UP Deliberates Unauthorized Private Use of City Land

Many homeowners enjoy installing patios or gardens in their backyards to help beautify their homes. In some cases around University Place, these structures are not on private property, but on city-owned land.

Building on city-owned land is known as “encroachment,” and it is against the municipal code to do so. Two homeowners have asked the city for an easement. 

Now, the City Council has a difficult question ahead of itself: how to handle the occurrences of property owners that illegally use  - or encroach on - city-owned land.

Director of Planning Services David Swindale discussed their case and encouraged the council to make a decision on how to deal with encroachment at a June council meeting. Currently, the code isn’t enforced unless someone reports it. 

After the initial complaint, UP began enforcing the code and contacted seven homeowners about their encroachments last fall. Swindale said that the encroachments were not doing a lot of harm to the city property and that six of the seven had complied with the requests to remove the encroaching items.

The encroachments in question were located near the Leach Creek Conservation Area, Colegate Park and Brookside Park.

“I don’t think, from a citizen standpoint, that we should allow people to have free access without having it recorded somewhere on their deed,” said council member Caroline Belleci. Caroline Belleci said. “I can see the point of having them help us in the vegetation management, but I’m concerned about the amount of time and effort on the behalf of staff in making sure that we maintain our compliance with code regulations.”

The city also has to decide how the illegal land use would be dealt with when an owner sells his or her property to someone else. The new homeowner might not know about any encroachments if there is nothing on file.

“There should be something on record at the county so ... the new owner would know that the building is encroaching; maybe we give those people an easement,” said council member Javier Figueroa.

Swindale pointed out other cities that allow permits for encroachment, Renton and Bonney Lake among them. The Council will continue to discuss the issue before making any final decisions.

What do you think? Should the City change its approach to dealing with encroachments? Tell us in the comments.