Colonial Acres resident David Maxey said he sees a lot of junk cars
parked in yards in his neighborhood but he had no idea neighbors were violating city and
county codes until he got involved with the city’s first Community Improvement Project.
By now, every Colonial Acres resident should know the top 10 code
violations thanks to volunteers who spent Saturday morning handing out brochures listing
the most common complaints, which includes junk vehicles, storing household
appliances outside a house, and using indoor
furniture outdoors.
“Once people know the violations,
we’re hoping they’ll get into compliance,”
said Maxey. “If you’ve got a refrigerator on
the porch, it doesn’t belong there.”
Residents will have three weeks to get
their property into compliance. At that time, the volunteers will scan the neighborhood
again, and addresses of homes that are still in
violation will be turned in to the district
attorney. Letters will be mailed to residents
warning them that if their properties aren’t cleaned
up in two weeks, they will receive citations.
The Colonial Acres neighborhood in East Memphis received a lot of attention last
year when Robert “Prince Mongo” Hodges
battled code-enforcement officials in Environmental Court over his yard filled with
mannequin heads and plastic lawn furniture at the corner of Colonial and Park. But residents
who gathered in the Colonial Baptist Church parking lot on Saturday said Hodges wasn’t the
sole motivation for this project.
“That situation was just the tip of the
iceberg,” said resident Byron Tredway. “It
gets much worse than that — crack houses, meth labs. You don’t know what’s going on until
you get out and start turning rocks over.”
The event on Saturday was phase one of a pilot program devised by the Mayor’s
Citizen Service Center, the district attorney’s
office, city and county code-enforcement offices,
and the Police and Citizen’s Alliance (PACA). According to Jennifer Donnals,
communications director for the district attorney’s office, if
this program is successful it will spread to other parts of the city.
“We’re going to target this area and
work out the kinks,” said Donnals. “If people
can fix problems on their own, that will help alleviate the work load that code enforcement
has now.”
