San José now has the most detailed plan in years to fix its code-enforcement system. The Guidehouse operational assessment, adopted by the City Council in May, lays out how the City can respond faster, enforce stronger, and clear blight more effectively.
It’s a strong blueprint. The real question is whether San José will actually use it — especially on the long-neglected, high-value properties that have become symbols of the system’s failure.
Nothing illustrates that better than the First Church of Christ Scientist downtown.
The Guidehouse roadmap focuses on several major reforms:
- Refocusing the division on blight by pulling staff out of niche programs and back into core issues like unsafe buildings, vacant commercial structures, and long-term nuisance properties.
- Creating a true escalation track for cases that have dragged on for months or years, with clear timelines that push noncompliant owners toward stronger remedies.
- Using legal tools the City already has, including daily accruing fines, compliance orders, nuisance actions, and receivership — all of which have been underused.
- Modernizing the case-tracking system so cases can’t vanish into backlogs and inspectors have automatic alerts, deadlines, and accountability.
- Expanding proactive blight sweeps instead of waiting for complaints that come long after the damage has been done.
- Increasing penalties on chronic violators, with staff proposing a new cap of $500,000.
It’s the most comprehensive look at San José’s enforcement system in years — and it makes clear that the City’s problem hasn’t been legal authority. It’s been the lack of a structure that forces action.
What the Proposed Change Does
It modernizes, reorganizes, and sharpens San José’s entire code-enforcement system. It redirects staff to blight, fixes workflow bottlenecks, builds an escalation pathway, strengthens legal follow-through, and upgrades the technology that tracks cases.
What Would Change
Blighted properties would no longer sit untouched for years.
Cases would escalate faster.
Legal remedies would be used more consistently.
The City would act proactively rather than reactively.
And long-ignored structures like the First Church would finally face meaningful pressure to resolve safety issues.
Why It Matters
Residents see blight every day. It drags down corridors, attracts nuisance activity, and undermines confidence in city government. A functional enforcement system is one of the fastest ways to improve how a city looks and feels — and one of the clearest signals that San José takes neighborhood quality of life seriously.
My Take
San José desperately needs to get serious about blight. The reforms are strong, but the penalty structure is still too weak. A $500,000 cap may sound significant, but for properties worth tens of millions of dollars, it isn’t a deterrent — it’s a rounding error.
If the City wants real leverage, it needs to raise the ceiling to at least $1 million.
The First Church of Christ Scientist should be the first major test of this system. If San José can’t use its new tools here — at a prominent site that has been deteriorating for years — then the reforms will be just another plan on a shelf.
If the City does follow through, residents will see a visible difference quickly. And San José will finally show that enforcing its own standards isn’t optional.