Photo courtesy of City of Florence.

Sept. 19, 2018 — On Sept. 17, Florence City Council voted to approve Ordinance No. 12, Series 2018, to amend current nuisance lodging and camping codes on private property within the city.

While earlier drafts of the ordinance also included public property, city staff removed the language after consulting with the city’s legal counsel.

Florence Planning Director Wendy FarleyCampbell presented the staff report recommending changes to Florence City Code Title 6, Chapter 1 Section 2-4.

“The city receives numerous complaints about illegal camping in public parks and in the brush on private properties,” the written staff report read. “Complaints and resulting issues include abandoned property and refuse, public urination and defecation, animal abuse and illegal fires.”

Other reported issues included noise from fighting, habitation and dogs; illegal dumping of tanks; unsightliness; obstructing vision clearance; and sidewalk and trail encroachments.

“There are significant public costs to the taxpayers as the city, Siuslaw Valley Fire and Rescue (SVFR) and Western Lane Ambulance District (WLAD) respond to calls for assistance, enforcement and site clean-up,” the report continued.

For the agencies, the annual expenses for these incidents total $10,650 for SVFR and $19,500 for WLAD. For Florence Code Enforcement and the Florence Police Department, expenses have ranged from $50 to $400 per callout and as much as $4,997 per site cleanup for Florence Public Works.

“We were just getting lots and lots of nuisance complaints about illegal camping,” FarleyCampbell said. “… These are the costs to respond to illegal camping situations, whether that’s illegal fires, callouts or emergency medical situations for fights, domestic violence or, once a few years ago, even rape.”

Her presentation showed images of an abandoned illegal camping site in the Florence area, a tent and overhanging tarps littered with belongings and trash.

“We have a responsibility to clean it up,” she said.

In July and August, Florence City Council met for two work sessions on the nuisance lodging issue. This included a listening session for SVFR, WLAD, Code Enforcement and police to talk about their recent experiences with the callouts.

“They provided some input to you about their experiences, needs for transitional housing and the challenges with providing housing and services to that population,” FarleyCampbell said.

According to the staff report, Florence’s previous code was deemed unenforceable by the local judicial courts. Its language, which was created in 1977, read, “No person shall lodge in a car, outbuilding or other place not intended for that purpose.”

“A tent is intended for the purpose (of lodging), and RVs are intended for that purpose,” FarleyCampbell said.

As of Monday, the code now reads, “No person shall lodge on private property in a vehicle, trailer, building, structure, tent or by any other means not approved for that purpose through the land use application and permitting processes prescribed in Florence City Code Title 10 Chapter 1.”

The important, enforceable part, FarleyCampbell said, was that the code now directs people back to Title 10.

“If you are performing any kind of activity on a particular piece of land, Title 10 is the governing document for what kinds of uses you do on that land,” she said. “This isn’t just to address the tents and things like that; it includes people turning sheds in the back into a place to house people, which hasn’t been approved or doesn’t have building permits for that type of use. It isn’t safe. … It’s to address a lot of different issues, not just outdoor camping.”

City Manager Erin Reynolds said, “There are other ways to address complaints that come in as illegal camping. We have been using those tools in our toolbox, and they have not been enough. That was one of the reasons, after having two work sessions with the city council and talking through this with the fire department, code enforcement and the police department, that we moved in this direction.”

FarleyCampbell also said the approved ordinance contained different language than was originally published in public notices, which included references to both public and private property. After consultation with the city’s legal counsel and a Supreme Court decision last week, city staff removed the word “public” from the ordinance.

Florence Mayor Joe Henry then asked if public property would be included in the code’s language in the future.

Reynolds replied, “Yes. Based on the most recent court ruling, we have not had time to work with legal counsel on a suggestion to address the public use of property for lodging. There are some ways we can work through that — we just couldn’t use a blanket statement using the word ‘public.’ We need to come back with, and these are our legal counsel’s words, ‘a more nuanced version’ that isn’t a blanket statement and be able to still meet the intent of ensuring public property is used for its intended purpose, and that there aren’t obstructions or safety hazards to people using the roadways, etc. We will bring that back to you at a later date.”

