Plans by Hoffman Estates for a villagewide inspection program aimed at curbing blight and correcting code violations at homes are on hold until trustees settle a dispute on how the program should work.
Trustees at a Planning, Building and Zoning Committee meeting this week agreed that an inspection program is needed for single-family homes.
“Blight comes from letting a little bit start,” Mayor Michael O’Malley said. “It’s like corrosion on a car.”
But trustees could not agree on how a program would operate. The effort should not be so tough that it is viewed as an “out-to-get residents program,” trustee Gail Giacalone said.
Until now, the village mainly has gone after owners of multifamily residential buildings, such as apartment complexes and condominiums, who violate city codes.
The village investigates major code violations and complaints against single-family dwellings, but it has no comprehensive inspection program for such residences, according to village officials.
“Apparently we’re not doing anything now to maintain home values,” trustee Edwin Frank said.
The proposal says village officials designed a program for single-family dwellings that would focus on “aggressively seeking out violations in a systematic, methodical fashion rather than responding to violations solely on a complaint-oriented basis.”
Under the program, two full-time and two part-time inspectors would be hired to investigate code violations throughout the village. Residents would be cited for having junked cars parked on their property; broken gutters, windows or screens on their house; long grass and weeds in their yard; or missing address numbers on their house.
Only code violations that can be seen from the public right of way would be identified, said Richard Unwin, community development director for the village.
“This isn’t something where we would be sneaking between homes and looking over fences,” he told the committee.
But trustees said they were wary of going too far with an inspection program.
“My intent was not to go out and get everybody who is in violation of the code,” trustee Susan Kenley said. “In a lot of cases, I think . . . people don’t know it’s a violation of the code.”
Frank agreed that most residents probably would be willing to make the necessary repairs after being informed of code violations by the village.
“If they don’t, then go after them,” he said.
