San Jose Downtown Association
28 N. First Street, Suite 1000
San Jose, CA 95113
sjdowntown.com
June 20, 2023
The Honorable Mayor Mahan and City Council Members
City of San José
200 East Santa Clara Street
San José, CA 95113
RE: ITEM 7.1 CODE ENFORCEMENT FOCUS AREA SERVICE TEAM PILOT PROGRAM
Dear Mayor Mahan and City Councilmembers,
The San Jose Downtown Association (SJDA) has represented downtown for 36 years and together with more than 2000 current businesses and property owner members we strive to increase the vitality and livability of downtown San Jose.
I respectfully request that you accept the staff report on the proposed Code Enforcement Focus Area Service Team Pilot Program to proactively address blight in the Downtown and other focus areas of the city.
The implementation of code enforcement’s Focus Area Service Team Pilot Program will provide much needed resources to enable proactive code inspections within areas of the city most impacted by blight, and as you are all aware, downtown San Jose would greatly benefit from this program.
Currently, the city’s delivery of blight enforcement has relied on a “complaint” based system.
Individual community members file a complaint, and the city responds. We applaud staff for their work, but now it is time to shift to a more proactive approach that doesn’t leave unreported blight unaddressed in the downtown core. The “FAST” pilot program will allow us to implement a new approach by proactively identifying code violations and begin the process to remedy them without having to rely on community members to initiate the process.
As indicated in the staff report, recent increases in the number of Code Enforcement Inspector positions have enabled PBCE to consider new ways of providing service to customers and property owners, including the development of this pilot program. Staff will use this opportunity to understand the potential for future changes to the Code Enforcement service delivery model and assess the resources required to implement them. Staff also plans on identifying opportunities to align the pilot with other strategic investments in Code Enforcements core service delivery and programming, amend municipal codes and fines to improve enforcement efforts, and explore ways to improve community partnerships and interdepartmental coordination. We applaud staff for these “thinking outside the box” efforts.
With that said, I encourage you to approve the proposed FAST program, creating this new way of responding to much needed blight related issues in our city’s one and only downtown as well as other areas of our community that desperately need attention.