kind of shower cap or bread bag or something over that smoke detector and by doing that, they jeopardize the entire floor.”
Huggins said if detectors aren’t bagged, they often sit on a nearby table or are filled with dead batteries.
“We always check the smoke detectors every time we go in the house,” Huggins said. “Even if you invite me into your house to go to the backyard or look at the neighbor’s yard. When I come to your house, I have to do a safety check.”
Other district problems Huggins mentioned include having furniture not suitable for the outdoors outside the house, overloading outlets and resting furniture against the furnace, increasing its chance of catching fire.
Though code enforcement does sweeps in the area to amend issues with trash, they are largely complaint-driven through the city’s 311 service. Meaning violations will usually only be found if someone in the neighborhood calls them in and the area that houses campus — area four to the City — is less active, Huggins said.
Huggins said students should be responsible for where they live and always call the landlord when an issue arises for which they are responsible. He said he often asks tenants what the property manager said about an issue they find, but the tenant assumed it wouldn’t be fixed and never let the landlord know.
“[The landlord] can’t fix a problem if he doesn’t know. Call your landlord, and do the proper thing,” Huggins said. “If he doesn’t do it in a reasonable amount of time, call us.”
Evans said when students in rental properties have an emergency situation beyond the landlord’s scope or response time, Huggins recommends calling their emergency intake line, as it is faster than a typical 311 request. Appropriate situations include a furnace not working in the winter or raw sewage coming up in the basement.
Though 311 is the number people remember, Huggins reminded everyone at the commission meeting that it isn’t the one they should dial. Issues or complaints should instead be directed to 614-645-3111.
“All these things come together and cause serious problems for people,” Huggins said. “This is one of the reasons why we’re doing the job that we do: try to keep people safe, sometimes from themselves.”
