SnoCo Council Unanimously Votes to Pass Nuisance Ordinance for Unincorporated Snohomish County

If you’ve been struggling with a nuisance property in your area, now is the time to speak up and reach out and ask for assistance in dealing with the matter.
Hopefully, this ordinance makes us all a little safer.

“There are properties within Snohomish County to which the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office makes repeated visits and may find criminal activities,
behaviors, or conduct as defined by State statutes including criminal mischief, disorderly conduct, gang related activity, indecent exposure, prostitution
offenses, drug-related offenses, precursor drug related offenses, firearm and dangerous weapons offenses, and possession of stolen property. While
the County can and does prosecute individuals for these offenses, activities on these properties continue to occur.

These “chronic nuisance properties” present serious health, safety, and welfare concerns and interfere with the quality of life, comfort, and solitude
of people residing and conducting business in the vicinity of these properties. These “chronic nuisance properties” have financial and resource
allocation impacts to the Snohomish County as a result of repeated calls for service and repeated findings of criminal activity. The proposed ordinance
provides an additional tool to the Snohomish County Code to address properties characterized by repeated findings of criminal activity.

That tool provides the County with the ability to determine that a property is a chronic nuisance property and then to work with the person in charge
of the property and owner to achieve voluntary abatement of activities and nuisances occurring at the property. In the event that a person in charge
or owner does not implement a voluntary abatement agreement, the proposed ordinance provides remedies whereby Snohomish County could take actions
to abate the property following a court’s order.”

The ordinance is being placed in order to make the county safer. Chronic nuisance properties are defined in the ordinance as:

(a) Any property which, upon a request for execution of a search warrant, has been the subject of a determination by a court two or more times within
a twelve-month period that probable cause exists that illegal possession, manufacture or delivery of a controlled substance or related offenses
as defined in chapter 69.50 RCW has occurred on the property.

(b) Any abandoned property where nuisance activity exists.

(c) A single-family residential property, a single-unit non-residential property, a single unit in a multi-family residential property, or a single
unit within a multi-tenant property for which:

(i) Four or more nuisance activities exist or have occurred on the property during any 90-day period, or

(ii) Eight or more nuisance activities exist or have occurred on the property during any 365-day period.

To view the ordinance directly, please go to: http://snohomish.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&event_id=6154&meta_id=402716