San Jose could get stricter about graffiti, weeds and garbage in downtown

Facing a colossal backlog of complaints in the thousands from residents about graffiti, unkept lawns and trash, San Jose is set to adopt a pilot program that would result in fines to scofflaws and give more power to code enforcement officers to reduce the blight that is making downtown an eye-sore. Under the city’s current rules, residents […]

Facing a colossal backlog of complaints in the thousands from residents about graffiti, unkept lawns and trash, San Jose is set to adopt a pilot program that would result in fines to scofflaws and give more power to code enforcement officers to reduce the blight that is making downtown an eyesore.

Under the city’s current rules, residents are responsible for submitting their own complaints about the blight surrounding buildings and homes. The pilot program — slated to start in August — would instead give that power to code enforcement officers, who would be on the search for downtown businesses and residences that aren’t maintaining their properties.

Combined with an increase in department staffing, Mayor Matt Mahan believes the strategy will make a major difference in cleaning up a part of the city that draws a large share of resident concerns about blight.

“We know that when we’re just reliant on complaints, we don’t necessarily know what is going on out there and we’re slow to respond,” said Mahan at a press conference on Tuesday, standing behind a boarded-up hookah lounge with graffiti scrawled on its exterior on East Santa Clara Street. “We’ve accumulated quite a backlog of (code enforcement cases). We want to work through that.”

The city currently has just over 4,000 open code enforcement cases – and about 40% of new cases are related to blight. According to city officials, the problem is mostly concentrated in Districts 3, 5 and 6, which make up the northern core of San Jose along with its downtown.

Three weeks before the city-led inspections are set to begin, property owners in the downtown area will receive a notice about the new program. Code enforcement officers then will focus on a specific area of downtown — details of which were not immediately available Tuesday. If businesses and residents are not in compliance, they could face fines from $250 to $1,000.

The pilot program remains small — two staff members will be devoted to the new effort. The city’s goal when it comes to decreasing its backlog is also modest, with the hopes of a 10% reduction in the 4,000 complaints by next year, still leaving the possibility of thousands of open cases.

Councilmembers will vote today on the program.

Just two doors down from the blighted hookah shop on 398 East Santa Clara Street where the mayor spoke sits Tofoo Com Chay Vegetarian Cuisine, a Vietnamese restaurant that serves spring rolls, pho and pad thai. Its co-owner, Kim Le, said that the closure of the hookah shop last year had a big impact on her business.

“There’s always graffiti,” she said. “And smashed windows. I think people are afraid to go on this block because the scene is abandoned.” Standing behind a register alongside trays of barbecued pork, Le said she feels frustrated with the city’s clean-up efforts so far — and insists that the area on the outskirts of downtown has been ignored.

“They have to do something,” she said.

On Monday, empty alcohol bottles, cigarette containers and a metal pipe were strewn around the former hookah lounge’s overgrown grass exterior. Just a couple of blocks east, six-foot-tall weeds and an abandoned mattress and chair could be found at an empty lot.

The push for combatting downtown’s blight comes as Mayor Mahan tries to shepherd in a “back to basics” approach to governing, arguing that the city should be narrowing its responsibilities to bread and butter issues that include public safety and homelessness. The effort also mirrors other ideas that have been floated since the mayor took office in January, including the prohibition of homeless encampments in certain areas of the city and restrictions on where RV dwellers could park their vehicles.

Last week, Mahan was able to commit $27 million toward his interim housing strategy, an effort to quickly build shelter for homeless residents and swiftly get them out of encampments with the eventual goal of transitioning them to a more permanent solution. The money, however, is millions of dollars less than what the mayor had originally proposed after facing heavy criticism from affordable housing advocates who argued that his strategy would squash efforts to build out a viable network of permanent options.