Bonelli Tract Homeowners Ambushed by Santa Clarita Code Enforcement

Overzealous Santa Clarita Code Enforcement Officers accused of harassing homeowners.

It’s been no secret that the Santa Clarita Code Enforcement nazi’s have been out and about in the Santa Clarita Valley, targeting one neighborhood at a time to convince homeowners to get their homes visually up to snuff. This isn’t necessarily a bad idea, since many of the code enforcement violations include unsafe (and unsightly) garage conversions. However, these mandates need to be issued with some common sense in mind, and to expect old neighborhoods to be brought up to new code standards is simply ludicrous.

Until now there have apparently been no reports of outright abuse by these code enforcement officers. However, it seems at last night’s Santa Clarita City Council meeting, the residents of the Bonelli tract in Saugus took the floor in the public participation portion and raised some serious concerns about code enforcement tactics in their neighborhood.

Quoted from IHeartSCV:

Beginning around the time of Extreme Neighborhood Makeovers, residents began receiving harshly worded letters that they were violating the City’s Unified Development Code concerning driveway width, fencing materials, lawn maintenance, and other landscaping matters of grave importance. It’s an old neighborhood, built long before the codes it presently violates were even written. The codes had never been enforced before, and many seemed inappropriate for the community.

But they were suddenly enforced with great zeal by a certain Daniel Rivas, City Community Preservation Officer. By all accounts, Rivas is a most unpleasant person to deal with, driving three speakers to tears as they delivered their statements about him and his department. Here are some lowlights:

1. A woman said Daniel Rivas took pictures of her driveway without even introducing himself and threatened to put a lien on her home if she and her husband didn’t comply with code.

2. Another woman said that a member of code enforcement (whom she would later identify as Rivas) told her “the front yard looked like crap” and threatened a lien and jail time if she didn’t pave the driveway. After paving the driveway, he told her there was now too much concrete and instructed her to reduce the amount, all of this at considerable personal expense.

3. A middle-aged man said Rivas “has no compassion whatsoever.” He said that he has “a lot to learn,” and complained about being targeted for having weeds in his lawn.

4. In the most troubling comment, a man came forward to describe how Rivas told him that he needed to fix up his yard. As he got into his story, he began to cry and a neighbor had to step in and finish reading his written comments for him. You see, the man’s mother and mother-in-law both died within weeks of one another, and when he asked Rivas for more time in light of these tragic losses, his plea “fell on deaf ears.”

Wow… Seems something is definitely wrong at Santa Clarita City Hall in the Code Enforcement department, and whether it’s just one renegade employee or the whole department remains to be seen. Apparently City Council members apologized for this behavior at the end of last night’s meeting.