SALEM – The rules and ordinances committee discussed proposed updates to two of the city’s ordinances on Jan. 21.

The rules and ordinances committee discussed proposed updates to the city’s ordinances governing garage and yard sales and to the city’s housing code. 

Committee Chairman Jeff Stockman said that section two of the yard-sale ordinance currently states “any such sales should not exceed five days on each occasion with such five days occurring Monday through Saturday,” and that he recommends updating the section to instead conclude “Monday through Sunday.” Stockman explained this section of the ordinance was originally intended to designate that Sunday was “a free day” but has instead been interpreted as meaning garage sales are not permitted on Sundays. He said that the updated language would make it clear that a sale could not be more than five consecutive days regardless of what days it occurred on. The committee voted unanimously to send the revised ordinance to the city council for review. 

Stockman said that the changes to the housing code implement language updates to correct what he referred to as lingering “clerical errors,” which were not addressed when the ordinance was last updated on Jan. 6 to separate the city’s housing and health department. Those changes also placed oversight of any matters concerning the housing code and its enforcement with the board of housing appeals rather than the board of health as in recent years. 

The proposed updates would also make language changes to better match the city’s updated occupancy license applications, including the elimination of language requiring landlords to submit to an inspection before an occupancy license was issued for a unit. City Planning and Zoning Officer Alicia Schrenk said these changes were being made to streamline the application and inspection processes and “due to a previous housing case that came through the city.” 

Councilman Ron Zellers asked what the inspection process would be if a landlord did not voluntarily consent to inspection. Schrenk said an occupancy license would still be issued, and the department would inspect the properties exterior to determine if additional action was required. City Law Director Brooke Zellers clarified that if external inspections indicated more serious issues, the city would obtain an administrative warrant to conduct an interior inspection. Schrenk also noted that occasionally the police and fire department will be inside of a property for an unrelated issue and refer the property to the housing department for an interior issue they observed. 

The committee voted unanimously to send the proposed updates to the city council for review. 

The city council will meet next at 7 p.m. on Feb. 3.