"Enforcing the current codes you have on your books is very difficult," Frankie Elliott, vice president of government affairs for the Orlando Regional Realtors Association, told Sanford city commissioners Monday during a meeting on changes to the city's code enforcement practices

"My feeling is that you're going to be adding a whole lot more code that you will still not be able to enforce. What we have been doing in the past has not been working, so adding additional codes that can't be enforced is not going to the solve the problem either."

Elliott and some others who spoke during the citizen-participation portion of the meeting objected to some of the proposed revisions to the city codes. Elliott said that proposing the new codes is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, referring to increasing foreclosures.

Mayor Linda Kuhn said the proposed ordinances have been in the works for nearly two years.

"I don't think these codes are a knee-jerk reaction to our foreclosure rates. We have been discussing and looking at these ordinances for well over 18 months," Kuhn said. "They are the result of a survey that was sent out and our citizens have responded back and 71 percent of them said the major issue they had with the job the city was or was not doing was the lack of code enforcement."

Carol Saviak, executive director for the Coalition for Property Rights, said changing the codes is not needed since there is no genuine threat to public safety that the current codes don't already address. Increasing the regulations will only deter private investments, she said.

"Economics 101 says increased regulation decreases the interest of private investments in the city of Sanford," Saviak said. "Public Economics 101 says that increasing regulations will cost you more as a city to enforce, which means the tax burdens will also increase."

Ernest Stallings, owner of EGS Properties Inc., told the commission it was unfair for companies who comply with the ordinances to have to pay extra expenses because of other faulty property owners.

"These owners are fed up will all these expenses they're going to get," Stallings said. "I've traveled the world and I said this is the place where I wanted to end my life, right here in Sanford. And in the past two years some of the problems that are here is running people out of this town."

Several speakers expressed their opinions against the proposed ordinance requiring rental property owners to register with the city. Kuhn said this requirement was in direct response to issues with foreclosure and contact ing owners of empty and vacant property.

"When we have law enforcement respond to vandalism, criminal mischief or vagrants living in those homes, they have no mechanism or means to contacting anyone to find out who has the authority to allow those people and to notify them that damage has taken place," Kuhn said. "That was part of the basis for that registration so that we can help owners protect their property."

The commission hopes that by postponing the first reading of the ordinances, people will have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the International Property Maintenance Codes and become more informed about the code-enforcement ordinances.

"I think it's a wise decision to gain more public input," said Ralph Burt, who has been renting out residential property in the city for 35 years. "Our properties, in general, are well maintained as opposed to other landlords, but there needs to be a minimum standard for the public."