The vast majority of complaints received so far this year, as well as during the same period last year, by Snyder city code enforcement officials have to do with tall grass and weeds and trash. Complaints about building appearance in high-traffic areas, by comparison, have been rare.
City officials have been kept busy this year trying to encourage property owners to keep weeds and grass under control, Snyder Code Enforcement Officer Zach Rollins said.
“Weeds and grass problems are, by far, the top area of code violation officers are dealing with so far this year,” Rollins said.
His office has sent about 260 tall grass and weed notifications this year to property owners.
The next most frequent violation has been trash, with about 50 notifications.
Because of past computer problems, exact numbers for 2016 were unavailable, Rollins said.
Only one complaint about an occupied building in Snyder’s high-traffic areas has been received so far this year — asking for property clean-up at a building on Coliseum Drive in east Snyder, Rollins said. One unsightly building complaint was received in the first seven months of 2016.
There were 23 complaints filed about high weeds, and eight complaints for property cleanup (mostly junk items) through July last year, Rollins said.
High-traffic areas in Snyder are 25th Street and Coliseum Drive, Business U.S. Hwy. 84, Hwy. 350 and College Ave. and FM 1605 (37th Street between College Ave. and U.S. Hwy. 180).
The Snyder City Council is currently considering an ordinance aimed at improving the appearance of building facades and landscaping, as well as general maintenance.
The first reading of the ordinance, which would require building owners on several major streets to adhere to new rules for their facades and landscaping, as well as all business owners to abide by maintenance rules, was approved by the council earlier this month.
The ordinance must pass a second reading before it is formally adopted.
Because the ordinance is undergoing changes and has not been finalized, Rollins would not speculate which buildings in Snyder would be subject to potential tickets or fines.
When dealing with complaints about high grass, weeds or trash, code enforcement officers prefer to work with property owners instead of arbitrarily issuing tickets. They first send out notifications by mail to property owners, informing them of the violation and giving them seven days to correct the situation.
If officers subsequently find no action has been taken to correct the problem, they submit a work order to the city public works department, which will abate the issue and bill the property owner. If payment isn’t received, the city then issues a lien against the property, Rollins said.
“We don’t usually issue citations (for weeds, grass or trash) because it drags out the process,” he said.
Most notifications sent by code enforcement are the result of inspections by officers, not by complaints received from citizens, Rollins said.
“Lots of what we do is self-generated,” he said. “As far as complaints go, we’ve received about the same amount as last year, on average.”
He said that 14 citizen complaints have been received so far this year through the Civic Plus complaint procedure found on the city’s website. All but one of those complaints have been for high grass and weeds or trash.
From personal observation, most building appearance issues are at vacant buildings, which are difficult to remedy because no owner is on-site to make needed improvements, Rollins said.