Code Violation Enforcement Is Found Lagging : Bureaucracy: The pace of prosecutions slows to a trickle due in part to reductions in the city attorney’s staff.

Housing, building and zoning code enforcement in the city of San Diego is plagued by “extraordinary” delays and a huge backlog of cases, a situation exacerbated by a bottleneck in the city attorney’s office, according to an independent study of city agencies.

More than 70% of zoning cases not resolved by voluntary compliance took 2 1/2 years or longer to process for legal action, according to the report by the San Diego Law Center of the University of San Diego School of Law. The $124,000 study, released to council members and city staff this week, was jointly funded by the city and USD.

Even worse, City Atty. John Witt’s code enforcement unit is allowing some cases to remain permanently unprosecuted because of staff cutbacks that took effect July 1. Cases that do not present significant health and safety issues are routinely being returned to the investigators who prepared them.

“The people who want to abuse the system, frankly, they can,” said Michael Shames, the study’s author. “The system can be easily manipulated by those people who are a little less scrupulous.”

“There’s no end to the case. There’s no results,” said Daniel Morales, an aide to Councilman Wes Pratt, who handles citizen complaints.

Continued neglect of the violations leads to “the slow erosion of the housing stock or the buildings or the infrastructure of the community,” Shames said.

A bright note in the study is the early performance of the city’s Dispute Resolution Office, an 4-month-old experiment in settling cases between the city and violators with the help of volunteer mediators. The office resolved all but two of the 65 cases that came before it.

Shames recommends continuation of the alternative process as a way of relieving some of the burden on the city agencies. He and others also have been pursuing creation of a special Municipal Court devoted entirely to code matters, but so far they have been unsuccessful.

The study also notes that complaints lodged with council members are resolved much more quickly than calls directly to the enforcement agencies.

Zoning investigators respond to complaints about illegal dwelling units, businesses operating in residential zones, structures under construction, garage conversions, junk and debris, illegally parked and abandoned cars, over-height fences and satellite antennas.

Building inspectors respond to land-use and noise complaints, including buildings without permits, unsafe and dangerous buildings, and unpermitted construction work. The agency’s housing division enforces space and occupancy permits for homes, and complaints about “habitability requirements” such as plumbing, heating, electrical equipment and sanitation.

The system is plagued by the huge backlog, delays, low morale, a “computer data base system resembling the Tower of Babel,” a large increase in cases since 1985, over-reliance on the judicial system and “inconsistent handling” of cases by Municipal Court judges, according to the study.

“Over the years, departmental policies and prosecution delays have allowed a buildup of unresolved cases with little prospect for resolution without meaningful reforms,” the study notes. As of Dec. 1, 1989, Zoning Investigations has a backlog of approximately 2,600 cases that are more than six months old. Similarly, Building Inspection reports a case backlog approximating 2,000 pending cases.

Once cases are referred to the City Attorney’s office, “it generally took 18 months” before a court ordered compliance or the case was returned to the inspector, the study said.

Joe Flynn, deputy planning director, said that zoning investigators resolve 95% of their cases without the need to go to court. When legal action is necessary, due process requirements slow procedure, he said.

Likening his predicament to the city’s decision to increase its police force without providing more jail space, Joseph Schilling, the deputy city attorney in charge of code enforcement, said that his staff has grown more slowly than the code enforcement staff. The attorneys have fallen further and further behind, even before Schilling’s 10-person unit was reduced by 3.5 positions last year.

“While the other departments have doubled or tripled their staffs, even before there was a (budget) cut, we had not grown as rapidly. Even if there hadn’t been a cut, we’d still be scurrying around here trying to take the cases to court,” Schilling said.

Since the budget cuts, the legal unit “can really only focus on the health and safety violations” or those that have a significant impact on surrounding neighbors. The attorneys have sent 70 cases back to the city departments and are accepting far fewer new ones for prosecution, Schilling said.

The prospect for additional help in the coming fiscal year is dim. City Manager John Lockwood said that the city must raise $66 million in additional revenue just to keep city services at current levels.

“There will have to be cuts in almost every service the city provides just to balance next year’s budget,” Lockwood said. The City Council is scheduled to discuss its budget crunch Feb. 8.

Faced with such realities, inspectors “begin to feel like the INS inspectors at the Mexico border--’Why should I be putting in all this effort when it’s not going to go to court for 2 1/2 years,’ ” Shames said.

In addition to the special court, which has proved successful in other cities, the report recommends better computerization, more training for inspectors, assigning priorities to cases, establishment of fees and fines that would pay for code enforcement staff, the use of volunteers and changes in the municipal codes to make enforcement more efficient.