Brush Fees to Be Added to Property Taxes

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve an ordinance allowing unpaid brush-clearance inspection fees to be added to Los Angeles County property-tax bills.

The ordinance, passed on a 14-0 vote, will affect people who have not complied with orders to improve their property’s fire safety after two on-site inspections and then failed to pay Fire Department fines, according to Deputy Battalion Chief Al Hernandez.

The department’s noncompliance fee is $204.

“This covers everybody we inspect--homeowners with brush-clearance problems, commercial building owners who don’t have proper fire extinguishers,” Hernandez said. “If you don’t pay the fines, now we have a way to collect the money.”

The Fire Department has long fined noncompliant property owners, but Hernandez estimated that the city has failed to collect about $500,000 a year because of problems recovering those fees.

By attaching the fees to county property taxes, Hernandez said, the Fire Department expects to recover 94% of the fines, according to internal estimates.

“I’m a big fan of this because people end up paying their property taxes and the city needs to start collecting what it is owed,” said Councilwoman Laura Chick, an ardent backer of the measure. “Once we start collecting what’s owed, we can have more revenue coming in, and then we can look at dropping some of our fees in other areas.”

Inspection fees have been a hot topic at City Hall for several months.

Valley opposition to the $13 fee was cited by observers as one reason the police and fire bonds were defeated in city elections in April. A few weeks ago, the council voted to rescind a $13 brush-clearance inspection fee imposed earlier this year and to refund roughly $930,000 already collected.

Jon Coupal, president of the Valley-based Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., said his group opposes attaching the fee to tax bills.

“We don’t like that things other than property taxes are put on property-tax rolls,” Coupal said. “Property taxes should not be used as an enforcement tool.”