Resident safety has long been a priority of our city leaders. Examples of this include: making Roswell Road safer by adding center medians, offering public safety classes for our residents and, most recently, ensuring that Sandy Springs apartment residents have a healthy and safe environment. In August of 2022, we published a blog highlighting the challenges Sandy Springs is facing due to negligence on the part of the management of some of our apartment communities regarding maintenance requests. Other challenges are the City Council review of the code enforcement process and proposed changes in that process.
The purpose of code enforcement, as mentioned in this presentation given by Ginger Sotile in August of 2022, is to help protect the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of Sandy Springs.
On January 17th, the City Council approved adding 2 full-time officers to the current Code Enforcement staff; the costs will be absorbed by the current Community Development budget. The decision to increase the staff by 2 and create a specialized Apartment Inspection Unit will allow 100% of the apartments to be inspected annually.
We hear from apartment residents frequently about unsanitary, unhealthy and unsafe conditions in their apartments. These additional staff members, who will be dedicated to giving their full attention to apartment living conditions, should improve the quality of life for thousands of our neighbors.
If you know an apartment resident who is experiencing unhealthy or unsafe living conditions, we encourage you to share this link to the Georgia Legal Aid website with them, which provides helpful information & resources about repairs to rental properties and more.
- More Info: Georgia Legal Aid & Rental Property Repairs
Also, if you are an apartment resident who has tried resolving a problem through your management company with no success, you can report the problem to Sandy Springs Code Enforcement through this link.
- Report A Problem: Sandy Springs Code Enforcement
It is important not to blame our apartment neighbors for the poor maintenance of the properties in which they live. Poor management on the part of those who own these properties is to blame. We are hopeful that apartment communities will truly improve the living conditions for our neighbors in response to the increase in Code Enforcement staff and the creation of a specialized Apartment Inspection Unit.
As previously stated, adding 2 full-time officers to the Code Enforcement staff should significantly help improve the living conditions for thousands of Sandy Springs apartment residents.
Up until now, our 98 apartment communities were only inspected for a myriad of health and safety violations every 7-9 years. Outside of this, the only consistent inspection came from the Fire Marshal’s Office, which annually inspects ALL 98 of the city’s apartment communities for compliance with fire safety and suppression codes in the common areas.
Tenants have been encouraged to work with their apartment management companies to address any maintenance issues. Even with this as a first step, Code Enforcement receives about 400 complaints annually. Properties receiving the most complaints are prioritized on the inspection list.
Everyone deserves to have safe and healthy living conditions, and have their needs & concerns met. We encourage you to join us in raising awareness about this very important issue. Our neighbors need us; let’s do something about it.
