HomeMy WebLinkAbout4/15/2025 Item 7a, Rowley
Sandra Rowley <
To:Stewart, Erica A; Marx, Jan; Francis, Emily; Shoresman, Michelle; Boswell, Mike
Cc:E-mail Council Website
Subject:Item 7a, Neighborhood Livability
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Dear Mayor Stewart and Members of the Council,
RQN members are encouraged and thankful to see Neighborhood Livability listed as one of the Major
City Goals for the next budget cycle. Safe and peaceful residential neighborhoods foster a sense of
security, leading to increased community engagement, economic growth, and improved mental and
physical health.
Staff's work plan recommendation for this goal is to: "Create a project plan and standard
operating procedures for Community Development Enforcement of zoning code regulations
pertaining to greek houses. Consider potential updates to zoning code to facilitate efficient
regulation of greek house."
While this is a good first step toward confronting the problem of the illegal fraternity operations in R-1
and R-2 zones, Director Tway has expressed that current staff levels are insufficient to tackle such a
time-consuming task of dealing with and ending these illegal operations. There is no
recommendation for additional Code Enforcement Officials to augment existing staff who has been
trying to work on resolving this problem. The burden of gathering evidence needed to effectively
enforce these violations is very time-consuming requiring research, phone calls and personal
interviews, follow through, and coordination with the PD and City Attorney. Attempting to accomplish
the ultimate goal of eliminating these illegal operations in residential neighborhoods without additional
staff will be a difficult task and take a significant length of time to resolve. Residents will thus be
forced to endure the large parties with the extreme noise they generate for a much longer period of
time with no expectation of resolution due to staffing shortages.
These illegal fraternity operations have been growing significantly over the past few years and Cal
Poly has been uncooperative in helping with the city's efforts toward stopping them. In fact, Cal Poly
has purposely stopped sharing information regarding the addresses of their fraternities' parties and
Rush events in violation of California law. This has made city enforcement efforts even more difficult,
requiring more time and effort to prove the illegal operations.
Some properties have been illegally operating as fraternities for several years with no effective
enforcement to stop them, resulting in the residents living in those neighborhoods experiencing
anxiety, frustration, and anger at their situation -- with no hope of relief in sight. If council members
would visit these neighborhoods on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night, you would be shocked at
what you see and hear. Fraternity parties with live bands charging students an entry fee, amplified
music with DJ's, parades of inebriated students roaming neighborhoods shouting and screaming until
3:00 a.m. and sometimes with fireworks being shot off, are common each weekend. No resident in
this city should have to tolerate these extreme disturbances several nights a week and have their
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sleep, safety, and the enjoyment of their home negatively affected. Unless this goal is funded with
extra code enforcement personnel, residents fear nothing effective will be done to restore peace and
safety to their lives, unlike that which residents who live in other parts of the city enjoy.
Thus RQN requests that funds be appropriated toward this goal for additional code enforcement staff
to assist in eliminating the illegal fraternity operations beginning with the neighborhoods adjacent to
Cal Poly, as well as to assist with enforcement of all neighborhood code violations which have risen
over the years as Cal Poly has 1) increased enrollment and 2) invited additional fraternities to the
campus -- more specifically to the city's neighborhoods. Residents in these neighborhoods need
relief and if no additional resources are provided to eliminate the zoning code violations from illegal
fraternity operations in neighborhoods, there will be no end to this problem and even spread further
into other neighborhoods.
Please do what councils before you have not done and robustly address this problem before it gets
any worse.
Thank you for your time and your attention to this vital issue.
/S/
Sandra Rowley
Chairperson, RQN
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