Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Arlington City Council met in special session on October 28, 2026, in the Council Briefing Room at Arlington City Hall. The meeting opened with an executive session under Texas Government Code Sections 551.071, 551.072, 551.074, and 551.087, followed by work-session presentations and issue-session reports. No public comment period is reflected in the transcript. The afternoon session adjourned before the separately posted evening agenda, with council members planning to reconvene at 6:30 p.m. Note: the agenda attached to this record is dated October 27, 2026, while the meeting metadata identifies October 28, 2026 as the meeting date.
Okay, we're gonna go ahead and call the afternoon of the city council meeting to order it. Okay, good afternoon. We're gonna go ahead and call the session back to order again. Figure out where we went to. We are now at 3.1 with Mr. Alex Bluskin. Thank you, Mayor. Mayor, members of council, Alex Vuskin, Director of Code Compliance Services. Our topic for this presentation is the International Property Maintenance Code. You may recall this was a topic of discussion earlier this year at the community and neighborhood development committee during the multifamily inspections process discussion. At the time we were recommending this as a potential option for multifamily properties, and the committee uh suggested looking at implementing it for all properties uh throughout the city. So we've also provided some information about this code during the uh presentation in August uh to the council about single family shared rental properties. So some of the information will be familiar to you. So the International Property Maintenance Code or the IPMC is a model code that's developed by the International Code Council, and it sets minimum safety and maintenance standards for all residential and non-residential structures and existing premises. The IPMC is reviewed on a three-year cycle by subject matter experts in the code enforcement field, also in building uh building the building industry and design professionals to ensure that it's kept up to date. Um changes are recommended during those review cycles to recommend to cities who have adopted this code. Um existing structures and premises that do not comply uh with the provisions in the code shall be altered or repaired to provide a reasonable minimum level of health safety and general welfare as required within the code. So you may ask what other cities are using this code. So we found quite a few in Texas that have adopted all our portions of the IPMC, including some of our other larger cities throughout the state, like Austin, Houston, Plano, McKinney, San Antonio. Um we reached out to some of those cities to ask them about their experiences with the code. The feedback that we received was generally pretty positive. Um Plano is one that we reached out to, and they have applied this code across the board to all properties since 2005. Um they felt that it provided a centralized, clearly defined framework for property maintenance standards, and it allows the city the flexibility to amend provisions and address local issues that are not covered in other ordinances. So they they felt like it had been a positive for the city of Plano. The components of the IPMC, it has seven chapters in it, um, and they they cover premises, structures, equipment, facilities, um components like light, ventilation, space, heating and sanitation, protection from the elements. Um team in code compliance, along with the city attorney's office, the planning and development services department, both the building inspections group, and the health division have have all reviewed uh and also fire prevention, excuse me, from the fire department. There is a chapter on fire safety. We've all reviewed these chapters to uh make sure that everything is in in line with our current ordinances, uh determine what local amendments, deletions need to be made, um, to ensure that we don't have any conflicts if council chooses to adopt this. So we've conducted a pretty thorough review to make sure that we have a good understanding of what's included and it's in line with current ordinances. So adopting model codes is not is not new for the city of Arlington. The city has adopted quite a few other model codes. They cover a wide range of different topics, uh building codes, energy conservation, fire code, mechanical and plumbing, swimming pools, and electrical. This is a common practice here in the city of Arlington and as well as in many other cities. I wanted to talk briefly about a few of our existing code compliance tools, some of which you you may already be familiar with, but the uniform housing code is one that's used frequently by our multifamily team to address issues like door safety, weather protection, fire hazards, hazardous wiring. The nuisance chapter covers a lot of the typical violations that we see in our neighborhoods, high weeds and grass, uh unclean premises, parking in the yard, nuisance landscaping. Those are common code violations that we see in in residential neighborhoods. The streets and sidewalks chapter has provisions related to overhanging tree limbs and site obstructions. Health and sanitation is going to cover items like trash containers and trash card storage. We use the construction chapter for dangerous buildings, our dangerous and substandard structure inspector frequently uses the provisions in that code for dangerous buildings throughout the city. We can also use that for work without a permit. And then we use a couple of provisions from the Unified Development Code as well. Uh highlighted use standards for business out of home, and then also design and development standards.