Section 17998 Of Chapter 8. Code Enforcement Incentive Program From California Health And Safety Code >> Division 13. >> Part 1.5. >> Chapter 8.
17998
. The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) The Department of Housing and Community Development reports
that one in every eight dwelling units in the state is substandard
and that unless health and safety problems are corrected,
habitability conditions generally deteriorate until the units become
life threatening and uninhabitable and must be removed from the
housing stock through closure or demolition.
(b) California is experiencing a housing shortage of significant
proportions, particularly in the affordable housing sector. The state
and many local governments are funding affordable housing from a
variety of sources at substantial costs. It is ill advised to neglect
timely code enforcement responsibilities and, as a result, to lose
housing that could have been retained.
(c) The lack of code enforcement on a single dwelling unit can
lead to the deterioration of an entire neighborhood as the
substandard or abandoned unit becomes a magnet for crime, vandalism,
fires, and other activities that rapidly infect the surrounding homes
and neighborhood.
(d) Many local governments endeavor to fulfill their statutory
responsibility for code enforcement. However, local governments with
a higher percentage of lower income households with families, living
in older, overcrowded housing stock, exacerbated by the neglect of
absentee slumlords, bear a disproportionate code enforcement cost and
responsibility compared with more affluent communities.
(e) Existing law provides building standards to assure decent,
safe, and sanitary housing for all Californians.
(f) Resources for code enforcement at the local level are
frequently allocated to construction-related code enforcement
activities, which generate fees to pay for regulatory services,
including building and permit inspections, rather than housing
maintenance activities that prevent or abate substandard conditions.
(g) The enforcement of housing maintenance codes for existing
housing is frequently performed only on a complaint-by-complaint
basis and frequently there is insufficient funding for the abatement
of existing violations through timely and effective administrative or
judicial proceedings.