Initial Nuisance Ordinance Meeting – Wednesday, August 26, 2009, 1-3 pm

Rio Arriba County Comprehensive Plan 

Taskforce Meeting Notes

Initial Nuisance Ordinance Meeting – Wednesday, August 26, 2009, 1-3 pm

Attendees:  

Louise Pocock, RAC

Lucia Sanchez, RAC

Gabriel Boyle, RAC

Ken LaGattuta, San Pedro, Retired LANL

Jose Villa, Abiquiu, Northern Rio Grande National Heritage Area

Steven Gonzales, New Mexico Economic Development Department, Northern Representative

Chuck and jean Nielson, Lindrith, Private Landowners

Rol Murrow, Lindrith, Private Landowner

Don Diego Gonzales, Velarde, Private Landowner and Hydrologist

Henry Ochoa, El Rito, Planning and Zoning Committee, Chairperson

Phil Kilgour, Chimayo, Planning and Zoning Committee, Member

Marie Markesteyn, Abiquiu, Planning and Zoning Committee, Vice-Chairperson

Michelle Martinez, NCSW 

Sign-in, Welcome, and Introductions: Location – Onate Center, Alcalde

Discussion on Draft Ordinance

Louise proposed to begin the discussion with discussing actual violations and asked what people thought about limiting the number of inoperable vehicles based on lot size.

Ken asked how the number of cars per lot was decided.

Louise explained that it was basically arbitrary and based on the rough size of a vehicle compared to the size of the lot.

Ken suggested this might not be the best way to do it because it is arbitrary and it is hard to justify why people can have three vehicles and not four.

Louise suggested that perhaps a variance procedure would enable people to get around the numerical standard.  She also suggested that another way to enforce lot line standards is to have geographic set back standards which would implicitly impose some restrictions by lot size because people could only store materials to the extent that they can satisfy the setbacks from lot lines, waterways, easements, etc. 

Ken suggested that it might be too stringent to require people to drain fluids and remove doors as well as specifying how many cars they can have- the standards go beyond just trying to enforce health and human safety protections. 

Chuck Nielson suggested that rather than try and impose numerical limits, we need enforce standards that are strictly and clearly related to health and human safety standards.  Focusing on violations that are hazardous to the environment is a much easier position to defend.

Louise explained that we would like to work with NMED, because they ultimately would be the ones to enforce any regulations related to environmental releases, but it will require setting up a process with their office so that each of our agencies can handle the new responsibilities in a timely and effective manner. Our agency needs to be trained on how to gather environmental evidence so we can refer violations to the NMED. 

Phil Kilgour noted that the current definition of inoperable vehicle could include mobile homes or recreational trailers and they wouldn’t leak fluids, so how would we asses them as a health and human safety violation?

Chuck Nielson suggested we approach abandoned buildings/structures from a fire hazard standpoint and evaluate them based on those standards.

Phil Kilgour also noted that we need to tailor our ordinance to local standard – so even if you use a numerical standard, which is arbitrary, it should at least conform to the local standard.

Rol suggested we approach the ordinance from the standpoint of, what is it we are trying to solve?  He brought up problems with the inoperable vehicles definition and also asked how the ordinance impacted materials stored inside. Rol also mentioned that we need to define “covered” and raised concern about the loss of vintage vehicles and the damage of draining fluids out of cars that might be restored at one point. 

Louise said the ordinance reads that materials stored under structures with less than three walls, it should be covered.

Gabe talked about the car as a status symbol in RAC and how it will be difficult to regulate such a strong cultural image/concept.  He also mentioned that health and human safety violations are also vectors – mosquitoes, vermin etc.

Phil asked, at what point does an inoperable vehicle become a nuisance?  Where is it stored etc,.

Gabe said it generally follows, out of site out of mind – we don’t get complaints about storage that is not out in plain view.

Ken suggested that if we do rename the ordinance as a health and human safety ordinance, these quality of life issues, or the aesthetic issues we are discussing will have no place in the ordinance.

Louise suggested that the ordinance could be simplified to only address environmental releases, presence of vectors, and perhaps a few other clearly defined health human safety standards and have the same standards for all types of storage/collections of materials – and then reinforce the environmental protections with geographic setbacks – such as no storage of materials on wetlands.

Ken asked how covering things with prevent any kind of health and human safety hazard.  

Louise agreed that requiring the covering of materials may not be the most effective way to prevent health and human safety issues associated with storage. 

Rol asked how this ordinance would apply to someone like his neighbor who stores a Chevy from every year on his property with the hopes of restoring them.  

Louise stated that the goal of the P and Z Department was to have a flexible ordinance that would work with people.  Our goal is to abate health and human safety violations, not to make people get rid of their stuff. 

North Central Solid Waste Authority Presentation

Michelle Martinez, Assistant Manager with NCSWA and _____________, General Operations Manager of NCSWA presented to our group on what they do:

NCSWA is a local public body formed through a Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) with the City, County, and Pueblos. Through the JPA they are able to operate and enforce certain portion of the Joint Powers agreement, but not all. They do not address the collection of materials/trash on private land - that falls under the jurisdiction of code enforcement (News to the Planning and Zoning Department! – But good news because this problem should be pretty easy to address)

All people have to pay the garbage fees even if they do not have home pick-up.  The payment is for the system, not the service.  If you do not have pick-up you need to use the transfer station.  There are very few garbage carts available, but you can have your trashed picked up without one if you are on the trash route and you call NCSWA to be added to the pick-up list. You can put the trash out in your own container. There is recycling available for pick-up within city limits, and people can recycle at all of the transfer stations. 

