Astoria hopes to better regulate code violations

A new Astoria code compliance specialist hopes to educate business and property owners about code violations.

Victoria Sage joined the city’s Community Development Department in November in a newly created role designed to bolster the city’s ability to regulate code violations. Sage, who grew up on the North Coast, previously worked as a small business owner and planner in Clatsop County.

Matt Brandmeyer, the city’s director of community development, explained that Sage’s role is intended to ease the burden of code enforcement on other city departments.

“I think there was interest in creating the position because, essentially, our construction division and our engineering division, and other city departments, have not been able to dedicate the time to fully resolve code enforcement issues,” he said. “So they wanted to establish a function that was solely concerned with that.”

As these departments were overwhelmed and dealing with staffing shortages, Sage’s role included resolving a significant backlog of code compliance cases.

“They’re just complicated questions, so there’s a lot of research needed to start solving them,” Sage said. “There’s a lot of asking other departments about the history behind things, researching the archives…and I also have a pretty decent amount of experience with this city to fall back on because I’ve been here for a while. So I also already know some of the issues, which is helpful.”

Astoria’s code compliance program is primarily complaint-driven, which means Sage also spends time fielding calls from residents about potential code violations. Brandmeyer estimates the department receives between 20 and 30 complaints per month.

“There’s a lot of just answering phone calls and working to solve problems, and just trying to find creative solutions to problems that may arise,” Sage said.

In the downtown area, where there is a high volume of complaints, Sage is beginning the process of educating business owners about potential code violations. She spoke at a meeting of the Astoria Downtown Historic District Association this month.

“There are some that are out of compliance downtown, and I really think that’s because they don’t know what the rules are,” Sage said.

Sage plans to distribute flyers and work collaboratively with business owners to determine solutions to potential code violations. She predicts that the vast majority of compliance issues will be resolved quickly.

“(The goal) is voluntary compliance,” Sage said. “I really think a lot of people don’t know any better, and once they see what the rules are, it’s very easy to change.”

Typical violations Sage sees are things like misplaced sandwiches and trash cans, or tables and chairs that extend beyond their allocated space.

If business owners fail to comply with the law after the educational period, the city typically issues three citations, with the third being accompanied by a fine. However, Sage said collecting fines is not the city’s goal.

“My goal is for people to comply,” she said. “I would rather people spend the money to actually fix the breach. So it’s really like, I do absolutely everything I can to not get to that point.”

Jessamyn Grace West, executive director of the downtown association, emphasized the importance of the educational process, especially for new business owners and given code changes in recent years.

“There has to be an ongoing collaboration with the city — an ongoing conversation — to educate, to get this information out,” said West, who served on the City Council.

Sage said she hasn’t seen much resistance from business owners other than what she describes as “fear of the unknown.”

“I really think most of the problems will be resolved very easily,” she said. “So I hope to make this as easy as possible and as gentle as possible. And give a lot of time, very reasonable deadlines for things. And also, I just want to be as helpful as possible.”