At the beginning of the meeting, area resident Greg Abney asked for more ways he and his neighbors on Zebrawood Street could work with the city to clear deadwood and vegetation from public property bordering their land. He said that illegal camping is taking place in the area between the residences and the parking lot of Three Rivers Casino Resort, partially due to the unkempt nature of the property.

Reynolds said the code change provides “a tool in the toolbox to address these type of nuisance issues.”

“There are some other ways we can work with private property owners that abut public property,” she continued. “We can work with them on the maintenance of those areas and help in the short-term address some of those situations.”

Several other people also chose to speak during the public comment period.

Proponent Sherry Wilson asked that her written testimony be read into the record.

As a representative of Old Town Mobile Home Park, she said that “clients are uneasy exiting their cars to enter the dwelling they pay rent for, not knowing who is lurking around, sleeping and leaving garbage in front of their homes. Having the ability to remove the trespassers will enhance my clients’ experience, and many others that deal with the same issue.”

The next speaker, Brenda Gilmer, also provided written testimony, this time against the ordinance. She also spoke in front of the councilors.

“My major objection was that homelessness was being criminalized, which is a problem across the country. … The change to the ordinance to remove public property does ease things considerably; however, it fails to address the fundamental underlying problem of homelessness. We are simply not addressing that,” Gilmer said.

Gilmer has been actively involved in the City of Florence’s Housing and Economic Opportunities Project (HEOP). She suggested that the city work now to set up temporary housing to ease the illegal lodging situation, possibly using a similar shelter setup to those used by wildland firefighters.

“It’s a way to take people from unsafe housing and unsafe sanitation to humane treatment,” she said. “… We could figure out where in the city we could place people until the other alternative housing that we hope to build are there. There are good plans out there, but it’s not there yet.

“I hope you address homelessness more seriously in the future.”

The next speaker was Pastor Greg Wood of the Presbyterian Church of the Siuslaw and board member of the Florence Emergency Cold Weather Shelter. He said he had two concerns.

“I was fearful that enforcement would begin before our homeless population could be warned and encouraged to move on and out of the city,” he said first.

According to FarleyCampbell, the ordinance will go into effect on Oct. 17, which should give enough time to give notice.

Secondly, Wood said, “My reading of this code recommendation would then criminalize people being housed in churches, as we do with the Emergency Cold Weather Shelter. Our church building, through the land use application and permitting process, was not described as a lodging. As in most churches, people do sleep there, but that’s just on Sunday morning,” he joked.

FarleyCampbell assured him that churches providing lodging is discussed in a separate part of the code.

“We certainly don’t want to discourage the warming shelter,” Henry said.

The last speaker, Sandy Todd, had several concerns, including potential litigation, fires and a more permanent shelter.

“We have to get real about homelessness,” she said.

FarleyCampbell said that city code already prohibits open fires within city property, except for certain uses. Those are listed in Florence City Code Title 6, Chapter 1 Section 4-5.

“When we say ‘transitional housing,’ we’re trying not to pigeonhole into one category, homelessness,” Reynolds said. “We’re trying to say we’re working on housing as a comprehensive issue throughout the city.”

She added that future work on the code could include wording to allow a shelter within the city.

Following a brief discussion, Florence City Council unanimously passed Ordinance No. 12, “An ordinance amending Florence City Code Title 6, Chapter 1 Section 2-4 Regarding Nuisance Lodging and Camping.”

For at least the past year, Florence staff, officials and community members have been addressing the issues of housing.

“I just refer back to what we have been doing,” said Reynolds. “When we talk about transitional housing, this what we’re talking about. How do we ensure what makes sense for Florence is available in our housing stock? And making sure that the zoning, code and everything else doesn’t get too much in the way of that.”

In July, code changes became effective, allowing for accessory dwelling units to be allowed on single-family residential properties, regardless of zoning. In addition, churches are now able to have residential uses on their property.

“This is part of a multi-phase project to address and look at the opportunities for transitional housing within the community,” FarleyCampbell said. “The goals for this project were to provide opportunities within the community to find where that type of housing would be appropriate. Our code doesn’t currently have opportunities for it, and we’re doing that through a follow-on track.”

From October to June, the city will look at the Buildable Lands Inventory and the Housing Needs Assessment and make additional code changes if deemed necessary.

“September has been a great month,” Reynolds said. “I think that 2018 has a lot left in store, so don’t write it off. We have an exciting quarter left of 2018 ahead.”