TO: Board of Supervisors
FROM: Brian Bordona, Director of Planning, Building & Environmental Services Department
REPORT BY: Akenya Robinson-Webb, Code Compliance Manager
SUBJECT: Code Compliance Division Annual Update - Fiscal Year 2025-26, and Follow-Up on Board Direction Regarding Property Compliance and Innocent Buyers
RECOMMENDATION
title
Receive a presentation on the Code Compliance Division’s Fiscal Year 2025-26 annual update, including an update on staff’s review of options to assist property owners who unknowingly acquire properties with pre-existing code violations, and provide direction regarding continued education and outreach efforts for prospective property buyers. (No Fiscal Impact)
body
BACKGROUND
The County is committed to maintaining and improving the quality of life and safety in Napa County, and the Code Compliance Division (Division) supports that effort by working with property owners to promote compliance with State and local laws and regulations. This report provides the Board with an overview of the Division’s activities and notable accomplishments during Fiscal Year 2025-26.
During the June 2025 Code Compliance Annual Update, the Board asked staff to look into options for addressing situations in which an owner unknowingly purchases a property with pre-existing code violations. Staff has completed that review and recommends a combination of increased education and outreach to prospective buyers and continued monitoring of pending State legislation, rather than developing a separate County program at this time. This follow-up is discussed in Section 6 of this report.
In addition to following up on the Board’s direction regarding innocent buyer options, the Division continued to advance a broad range of proactive compliance, ordinance modernization, and operational efficiency initiatives during Fiscal Year 2025-26. The following sections highlight the Division’s progress in reducing its caseload backlog, addressing unpermitted construction, updating County ordinances, expanding proactive enforcement and community education, and improving internal processes and performance tracking. These efforts showcase the Division’s ongoing focus on education, voluntary compliance, and practical solutions, while maintaining appropriate enforcement when necessary to protect public safety and community vitality.
1. Caseload - Backlog Reduction
During Fiscal Year 2025-26, the Division opened 303 new cases and closed 365 cases which marked the first year since to the COVID-19 pandemic in which the Division closed more cases than it opened, resulting in a reduction in the overall caseload backlog.
While new case volume increased by roughly 19% year-over-year, case closures increased by nearly 70%, outpacing intake growth by a wide margin and driving the shift from a growing backlog in FY 2024-25 to a shrinking one in FY 2025-26.
This progress reflects the benefit of having a more fully staffed and experienced team, with positions filled, staff training strengthened, and greater continuity in staffing during the fiscal year. This stability has supported more consistent case management; along with timely and effective follow-up. Reducing the backlog not only improves responsiveness to current complaints but also allows staff to devote greater attention to proactive enforcement, community education, and emerging compliance needs. Together, these results demonstrate meaningful progress towards a more sustainable, responsive, and effective code compliance program.
|
Metric |
FY 24-25* |
FY 25-26 |
Change |
|
Cases Opened |
255 |
303 |
+48 (+18.8%) |
|
Cases Closed |
215 |
365 |
+150 (+69.8%) |
|
Net (Opened - Closed) |
+40 (backlog grew) |
-62 (backlog shrank) |
102-case swing |
*Note: FY 2024-25 figures reflect final fiscal year-end totals; the June 2025 Board update reported partial-year data through only June 3, 2025.
2. Construction Valuation and Cost Recovery
The Division’s work to address unpermitted construction identified $4.95 million in construction value and $576,552 in code investigation fees. The fees associated with these cases are intended to recover the County’s costs of investigating and processing compliance matters. More importantly, bringing unpermitted construction through the permitting process provides an important opportunity to verify that work complies with applicable safety codes, identify and correct deficiencies, and ensure that improvements are properly inspected and permitted. This helps reduce the risk of structural failure and fire hazards, protects property values, and provides greater confidence to current and future property owners, buyers, and occupants. Ultimately, the value of this work extends well beyond cost recovery or compliance. By helping property owners bring improvements into compliance and ensuring applicable safety standards are met, the Division supports safer properties, greater transparency in property records, and more resilient neighborhoods throughout the community.
3. Ordinance Updates
Keeping of Roosters (Napa County Code §§ 6.18, 18.08.040)
Following Board direction during the June 2025 Code Compliance Update to the Board, the Division brought forward an amendment to Napa County Code Section 6.18 -Rooster Keeping and Section 18.08.040 - Agriculture. On December 9, 2025, the Board amended the County Code to replace the prior standard of up to 100 roosters per parcel with a tiered limit based on parcel size, no roosters on parcels under 0.5 acres, one rooster on parcels from 0.5 to 1.5 acres, and up to four roosters on parcels greater than 1.5 acres, and to clarify related definitions, standards, and exemptions. The updated ordinance reduces community and environmental nuisances associated with large-scale rooster keeping and helps deter the potential for roosters being kept or used in connection with illegal fighting activity.
