MARYSVILLE — Houses with junk in their yards can be a problem in any neighborhood, but some cases are so egregious that the city of Marysville is looking to tighten its code to compel the owners to clean up.
The city is concerned that, at least in a couple of cases, homeowners have turned their back yards into near-landfills with trash, appliances and electronics, car parts, and construction (or destruction) materials.
Neighbors have complained.
“The current code we have is, if you can see it from the public right-of-way and it’s not screened from view, we can enforce on it,” said Dave Koenig, the city’s community development director.
When the junk is behind a fence that only the neighbors can see over, that’s a different issue.
The Marysville City Council has been debating how to balance its role as a government with a duty to its citizens with people’s right to privacy.
“I think the back yard is more a private area,” said city councilman Jeff Seibert. “I also don’t think we should be legislating all kinds of behavior.”
Marysville has a complaint-driven code enforcement process, and often just talking to the subject of the complaint is enough, Koenig said.
“Ninety-five percent of the issues we deal with, once we contact people, they clean up what the people complained about,” he said.
“The worst cases, in case it’s a hoarder issue, those cases are a challenge and take more time,” Koenig said.
The current proposal is simply the latest to come forward. The city has passed other related ordinances over the past several years, councilman Jeffrey Vaughan said, and many of those could be applicable to the current situation.
“Our code already addresses things like refrigerators and other appliances,” Vaughan said. “Right now you can’t have a bunch of refrigerators in your back yard that might pose a hazard to children.”
The same goes for garbage, which can draw rats.
“We do get complaints of that. There’s garbage involved,” Koenig said.
In addition to privacy issues, the council also has concerns that a newly tightened regulation could be over-broad.
Indeed, one person’s trash may be another’s collection of vintage car parts awaiting reassembly.
By the same token, a jumble of firewood might be considered unsightly by the next door neighbor who can see it over the fence from an upstairs window, or from higher up the hill.
“They wanted to be sure those terms were defined so they knew what they were regulating,” said City Attorney Jon Walker. “I think ‘junk’ was the word they were struggling with.”
There is still enough ambiguity to make some council members uncomfortable.
“I don’t want to do legislation that’s going to create issues for the whole city based just on a couple of examples,” Seibert said.
The city staff is expected to bring a revised ordinance back to the council for debate on July 5, with a possible action to happen later in the month.
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.
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