The Jefferson County Council has approved a number of amendments to the county’s building codes.
Dennis Kehm Jr., the deputy director of the Department of County Services and Code Enforcement, told council members that most of the changes will streamline the operations of the department.
“We want to decrease the amount of paperwork, i.e., red tape, making it easier for people to conduct business with the office and decrease the amount of time to issue permits,” he said. “That’s an issue we deal with daily and we’ve been working on it since we came out of COVID. And we want to provide for improved and more responsive enforcement of our building codes, and a quicker response and resolution to violations.”
Perhaps the most visible change, Kehm said, will improve Code Enforcement’s response to derelict buildings.
“Something we desperately need is the ability to increase enforcement of dangerous, public nuisance buildings,” he said.
The owner of a building cited as being a public nuisance now will be given 10 days to appeal the citation to the county’s Municipal Court or start work to address the problem rather than appeal to the Code Commission.
Kehm said the change mirrors the process the county uses to deal with solid waste issues, including derelict vehicles, and for tall grass, noxious weeds and overgrown vegetation.
He said many council members have pushed for the county to address problem buildings more expediently.
“We will be able to deal with them much quicker than we used to,” he said.
Kehm noted that before the county demolishes a dangerous structure, it must be vacant.
“We do not have the authority to throw someone out, but 99.9 percent of the buildings in this category are vacant,” he said. “There are a lot of burned-out structures that need to be demolished.”
Still, Kehm said, the county’s ability to tear down derelict buildings – and then place a lien against the property owner that must be paid when the land changes hands – is dependent on funding.
“If you gave me $1 million,” Kehm told the county, “I could do $1 million of work. But these (changes) can make a big dent in the problems that are reported to us.”
Kehm said for 2023, the council had allocated $50,000 to abate all public nuisance issues, plus a one-time allowance of $250,000 to address derelict buildings from federal American Rescue Plan (ARPA) grant money the county has received.
Kehm said it typically costs the county $15,000 to $25,000 to tear down a building.
County Services Director Mitch Bair said the office advises property owners not to let a building deteriorate to the point that the county steps in.
“We have to go through government bidding processes, and we add an administrative fee to the lien, other charges,” he said. “We tell them it’s much more cost-effective if they do it themselves.”
Still, Bair said, it pays the county to step in to tear down derelict structures.
“It’s the broken window theory,” he said. “If you let that go by, the situation gets worse. But if you’re able to stabilize a neighborhood, you allow property values to appreciate.”
Councilman Bob Tullock (District 7, House Springs) suggested offering tax incentives for property owners who tear down their own derelict buildings.
“That’s a slippery slope,” Bair said. “We don’t want people waiting to fix their property until they get a tax abatement. Maintenance is part of property ownership.”
Other code changes
On a related note, codes dealing with the use of recreational vehicles as residences have been beefed up.
RVs now will not be allowed to serve as homes unless they’re otherwise permitted, such as in RV parks or a homeowner using an RV when their home is being built or renovated. In those cases, Kehm said, the RV must be hooked up to electricity and sewers.
“It’s becoming a problem of people pulling their RVs onto vacant lots or other places where they shouldn’t be, and they’re not hooked up to a sanitary sewer system, so among other problems, you’ve got gray water dumped onto the ground,” Kehm said.
Another code change enables Bair to order the disconnection of utilities from dangerous, unsafe, unpermitted, incomplete, illegally occupied or illegally used structures.
“While we already have some of this language in our codes, we’ve all seen over the last two, three, four years the number of illegally occupied structures is on the rise,” Kehm said. “Sometimes we’re talking about a shed, a camper, a bunch of tents that look like a Hooverville. One of the best tools we have is to pull the electricity out from under them.”
Kehm said the county directs Ameren to disconnect the power.
Another substantive change to the codes deals with property owners who have on-site septic systems, Kehm said.
He said the amendments eliminate the need for property owners to file three documents with the county. The county no longer requires Form 40, a document that requires the property owner to agree to obtain an operator’s permit every two years and keep a maintenance agreement in place; operator’s permits that must be renewed every two years; and maintenance contracts that require property owners to deal with companies that maintain septic systems. A contract is a prerequisite of an operator’s permit.
“The operator’s permit must be recorded on a Form 40, on which a property owner agrees to acquire a maintenance contract, and around and around and around,” Kehm said.
Kehm explained the reasoning for doing away with those three requirements.
“They have become incredibly burdensome on property owners,” he said. “Form 40 requirements have delayed permit issuance for years in some instances, thereby allowing pollution to continue. Form 40 requirements also have delayed real estate sales and transfers.”
Requiring a property owner to file for an operator’s permit every two years also is burdensome, he said.
“They are also difficult to track and require a large amount of staff time,” he said. “And maintenance contracts create a number of problems, not the least of which they put the county in the position of enforcing private contracts to which we are not a party and have no control over other than to seek punitive measures against property owners when you don’t have one.”
Kehm said there are better ways to deal with septic systems.
“What we’re finding is more effective is enforcement of those systems that are failing, the education of folks who are putting in a new system or buying a property with a septic system and don’t know much about them and exploring alternative systems. There are a number of ways to treat your wastewater legally and safely,” Kehm said. “We’ve found those avenues are more effective than requiring someone to turn in a mountain of paperwork and then requiring someone to keep up with said paperwork year after year.”
“And the paperwork doesn’t add value,” Bair said.
“We’ve not seen any positive impact,” Kehm said. “All this paperwork has not caused failing septic system rates to decline. We’d like to get out of that business and make sure work is actually being done. Greatly ridding everyone of the administrative stuff will help that.”
Kehm said the county’s Code Commission, which reviews and recommends changes to county codes to the County Council, had voted to recommend the changes in December 2022.
The council voted 4-0 on Nov. 13 to allow the changes. Council members Brian Haskins (District 1, High Ridge) and Gene Barbagallo (District 2, Imperial) were absent; the District 3 seat has been vacant after the resignation of Shannon Otto.