City Council and staff have heard the concerns of residents in the University area and we have taken those concerns very seriously.
Key staff members from various city departments including the city manager’s office, city attorney’s office, code enforcement, police, fire, building, planning, public works, along with UCR and UNET representatives met here at City Hall on June 27th and they were provided very clear direction to enforce all regulations and to implement a “zero tolerance” policy when responding to student party calls.
Likewise UCR held an internal meeting on this topic on July 1st, and the Riverside Neighborhood Partnership formed a University task force which has met twice in the last week.
Together we are implementing an action plan to include enforcing existing laws with regards to noise, parties, property maintenance, trash cans and parking, educating property owners (and by property owners we mean residents, absentee owners and people who are applying for permits) on the existing laws and how to report a violation; educating students and absentee owners on Good Neighbor guidelines and the consequences of non-compliance; presenting modifications to the room rental ordinance to the Planning Commission for final recommendation to the City Council.
We have assigned a senior code enforcement officer to oversee all student housing related complaints and we are going to maintain a master database of calls to track problem properties for further action.
Code enforcement will patrol the neighborhood to look for violations, including working on weekends.
We have designated Gary Merk who is our Code Enforcement manager and Hilda Gonzalez from our Neighborhoods group as point staff members for contact by the residents. They can be contacted by calling the Community Development Department at 951-826-5371.
We thank the neighbors for bringing the current issues to our attention and we look forward to working with them.
Neighbors can act by calling 311 or using the 311 mobile app to report property maintenance and room rental violations, calling 911 to report criminal activity, including parties and noise violations, attending the UNA meeting which will take place this Thursday on July 11th at 6:30 p.m. at Crest Community Church to hear from staff about what we’ve done and the issue and also to provide us with input.
You could also attend the Planning Commission meeting on July 18th to learn more about the City’s Neighborhood Livability Program and to provide input on modifying the room rental ordinance.
We will be scheduling additional neighborhood meetings to stay on top of this issue, and we will insure that City staff remains focused on improving conditions for residents impacted by this issue.
Thank you.