Peddling and Soliciting (Napa County Code § 5.40)
On October 21, 2025, the Board adopted amendments to Napa County Code Section 5.40 by resolution to bring County’s regulations into conformance with California Health and Safety Code requirements and clarified applicable standards. The revised ordinance supports more effective enforcement, promotes fair competition for permitted vendors, and helps maintain the cleanliness and safety of public spaces.
4. Proactive Enforcement & Community Education
The Division has expanded its proactive enforcement and community education efforts, allowing staff to identify potential concerns earlier, engage property owners and residents before issues become more significant, and provide information and resources to help the community understand and meet applicable requirements.
Key initiatives include:
• Neighborhood Property Improvement Program (NPIP): Focuses on identifying and addressing property conditions before they become more significant code concerns, with an emphasis on education and voluntary compliance.
• Short-Term Rental Program: Supports compliance with County requirements and helps address issues associated with short-term rental activity proactively.
• Audible Frightening Device Education: Provides education regarding devices that use loud or distressing sounds to deter birds from congregating. Outreach emphasizes responsible use and consideration for surrounding properties and neighborhoods.
These efforts complement the Division’s traditional complaint-based and enforcement activities by promoting voluntary compliance, improving communication with the community, and addressing potential concerns before they escalate. Together, they strengthen the Division’s ability to address health, safety, and neighborhood concerns proactively, promote consistent application of community standards, and build greater awareness and cooperation around code compliance.
Fall Neighborhood Property Improvement Program (NPIP) - Trailers and Substandard Conditions
During the June 2025 annual Code Compliance Update, staff informed the Board of a rise in long-term residential use of trailers on vacant parcels, along with declining property maintenance conditions in areas affected by the 2020 wildfires. In response, staff launched a proactive, education-first effort to bring property owners into compliance with the Substandard Property Maintenance Code. Rather than beginning with formal notices and enforcement, staff conducted an area-wide assessment of code compliance across the affected neighborhoods, estimating that roughly 600 Courtesy Notices would ultimately be warranted, with outreach emphasizing education and voluntary correction ahead of formal inspection or further enforcement.
The community response was generally positive. Many property owners proactively contacted staff to better understand the requirements and took steps to address and correct conditions in advance of inspection, reducing associated health and safety hazards in fire-impacted neighborhoods. Program outcomes to date are summarized below:
• Inspections Conducted - 1,600
• Courtesy Notices Issued - 187
• Notices of Apparent Violation (NOAVs) - 28
• Citations Issued - 17
• Properties Still Working Toward Compliance - 7
The results demonstrate the success of the program, primarily focused on identification, education, and voluntary compliance. Of the approximately 1,600 properties assessed, 187 were identified as requiring a Courtesy Notice, with formal enforcement actions involving a substantially smaller number of properties.
Spring Neighborhood Property Improvement Program (NPIP) - Rooster and Substandard Conditions
The Spring NPIP focused enforcement on the American Canyon Road corridor, an area with a documented history of persistently high rooster counts, nuisance complaints, alleged criminal activity, and building code violations. Given the size and complexity of the properties involved, these cases require additional staff time and coordination to work toward compliance. While the Spring program is smaller than the Fall NPIP in property count, targeting only 7 properties, it is equally impactful, working to bring approximately 85 acres of land into compliance with County requirements.
Proactive Short-Term Rental (STR) Enforcement
The Division relaunched its proactive short-term rental compliance program, dedicating a portion of an officer's ongoing workload to regular monitoring and follow-up. This sustained approach helps protect neighborhood character and housing availability, reduces nuisance impacts such as noise, parking congestion, and overcrowding in residential areas, and ensures greater compliance with local permitting and safety requirements, supporting a more equitable and livable environment for both residents and visitors.
Education for Audible Frightening Devices
In response to community complaints regarding excessive noise and improper use of Audible Frightening Devices, the Division, with support from the Agricultural Commissioner's Office, launched an annual education campaign to inform agricultural operators throughout the unincorporated area of proper device use. As part of this effort, the Division began sending annual letters reminding operators of applicable guidelines in an effort to proactively reduce disturbances before they occur.
