Hundreds of Sacramento Properties Targeted For Being Unkempt
More than 800 undeveloped parcels within the city of Sacramento will have to be cleaned up by because the property owners haven't taken care of them.
Even after the City of Sacramento sent out notices to property owners about an overabundance of weeds and trash, there are still hundreds of lots that remain untended.
The City's Code Enforcement Officers sent out 7,300 notices at the beginning of March to the owners of undeveloped properties. About 6,500 responded by cleaning up the lots or turning them under. Eight-hundred-sixty did not.
Those properties will be on a list presented to the City Council to be approved for cleanup. Dennis Kubo with the City says property owners will be billed about $200 when the work is complete, "Once we send out the invoices and we don't receive any payment, the next step is that we go ahead and process that invoice and make it a lien towards the property. It would be as a special assessment,"Kubo said.
Kubo says his department had an 11 percent increase in calls last year for trash and weed problems on developed properties. This is the first year the Code Enforcement Department will handle weed and trash abatement of undeveloped parcels. The fire department had previously handled such cases.