Fire ignites look at city ordinances

Conditional-use permits and their enforcement are under study by Fresno officials.

By John Ellis
The Fresno Bee

(Updated Wednesday, January 29, 2003, 5:24 AM)

The Fresno City Council on Tuesday began a process that likely will end in a moratorium on conditional-use permits for places such as the Archie Crippen Excavation site, which caught fire Jan. 11 and still is burning.

At the same time, the council began to address the bigger question surrounding the fire, which is 70% contained: How to prevent a similar blaze from happening.

The council looked for the answer in better enforcement of conditional-use permits, which govern businesses whose operations, according to the city, "may have an adverse affect on public health and safety."

"We as a city need to get really tough [with] our ordinances," said Council Member Brad Castillo. "The bottom line is, we ... are responsible for the health of the community."

Castillo backed the push for a moratorium on the permits. He said the suspension would give the council an opportunity to act on recommendations from Mayor Alan Autry's task force on the Crippen fire and apply those recommendations to new permits or requests to expand existing facilities.

Duncan moved to approve that request, and for the task force to report back to the City Council by March 25. The motion passed unanimously.

Council Member Cynthia Sterling and Deputy Mayor Roger Montero lead the task force, which is investigating how the massive field of wood, metal, plastics, asphalt, concrete and mattresses spontaneously combusted at the excavation business near Nielsen and Marks avenues. The task force also will look at Fresno's conditional-use permit process and the impact of waste and recycling centers in west Fresno.

Despite all the talk about getting tough with ordinances and being more proactive rather than reactive with code enforcement, the city is at the mercy of laws that can drag out code-enforcement actions by months, if not up to two years, Duncan said.

"It's a process that needs repair," he said.

Duncan said nothing can happen without the help of the state Legislature, which needs to pass laws giving cities more power to enforce rules governing violations of the permits. Not a single conditional-use permit has been revoked in Fresno in five years, according to city officials.

"It is a privilege to operate under certain rules in the city of Fresno, not a right," Duncan said.

Castillo said the city must work to close its code-enforcement loopholes. "We are business-friendly," he said, "but we are business-friendly to people willing to do things the right way."

Another challenge is multiple jurisdictions. City officials said there are about 57 solid-waste recycling, green-waste recycling, and demolition and construction cleanup contractors in Fresno, Clovis and Fresno County.

Interim Fire Chief Joel Aranaz said the Crippen fire was 70% contained Tuesday and now largely concentrated on the pile's north face. The goal, he said, is to eliminate emissions from the fire by Friday, and the remaining hot spots five to seven days after that.

The city said in a report that Crippen was operating in accordance with a conditional-use permit first issued to him by the county in 1980. The property was annexed into the city in 1983.

The reporter can be reached at jellis@fresnobee.com or 441-6320.