A tall tree nearly obscures Connie Berglund’s small white house from the street. It doesn’t stand out among the other houses on the block, only the height of grass separates her property from her student neighbors.
Here on Harris Street, that is one of the few things that distinguish permanent residents like Berglund from people who rent. Berglund estimates one-third of the homes on her street are rentals, most of which are occupied by students. She has lived here since the 1970s and has seen many people come and go.
Berglund says she makes an effort to meet her neighbors when new people move to the area.
“I also give them information about renting and renters’ rights and always try to talk with them personally,” Berglund said.
Berglund works at the University Health Center and is used to dealing with students. At the health center she feels she is helping to teach students how to be responsible health care consumers, and she views living next to students as a teaching opportunity as well.
“I think they aren’t aware, and in many cases the students I get next door to me or wherever, it may be their first time they are renting on their own and they don’t know what it’s like to be a neighbor,” she said.
Berglund said it takes time for young people to learn what kind of relationship they should have with the people next door. Berglund said she has seen student drug dealers, massive amounts of people living in one residence, and some renters who have never had a party in the two years they have lived there.
Overcrowding
Sherryl Lockhart, a land use inspector for the city of Eugene, said one of the things Berglund has noticed can multiply the annoyances of living next to students: too many people in one house. Eugene city code says just five unrelated people can share a single-family dwelling in the lowest density zoned areas, like Berglund’s Amazon neighborhood. Lockhart says this doesn’t apply to families.
“We don’t regulate how big a family can be,” she said.
Lockhart said once more than three students live in a house, problems regarding parking and garbage begin to escalate.
“Too many people in a house, those kinds of violations just mushroom,” she said.
“If you had a really big, giant house and could comfortably accommodate a number of people, you’re still limited to five,” she said.
Parking
Parking is one issue when too many people occupy the same house. Lockhart said many homes are designed to accommodate two vehicles. She said three students who were sharing a house recently received a complaint because of their parking habits.
The city requires the first 10 feet from the property line to be landscaped, and this means it is against code to drive across it.
Beyond this 10-foot space, referred to as a setback, people can park their cars without regulation. Lockhart said the three students were actually parking in an appropriate area of the yard, but instead of using the driveway to leave the residence, were driving across the lawn into the neighbor’s yard to exit using the neighbor’s driveway.
“A lot of people say ‘I don’t care if you park on the grass’ because that’s not their grass,” Lockhart said.
Most city ordinances are enforced on a complaint-based response. City of Eugene Parking Enforcement Manager Kay Kronholm said most parking enforcement is driven by neighbor complaints. Cars may not be on an unregulated street for more than 72 hours. The city will come and document the vehicle before issuing a citation in the amount of $25. Any additional citations that a vehicle may get will be $40. After three days, the vehicle will be towed away at the owner’s expense.
“They’re extremely expensive,” Kronholm said of the tow costs. “It’s not something folks want to get into if they don’t have to.”
Although it may bother some neighbors when students take most of the on-street parking, Kronholm said the city doesn’t regulate legally parked vehicles. She said students are more likely to block sidewalks with their vehicles, which carries a $15 fine, than to violate other city parking codes. She said this is dangerous to pedestrians.
“It doesn’t make sense to create that kind of hazard,” she said.
Burning & Landscaping
Through its various departments, the city enforces codes that regulate the appearance of one’s yard and what is appropriate to burn in a fireplace.
Although it is not illegal to have a couch that is being used on the front porch, Deputy Fire Marshal Greg Musil said it can be a fire hazard, especially when students drop cigarettes in the couch.
In November 2005, University student John Huddleston nearly died when a couch outside his apartment caught fire from a cigarette. Huddleston received burns on 40 percent of his body and spent six weeks in a coma, according to Emerald archives.
Lockhart said the only way her department regulates couches is when they are unused.
“They might have started on the porch and got drug out to the yard and just stay there,” Lockhart said. In this case the city would consider the couch junk, which her department would regulate.
The city gives residents 10 days to pick up junk in the front yard.
The Lane Regional Air Protection Agency regulates what people may burn in Eugene city limits.
“Unfortunately people from time to time will burn things that they are not supposed to, foam and plastic,” Musil said.
There is no backyard burning allowed in the city, in fact, the only thing it is legal to burn is clean, dry wood in a woodstove, said Kim Metzler, the co-public affairs coordinator for LRAPA.
“We do get a lot of complaints in the University area of neighbors of students who are burning things and causing a lot of smoke, en mass itself,” Metzler said.
This can also result in a fine of $500.
“It hasn’t ever gone to that point. This is a fairly new rule,” Metzler said. The city is equipped with people trained to assess a smoke’s opacity, or how clearly one is able to see through it.
“Because we have enforcement officers trained to read the smoke, it would hold up in court. We wouldn’t have to prove what they were burning,” she said.
Metzler added the city also enforces no-burn days where air quality is low enough that no burning is allowed.
If a person uses a fireplace on a no-burn day they can get a $500 fine. No-burn days are rare in Eugene, however.
“We haven’t had a no-burn day in over ten years,” Mezler said.
She said conditions that affect a no-burn day are “when air pollution starts to rise to the point where it is unhealthy, or we fear it is going to become unhealthy.”
A day such as this would be one where there had been no rain for several days, temperatures are very cold and the air is still.
Trash
Students also may not understand garbage regulations either, said Lorna Baldwin, a solid waste and recycling analyst for the city. Baldwin said one of the biggest complaints her department gets is about leaving recycling or garbage bins on the curb.
“The bins are not supposed to go out before seven at night the day before pick-up, and the day of pick-up they are supposed to be back at your house by midnight,” she said.
Baldwin speculates these rules are often overlooked simply because students forget when to take out bins.
“They aren’t clued in to when garbage delivery is,” she said. “I’m a violator of that rule on occasion.”
Baldwin said sometimes bins will stay on the curb all week.
“We get a lot of calls and have to write a lot of letters to people who are largely renters,” she said.
Her department can issue a fine in these cases.
Some landlords do not provide garbage service, and Lockhart said some students simply may not know how to use garbage services correctly. She said one complaint was about students who were using the dumpster of a business to toss out trash, and in another, students were using a broken-down truck in the driveway as a place to store ga
rbage.
Penalties
Ultimately, it is up to the property owner to ensure everything is in compliance at a house. The city will often send “letters to correct” to both the residence and the owner.
“Probably a lot of landlords are not keeping a close eye on their property,” Lockhart said.
Penalties for non-compliance range from $80 a day to $2,000 a day. Lockhart said penalties are relative to the history of a property, its owner and the tenant. The high end is a severe penalty that might be assessed in the case of destroying the natural environment.
Repeat offenders are documented, and will receive stiffer penalties with repeated violations. Unpaid fines will result in a lien against the property.
“Eventually the city would get paid, but it could be years,” Lockhart said.
Berglund said she seldom has to contact the city to get student neighbors to comply with city codes.
“Otherwise, if parties get really out of control or the students are non-responsive, the neighbors have been really nasty or mean,” she said.
Berglund said when the University decided there was going to be no more partying in fraternities, “We knew where the partying was going to go.”
This decision affects the greater community, and as Berglund put it: “The entity of the University is our neighbor,” and in that sense, “what you do affects me and what I do affects you.”
Amazon Neighbors committee chair Eric Muller agreed.
“As Connie says, we live with the impacts,” Muller said.
Contact the news editor at [email protected]
Living next to students can be rewarding, challenging
Daily Emerald
September 13, 2007
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