Good afternoon.

Today is Tuesday, August 5th, 2025, and this is the first hearing of the month for the City of Tempe Hearing Officer.

My name is Vanessa McDonald.

I'll be conducting the hearing this afternoon.

I'm gonna read something into the record, and then we're gonna go ahead and jump into our agenda this afternoon.

The City of Tempe Hearing Officer is authorized by Arizona revised statutes and the City of Tempe Zoning and Development Code.

The hearing officer is granted the authority to conduct public hearings to decide upon the abatement of code violations occurring on properties within the city.

These violations include deteriorated pools, structures or landscaping, storage of junk or refuse, and storage of inoperable or unregistered vehicles.

Abatement actions are brought before the hearing officer by the city's code compliance division, typically after numerous attempts at contacting the property owner to obtain voluntary compliance with the code.

The hearing officer may issue an order directing the owner, occupant, property manager, or other responsible person to remediate a code violation or may authorize the city to abate the property to correct the violation.

The cost of the abatement is the responsibility of the owner of the property where the violation occurs and will be collected as an assessment against the property in violation of the code.

On today's agenda, we have only two items.

Any property owner who's agreed by a decision of the hearing officer may file an appeal within 14 calendar days after the hearing officer has made a decision.

The deadline for appealing any decision rendered today is 3 p.m.

on August 19th, 2025.

Appeals are heard by the Board of Adjustment after which they may also be appealed to Superior Court.

A property owner has 14 days after the hearing officer's decision to either file an appeal or bring the property into code compliance.

So the first item on our agenda is a set of minutes from July 15th, 2025.

I had a chance to review the minutes from that hearing, and I believe that they accurately reflect what took place at that hearing, so I'm going to go ahead and approve the minutes from July 15th, 2025.

Next up is a request for approval to abate public nuisance items at the Dutch Capital Investments LLC property located at 4024 South Judd Street.

The applicant is the City of Tempe Code Compliance.

Good afternoon.

Good evening, Madam Hearing Officer.

My name is Anna Chern, and I am a code compliance supervisor with the City of Tempe Code Compliance Division.

I am here this evening to request a 180-day open abatement for the property located at 4024 South Judd, Tempe, Arizona, 85282.

This case was initiated on May 21st of 2024 via a public complaint for the violation of junk, trash, and debris, deteriorated pool, and deteriorated landscape, consisting of overheight grass and weeds and a dead tree in the front, side and backyards.

On this day, an initial inspection was conducted and the violations were confirmed at that time.

A first notice was issued and mailed to the homeowner, 203rd Enterprises in care of William Merrifield and to the property address.

After doing so, information was received from Tempe Police Department that Dutch Capital Investments was actually the owner in care of Andrew Detling.

A first notice was mailed to this entity as well.

From then on, multiple reinspections were conducted with some progress made with the grass and weeds being cut and some of the junk trash and debris being removed.

The pool began the pool was somewhat cleaned, however, the violations were never fully corrected.

Two citations were issued to the homeowner and pictures were taken.

The amount of extra time throughout the case is due to the assigned inspector being away on military leave.

On both incidents of citations, the owner failed to appear in court.

During multiple reinspections, the assigned inspector observed overheight grass and weeds and junk trash and debris in the front and backyard of the property, as well as a deteriorated pool.

Throughout this case, multiple attempts to stay in contact with the owner have been made, and multiple pink hangers have been posted at the residence to get contact.

The owner had made promises to correct the violations, however, no consistent communication or progress had been made.

As of this afternoon, all violations remain.

While inspecting the property, there were two people cleaning the landscape.

I asked if they were tenants or owners, and they said no.

They were hired by the owner to clean a little.

And left.

The photos were taken as they were packing up and leaving.

I'd like to present the photos now.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

As you can see, Madam Hearing Officer, the date and the timestamp are in the top right corner as well as the address of the property.

This is a view from the public right-away at the front of the house where you can look in and see an overall view of the front yard and the front of the house.

Over here, you can see this is all gravel in the front yard, and it consists of grass and weeds that are in the gravel.

The gravel should be free of any grass and weeds, regardless of the height of them.

The second picture is going to just depict the weeds and grass in the gravel area, and then you'll start to see an unsecured gate here where the pool is in the backyard.

Correct.

Again, just some close-up views of the grass and weeds in the gravel front yard area.

And then again, front yard from the public rideway, just another angle of the front yard where the property line ends.

Part gravel, part dirt, and some junk trash and debris.

This is from the backyard.

And then some weeds down here with the shopping cart and junk trash and debris.

This is a view from the front of the house from the public rideway into their driveway.