They have a difficult time keeping their records updated and being able to charge everyone fairly because there is now system currently set up that would inform NCSWA of new address and people that move into the County and people that transfer landownership – there are some 14,000 new address in the County that they are not sending a trash bill to.  We need to establish a better system of communication so the P and Z Department and the Assessors Department are sharing all the relevant information that NCSWA needs.

There was discussion about community clean-up days in certain communities and the discarding of large materials – appliances/furniture cars.  There may be some hazardous materials issues with the cleanup and disposal of certain materials such as gasoline and motor oil.  Phil suggested we do cleanup days where we bring a bunch of material to one site and have them disposed of.

This segwayed into Louise Pocock’s proposed mobile home cleanup days. She spoke about how expensive it was to dispose of a mobile home and that if the County could do a consolidated and voluntary program for people to dispose of their old junk mobile homes that they would like to discard of.  There is a possibility of turning this into a larger program accepting appliances and cars etc. 

The discussion turned to why people were not better utilizing the disposal and recycling service already available (it was mentioned that Gallegos Scraps will currently come and pick up your junk car and take it away and in some cases they will pay you for it.  Jose summarized by saying that it looked like there one a disconnect of communication among local agencies and service providers which was hindering effective and efficient service provision, and on the other hand, there were communication challenges with communicating with and influencing the behavior of communities.  He suggested we try doing more outreach through churches and schools. He stated that we need to tailor our message so that it appeals to peoples best interests.

Discussion of Draft

The discussion returned to the Ordinance.

Rol asked if we should add the word environmental to the ordinance.  

Louise noted that health and human safety was sufficient because environmental violations jeopardize health and human safety and we have other ordinances in the works that deal with the environment and development and we want to keep them clear and separate.  

Ken said that even if we focus just on health and human safety violations, we shouldn’t loose sight of the aesthetic and quality of life issues because we may need to come back to them down the road.  

There was some discussion on the complications of enforcing noise standards – it was determined that this is something we definitely don’t want to address at this point. 

Louise asked how the group felt about storage of construction materials. 

Phil talked about the definition of construction equipment and whether or not cranes/backhoes etc. are construction materials. 

It was determined that unless these types of equipment begin to pose some sort of documentable/enforceable health and human safety violation they won’t be addressed in the ordinance. 

Gabe talked about the difficulties of drafting and enforcing this type of ordinance because we don’t have an environment department or natural resources department to provide the expertise. 

Louise suggested that the action plan for the ordinance should be to for now, focus on health and human safety standards, mount an education and clean-up campaign to address the aesthetic issues.

Gabe agreed we might better address the aesthetic issues through public information and educational encouragement rather than through ordinance. 

Mr. Nielson reiterated that trying to address both health and safety and aesthetics because the aesthetic issues are too nebulous to address. 

Gabe explained how enforcement is challenging because we do not have a formal citation process right now which leaves us the only option of having the Sherriff enforce the ordinance and issue the citation or file criminal complaint in court and right now the code enforcers are not very familiar with either process. 

Ken asked whether or not we could find out more information about what kind of violations Espanola code enforcers take to court.

Louise asked how we should address abandoned buildings and she noted that we need to work in the fire hazard inspection to the ordinance.

Phil Kilgour suggested we just require that the building be secured without specifying exactly how.

Gabe said the CID would need to perform our inspections for buildings

Louise said the other half of this ordinance that ahs to come through is setting up processes with other agencies such as NMED, RAC Public Works, NM Construcion Industry Divisions, etc.  Many of the provisions of the Ordinance will have to be verified or enforced by an outside agency.   

Louise asked the group to think about their own piles of materials and what would they consider as the health and safety risk posed by that material.  Are nails sticking out of lumber piles a health and human safety hazard that we should address – again, there is a fine line between what we determine to be a violation and what is just an unavoidable hazard.

Staff handed out Appendix P and Q and asked the group to review for next meeting.  Appendix P is our summary subdivision process – it applies to smaller land divisions and doesn’t have as many requirements as the full subdivision process.  There is concern that this has been a  loophole for some developments and enables subdivisions to get passed without ensuring adequate service provision, water and waste water requirements, and terrain management requirements. 

Appendix Q address development standards for irrigated agricultural lands that requires ¾ of the lot remain open space.  Unfortunately, it is not really achieving that.  We need to amend the standards so that people follow the intended development pattern.  

Participation reflection and assignment of action items

STAFF:

Get a sense of what types of violations Espanola prosecutes in court

Work with NCSWA to develop a better system of information exchange

Rework nuisance draft 

Start drafting informational booklet

Taskforce Participants:

Read Appendix P and Q

NEXT MEETING:  Wednesday, September 30th 2009

Lunch (Burgers on the Grill) 12:00-1:30pm at the Nielson’s School House

Meeting 1:30-3:30pm at the Lindrith Firehouse

We are also trying to arrange a tour of the charter school, so this schedule is subject to amendment – but we will let you know beforehand!