Tighten Code Enforcement

There are many good reasons for vigorously enforcing health, safety and building codes.

Lax enforcement can lead to fires and unsanitary conditions. One or two neglected properties can put a whole block on the skids, and before long morale and property values throughout the neighborhood begin to slip.

We commend the Thousand Oaks City Council for taking steps to break that pattern.

This relatively wealthy city has fewer slum problems than some of its neighbors so it was scandalized a year ago when police raided a squatters enclave within a few blocks of the grand Civic Arts Plaza. The raided property has since been cleaned up, but smaller problems have arisen at some of the same owners’ other rental properties.

Under an anti-slumlord ordinance expected to receive final approval this week, any property owner who fails to correct violations after being cited twice in a year would be dubbed a “substandard housing owner.” City code enforcement officers would then be free to check for violations at any property owned by that landlord, even without a complaint.

Typically, code enforcers act only on complaints. And that’s one root of the problem. Situations should not have to get so bad that neighbors complain before city inspectors can take action.

So we are even more enthusiastic about another Thousand Oaks strategy, a program of proactive code enforcement to be used on a rotating basis in the city’s neighborhoods. Just the news that a particular neighborhood is next on the inspectors’ list should be enough to get many long-neglected problems swiftly resolved.

We also like one suggestion that the board rejected last week: Thousand Oaks should consider the approach used in San Jose, which processes code complaints itself rather than through the courts and imposes daily fines on property owners until violations are corrected.

Largely through the nonprofit housing agency Many Mansions, Thousand Oaks does better than most Ventura County cities at providing decent places for low-income people to live. But that’s just part of the challenge. Whether the problems are caused by overcrowding, owner neglect or tenant abuse, everyone loses when code violations go uncorrected for years.