The Santa Clarita City Council authorized city staff to commence a nuisance abatement action against a Canyon Country home, its third such effort this year.
The tenant for the nearly 1,600-square-foot single-family residence at 27101 Maben Ave., drew the attention of the City Council after repeated attempts by city staff to address problems with the property, according to officials.
The so-called “nuisance properties” are brought to the city’s attention through neighbor complaints and calls, according to Tracy Sullivan, community preservation manager for the city.
The nuisance abatement process involves the city identifying a court-approved receiver for a problematic property and asking for the court’s permission to have the receiver take over and refurbish the property, with that amount being added to a lien on the property.
If the work is not paid for, the home is sold to cover the costs.
The action is one the city considers significant and only taken as a last resort after all other measures have failed to achieve compliance, she added in an email.
“The city’s goal is always to work with property owners to achieve (compliance) voluntarily,” Sullivan wrote Wednesday, referring to the city’s administrative process. “However, if those efforts fail and compliance is not obtained, the city turns to legal action as a final step.”
She added the process was not only important for the preservation of the beauty and property values of the city’s neighborhoods, but also the safety of its neighbors and the general public.
The Signal was not able to contact the property’s resident as of this story’s publication.
The property is associated with the Gerard Cartier Trust, with the listed contact as Daniel R. Mortensen, a local tax attorney who is managing the property.
Everett Mortensen, who works at the firm, confirmed that his father also has been trying to achieve compliance with the tenant for some time, with efforts that have included providing large roll-off trash bins for disposal, but the cooperation has not been there.
The city also offers the bins for nuisance properties to get trash cleaned up, but those efforts do not appear to have worked as of Wednesday.
Trash could be seen piled high from nearby yards and over a fence and surrounding a pair of recreational vehicles in the home’s driveway, one of which had a registration tag from 2002 on its plate.
A neighbor on Maben Avenue, who asked not to be identified over safety concerns, called the measure “extreme,” but also lamented the nearby property “has gone through varying degrees of being really awful, to cleaned up a little, to where it’s at.”
Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station deputies have been to the home at least a couple of times in the past year to assist the city in code-enforcement actions, according to Deputy Robert Jensen, spokesman for the station.
He said he was not aware of any significant police action at the residence in recent months.
The other two properties that the City Council has authorized action on this year were also both in Canyon Country.
In an April closed session meeting, the City Council unanimously approved a nuisance abatement proceeding against the owner of the property at 27952 Oakgale Ave.
The other property that has exhausted all of its potential remedies in the city’s administrative process, and is now headed to court, is a home on Plumwood Avenue.
In February, Carl Pruett, who lives at 27442 Plumwood Ave., had a lengthy standoff with local law enforcement officers that ultimately was ended by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Special Enforcement Bureau — the LASD’s SWAT team.
In June, the City Council authorized an abatement on the property.
