Clallam County is closing code enforcement cases

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, August 11, 2026

PORT ANGELES — The Clallam County code enforcement staff is either exceeding or it’s on track with its goals for this year.

The county commissioners on Monday heard the second quarter update on the team’s efforts to close 200 cases, remove 200 junk vehicles and conduct six large property cleanups.

“In the second quarter, 87 cases were closed, (and) that’s over the 66 closed in the first quarter. We’re exceeding targets out of 200 cases to be closed in the calendar year,” said Bruce Emery, the county’s director of Community Development. “Fifty-one junk vehicles were removed, so we’re still on track for 200 junk vehicles to be removed by the end of the year.”

The department conducted two large-property cleanups in the quarter as well.

“We started the quarter with 368 cases,” Emery said. “There were 79 new cases. Eleven cases are pending. We end the quarter with 349 cases. That’s moving in the right direction.”

The department increased the hours of one part-time field position from 24 per week to 30 per week. That employee is investigating building code violations, Emery said.

One strategy the department has been using, which is to set hearing examiner meetings, has been working as an adequate deterrent and is helping bring people into voluntary compliance, Emery said.

“It raises the temperature a little bit,” he said.

Although the second quarter was very productive, Department of Community Development Code Enforcement and Special Projects Manager Diane Harvey cautioned the commissioners not to expect more than 80 cases to be closed again in the third quarter.

“That’s a large amount of cases,” she said. “We are running on all cylinders. I’m thinking more in the 60-65 cases range for this quarter.”

Harvey mentioned two long-standing cases with which the department has been dealing. The first is at 31 Sunrise Place. In a photo provided from March 31, 2025, the property has several vehicles, used lumber piles and other solid waste on it.

A photo of the same property taken April 30 shows the space entirely cleaned up with the house painted and the property listed for sale.

The location was the site of a lot of sheriff’s office calls for service for several years, Harvey said. It had a homeless encampment on it and was part of an OPNET investigation.

“This, to me, is a very big success story of being able to clean up this property,” she said. “This property is now for sale. You never think about code enforcement helping affordable housing, but there are now two properties that we’ve cleaned up in this neighborhood that are both for sale.”

The code enforcement efforts help the community, raise property values and, in this case, opened up two more homes for the housing market.

The second property she mentioned is at 6992 Old Olympic Highway, where there has been solid waste, junk vehicles, sheriff calls for service and zoning violations since the property owner died in December 2024.

“It’s had over 60 sheriff’s calls for service since January 2025,” Harvey said. “The property owner had a reverse mortgage, so there was a lender who held the deed of trust. Somehow along the way, that deed of trust got transferred to HUD, but then HUD found there was an error in the transfer. A party that was not the owner of the deed transferred it, so HUD kicked it back to the original lender.”

The county did a code enforcement case against the original lender, holding them as the responsible party. The case was sent to the hearing examiner, and when HUD was notified of the hearing, they got the Department of Justice involved. During a two-week continuance that the DOJ requested, HUD took the deed of trust, which allows the department to do a notice of foreclosure on the property, Harvey said. That process will take about five to six months.

“By doing this hearing examiner process and basically waking up the federal government,” the case will be resolved more quickly, Harvey said.

During the meeting, commissioners also heard about an upcoming road closure of the Marine Drive-Cays Road intersection from Aug. 24 through Sept. 18.

The intersection was damaged during winter storms and road crews need to repair it. The repair involves the replacement of a stormwater conveyance structure, according to county documents.

“During the closure of this segment of roadway, motorists may access from the opposite direction and all properties will continue to have access at all times,” county documents state.

Commissioners also were told of the need to paint the Sol Duc Bridge. It was last painted in 1992 and needs to be repainted in order to maintain the structure.

Commissioners were presented with paperwork to get the construction funding authorized. Those documents will go to the state, which will get back to the county around Oct. 1, which is when the project can go out to bid.

Painting is expected to take place next summer.

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Reporter Emily Hanson can be reached by email at emily.hanson@peninsuladailynews.com.