Camas residents with corner lots, you are one vindictive, thoughtless, frivolous complaint away from a $250 fine, with noncompliance moving to a higher, daily fine leading to a lien on your house. A Camas code enforcement officer called about one complaint via the city’s new app concerning my corner vegetation: a Japanese maple. I made a good faith effort including thinning the maple on the corner. She visited, saying that even the daylily leaves hovering over the sidewalk remained in violation. Camas might rather be concerned about its many nonexistent sidewalks, forcing everyone to walk in the streets.
Code defines a triangle, its apex beginning on all inner corners where sidewalks meet, running 15 feet out both directions with connected ends. Within this triangle, fences, walls and hedges are to be no more than 42 inches high. On Benton Street, enforcement would take a corner of the house; on Joy, there is a 2-foot-diameter fir; on Ione, a stone retaining wall. Come by my triangle at 1623 Division St. Now look at your own.
If you have a problem with this code, call the office at 360-817-1508 or City Administrator Pete Capell at 360-834-6864. Enforcement is complaint driven. You could be next.
