San Jose's new blight ordinance can make us better or worse neighbors
By Sheila Sanchez
My new south San Jose house came with a tiny, already landscaped front yard, but my neighbor who lives around the corner, in a much older part of the neighborhood, doesn't enjoy such a commodity.
An old tree with giant roots is beginning to engulf most of his front yard, and although he has tried many times to plant evergreen bushes to make the front of his house more attractive, the bushes always die.
My neighbor is also old and frail, has a very low income, lives alone and really doesn't have the time, money or desire to mess with the roots of his tree or with the hard, unfriendly soil that surrounds it.
But he's going to be in trouble when San Jose begins enforcing its new blight ordinance requiring landscaping in the visible portions of front yards of single-family homes.
And I don't think it's fair.
His yard doesn't look the best, but to penalize a 74-year-old man for not worrying about the yard, when his priorities are to have enough money to pay utility bills and put food on the table, is just illogical.
Then there's the ugly and dirty front yard of Andrew P. Hill High School. I drive by the school twice a day and every time I pass its dirt-only yard, I want to go buy a bag of grass seed and some movable water sprinklers to donate to the school. The school will be penalized under the new ordinance.
But I think it deserves to get a citation. Every day, hanging by the bus stop on Senter Street, about 50-plus teenagers gather to just shoot the breeze. My question is, why aren't they out there helping the school landscape the front of its property?
Under the new ordinance, the school could just lay down some plastic or fiber weed block and plant some live plants or put out decorative material such as rocks, bark or gravel to make that corner more attractive.
I called the school the other day to ask questions about its unkept yard and I was referred to an associate principal who echoed my concerns and said he, too, thinks the school's yard is ugly and needs to be landscaped.
The new ordinance, however, rightly targets owners of RVs, boats and campers who think they own the streets they choose to park in. The huge vehicles have always scared me, particularly when they're parked near driveways in homes with children who play outside. They often blind drivers, who could easily run over someone running toward the middle of the street. Some also spill oil and antifreeze on the street, leaving ugly scars on the roads.
I don't mind the ordinance requiring citizens to report their neighbors. I like nosy neighbors who keep a watchful eye for problems and eyesores in the community. So I encourage all to call San Jose city enforcement and complain about their neighbors' yards. I hope they call, especially when they have sensitively and carefully approached their neighbors and have offered help that has been ignored or rejected.
But I'm worried about those neighbors who don't like being dictated to about what they need to do with their private properties. "My neighbor shouldn't tell me what kind of yard I need to have," one told me the other day when asked what he thought about the ordinance. "It's wrong to force someone to do something they're not ready to do. Nobody should be forced to landscape their yards."
My friend was particularly worried about the ordinance's requirement that will make him landscape the park strip, the area between the sidewalk and the curb where most cars park. But city officials say that area is a public right-of-way and that property owners who live adjacent to it are responsible for landscaping it.
As for the concern that the ordinance will turn neighbor against neighbor or that some will use it to harass those they don't like: I seriously doubt that most people will have the time to waste making a complaint about someone's yard. I, like San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales, have more trust in people and tend to generally see them as good, minding their own business.
The ordinance's new rules are clear and simple. Keep your yard looking decent or you'll be in trouble. No doubt it will greatly improve the look of San Jose neighborhoods, but it will be painful to enforce.
I hope while it's being enforced that it will create volunteerism in the community, especially making neighbors reach out to those like my neighbor who just can't take care of his yard.
But I'm still worried about the law's wide-open target market. In order for it to be effective, San Jose needs to come up with ways to help those like my neighbor who can't afford to fix his yard. Maybe the city can conduct a survey to find out which homes fall under my neighbor's category, and maybe the housing department can issue more low-interest loans or grants to help them landscape their yards.
Neighborhood groups can also step in and help out.
My friend contends that any law that hurts a section of the population is not a good law at all. So perhaps more careful study on the part of the San Jose City Council is merited.
Sheila Sanchez is the editor of The Willow Glen Resident. She can be reached at 408.200.1051 or at ssanchez@svcn.com.
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
