Targeting Troubled Neighborhoods for Housing Code Inspections

<p>[UPDATE: The General Assembly enacted changes in 2017. Those changes are discussed in this law bulletin: Residential Rental Property Inspections, Permits, and Registration: Changes in 2017. See Questions 19 and 20 in the bulletin for a discussion of targeted inspections.]</p> <p>Along Broken Dreams Boulevard, not far from Main Street, an abandoned mill overlooks a troubled neighborhood. Once a thriving residential area with inexpensive mill housing (single family homes and duplexes), the neighborhood is now typical of a declining mill village. Many of the dwellings are substandard, owned primarily by absentee landlords who are either unable or unwilling to maintain their properties. The neighborhood’s decline has recently attracted the attention of local officials, who are in the midst of planning a comprehensive effort to clean up and revitalize the historic neighborhood.</p> <p>While the planning process unfolds slowly, impatient community leaders demand immediate action in the interim. Specifically, they want the local inspections department to conduct a housing code inspection sweep of the entire neighborhood—immediately. Can the inspections department conduct a program of housing code inspections that targets this particular neighborhood? Under G.S. 153A-364 (counties) and G.S. 160A-424 (cities), statutes which were revised by S.L. 2011-281, the answer is “yes, but exercise caution.”</p> <p>Background</p> <p>For decades, city and county inspection departments possessed authority to conduct periodic inspections of residential and nonresidential structures without cause. However, as discussed in a prior post, the General Assembly recently placed some limitations on the authority of inspection departments to inspect residential structures. Specifically, an inspection department must first establish reasonable cause prior to inspecting a residential [...]</p>