5. Continuous Process Improvement Project
Beginning January 26, 2026, the Division partnered with Pivotal Resources, a third-party consultant specializing in continuous improvement and change management, to evaluate opportunities to improve efficiency, consistency, and transparency in Code Compliance operations. The engagement focused on two priority areas: strengthening the use of existing technology to improve data and performance-metric tracking and reducing the Division’s existing case backlog of older cases to improve response times on both active and newly initiated cases.
Priority Area 1 - Data and Performance Tracking
The first priority area focused on improving the consistency and completeness of case information captured in Accela, the County’s permitting management system, to support reliable performance reporting. Staff enhanced Accela’s case status and closure fields, including standardized closure reasons and updated the Code Additional Sub-Item fields to connect each violation, corrective action, and associated permit within a single case record. These changes better align data entry with staff workflows and establish a more consistent foundation for measuring case-cycle times, monitoring workload, automating reminders for case follow-up, reporting performance metrics, and more. The improvements also provide greater transparency into case status and outcomes and will support more informed management of the Division’s workload over time.
Priority Area 2 - Backlog Reduction
At the beginning of the initiative, the Division identified 1,013 cold cases, defined as cases not actively worked in the prior year. The project established an interim goal of reduction the backlog by 5%, or approximately 51 cases, within six months, with a stretch goal of a 10% reduction, or approximately 101 cases, by the end of FY 2026-27.
Since the project began in January 2026, the Division has reduced the cold-case backlog by 6.9%, or approximately 70 cases. This exceeds the six-month interim goal of approximately 51 cases by about 19 cases, representing approximately 138 percent of the interim goal. The Division has also achieved nearly 70 percent of the fiscal-year stretch goal.
The cold-case reduction is a project-specific measure tracked since January 2026. These efforts demonstrate continued progress in addressing older cases while improving the systems and processes needed to manage the Division’s caseload more consistently going forward.
6. Follow-Up on Innocent Buyer Options
During the June 2025 Code Compliance Annual Update, the Board asked staff to evaluate options for property owners who unknowingly purchase properties with pre-existing code violations. The Board’s direction recognized that a property owner may acquire a property without being aware of unresolved violations, particularly when compliance information is not readily apparent during the purchase process.
Staff reviewed potential approaches to address these situations, including improving access to property compliance and permit history information, expanding education for prospective buyers, and establishing a local program that could provide some form of relief or additional time for qualifying owners to correct pre-existing violations.
Based on that review, staff recommends a two-part approach: strengthen buyer education and continue monitoring pending State legislation before establishing a separate County relief program.
Prospective Buyer Education and Outreach
Staff recommends that the County place greater emphasis on helping prospective buyers obtain and understand available property compliance information before completing a purchase. Providing buyers with information about how to obtain parcel and permit history, and encouraging review of that information as part of the due-diligence process, can help reduce the likelihood that a buyer unknowingly acquires a property with unresolved violations.
As part of its existing community education efforts, the Division can develop clearer guidance directing prospective buyers to available County property, permit, and code compliance information. Outreach could also explain that the existence of permits, unresolved code cases, or other compliance matters may affect a property and should be investigated before purchase.
This approach does not eliminate the possibility that an innocent buyer may encounter an existing violation after a purchase. Rather, it provides prospective buyers with better information before they assume ownership and helps promote greater transparency regarding property compliance.
Pending State Legislation
Staff also identified California Senate Bill 1272, which would establish protections for qualifying owner-occupants of residential properties containing four units or fewer who unknowingly acquire certain pre-existing code violations. As currently proposed, the legislation would provide an initial six-month period for a qualifying owner to correct covered violations.
SB 1272 is directly relevant to the issue raised by the Board because it could establish a statewide framework for addressing circumstances in which a new owner did not create the underlying violation. If enacted, the State framework could provide greater consistency for property owners and reduce the need for individual jurisdictions to develop separate and potentially different local programs.
For that reason, staff recommend that the County continue to monitor SB 1272 and defer development of a separate local innocent-buyer relief program at this time. Waiting for the outcome of the State legislation will allow the County to determine whether a statewide framework addresses the concerns identified by the Board and implement a program that complies with these new state mandates if so.
If SB 1272 is enacted, staff will evaluate the State requirements and return to the Board, as appropriate, with recommendations regarding County implementation. If the legislation does not advance or does not adequately address the circumstances identified by the Board, staff can return with potential local options for consideration.
FISCAL IMPACT
|
Is there a Fiscal Impact? |
No |
|
Is it Mandatory or Discretionary? |
Discretionary |
|
Additional Information |
County Strategic Initiative: Build Healthy Connected Communities |
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINATION: The proposed action is not a project as defined by 14 California Code of Regulations 15378 (State CEQA Guidelines) and therefore CEQA is not applicable.