With more development coming to the city, some College Park officials worry there will not be enough city enforcement officers to adequately conduct annual inspections.

Currently, planned city development would add 2,648 to 2,689 residential units, about 600,000 square feet of office space and 104,000 square feet of rental space within the next five years. The properties would have to go through exterior property maintenance, sign regulations and noise code enforcement, which could overwhelm staff, said Director of Public Services Bob Ryan.

“[Code enforcement staff] is stretched thin right now,” he said. “They’ve had new responsibilities placed on them in the last two years with things like zoning, and they’ve had to do a greater variety of things like working nights and on the weekends.”

The city has one code enforcement supervisor, two full-time officers and one part-time code enforcer, who conduct about 4,600 total inspections per year, including 950 single-family unit inspections, 2,265 multi-unit inspections and 450 commercial inspections.

A chart comparing other cities’ code enforcement departments to College Park lists Salisbury as having one less code enforcement officer and conducting less than 1,000 inspections. Salisbury has a population of 23,743 residents compared to College Park’s 26,000.

Ryan said the need for staffing has reached a “critical level” and asked for approval of an additional enforcement officer and one code enforcement administrator at yesterday’s city council worksession. District 3 Councilman Eric Olson proposed hiring a half-time code enforcement officer and half-time administrative assistant, effective April 1. Salaries for the next fiscal year would be almost entirely paid for by inspection fees for University View, a new development north of Route 1.

Mayor Stephen Brayman, District 1 Councilman John Krouse and District 2 Councilman Jack Perry said they did not support Olson’s measure because they wanted one full-time position, rather than two half-time positions.

“It would be more worth it to hire a full-time person,” Brayman said. “It just seems to me we can get more bang for our buck by going full time … but I would only do one position. When it hits the fan, we need the person who can go out on the street.”

Olson said he would like to see them get full-time clerical help, but did not see how with the current budget.

Code enforcement officers are assigned to specific areas of the city, and the city council previously raised the question of possibly rotating assignments. Ryan said rotating assignments could bring a fresh viewpoint to old issues or solve potential personality conflicts between property owners and officers.

“When you see something a lot, it becomes normal,” he said. “I’m sure I’ve driven past a code violation every day on my way to work.”

But Ryan also said it would be a steep learning curve for code enforcement officers taking over a new territory because it takes time for officers to “identify hot spots, gain historical knowledge of properties and cases,” and they could lose established rapport.

Ryan said whatever rotation is chosen, he hopes to see more people on the job soon.

“Right now, we’re at the point where we can maintain the work we have, but the new development will definitely increase all this stuff,” he said. “Yes, if we had the staffing levels we have now in two years we would not be able to meet the expectations of the mayor and council and the residents.”

Senior staff writer Jaime Malarkey contributed to this report.