Columbus code-enforcement teams keeping eye on Cleveland Avenue in Northland

Cleveland Avenue and three other major corridors in north Columbus are the focus of the city’s Proactive Code-Enforcement team, designed to address high incidents of code violations.

The city will look at the entirety of Cleveland Avenue, which cuts through a portion of the Northland neighborhood.

Bill Logan, vice chairperson of the Northland Community Council’s development committee and code-coordinator for the NCC overall, said he sees the issue as a two-way street: Residents need to report more violations, and the city needs to respond promptly.

“They do a fine job of bringing properties into compliance, and that’s all we ask for from the system and the communities they’re functioning in,” Logan said of the city. “I’m in favor it. I would like to see it be more proactive but I understand their limitations.

The city says itsenforcement team, known as PACE, was formed in 2014 and looks to get out in front of code violations before they’re reported to the 311 hotline.

“The city realized that as a result of relying on the public to report violations, many areas of the city were being neglected, especially low-income and … blighted neighborhoods where a majority of the homes were occupied by tenants or residents that had ‘given up’ on their neighborhood,” said Heather Truesdell, code-enforcement administrator.

The other corridors are Livingston and Parsons avenues and the continuation of PACE on Sullivant Avenue.

The most common violations consist of vacant properties being unsecured from entry, prohibited graphics and site-plan violations, Truesdell said.

“When an entity goes out of business and a new one takes its place, there is a process within the city to ensure that then new business meets the requirements of that parcel for that new type of business,” she said. “Is it zoned properly? Does the new business have enough parking spaces? These are the types questions that the PACE team tries to answer.”

Truesdell said the effort is not meant to be punitive, that the longstanding objective is compliance over fines.

“Almost all court cases filed by code enforcement occur only after six months to a year after the initial inspection,” she said. “Also, code enforcement does not have the authority to issue fines; this is solely up to the (Franklin County) environmental judge.”

Bill Hadler, interim president of Hadler Cos., which owns the Columbus Square Shopping Center at the northeast corner of Cleveland and East Dublin-Granville Road, said the various Northland community groups are good at reporting code violations.

“Code enforcement can sometimes be tricky, as many violations that are discovered or reported can oftentimes be honest mistakes, in addition to some landlords and tenants being unable to cure certain items because of cost or manpower,” Hadler said. “As such, we believe in a fair and reasonable code-enforcement approach that includes a warning system set up for possible code violators but also with an appeals process for those trying to act on good faith.”

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