Woodstock’s elected officials want city staff to take a more aggressive approach to overgrown lawns and yard waste and other garbage sitting in front of homes and businesses.

“If we want to be successful in this town, and attract businesses, we have to look successful,” Woodstock City Council member Tom Nierman said at a meeting this week.

Some of the stepped-up enforcement of local ordinances might have to begin on the city’s own parcels, as Nierman and fellow council member Darrin Flynn pointed out.

Flynn said a gate on the city’s old courthouse property downtown on the historic Square that consistently swings open and blocks some of the sidewalk is an example of the city needing to clean up its own act in order to encourage compliance from other property owners.

“There are times that you go through, and properties under our control should probably get a citation if we were enforcing it,” Flynn said.

Woodstock Building and Zoning Director Joe Napolitano, the official in charge of the local code enforcement staff, said the addition of an extra officer three years ago helped the city become aware of more violations and to contact more property owners to push for compliance.

While fines can be handed out to violators, staff aims for owners to remedy problems themselves as the desired outcome in most cases. But the council asked Napolitano to consider shortening the window between a warning and when a penalty is imposed.

“We can definitely be more aggressive,” Napolitano said. “I think we tend to give people too much time to comply.”

City Manager Roscoe Stelford echoed that sentiment, advising council members to be prepared for complaints from residents who are told to fix their buildings and clean up their exteriors.

“You’ll hear things like, ‘It’s been that way for 20 years.’ The reality is, it’s probably been a violation of city code for a while,” Stelford said.

City staff sometimes encounters difficulty determining who is responsible for tidying unsightly properties, particularly parcels leased by limited liability corporations or other business entities whose agents can be shielded from public disclosure, Napolitano said.

Officials are looking into clearing that hurdle by reviving an effort to have at least some landlords in the city, perhaps only those caught in violation of municipal rules, register with the local government in order to continue renting in Woodstock.

Discussions of that initiative are ongoing.

Updating city trash hauling contracts could help alleviate some code violations by allowing residents to have yard waste or bulky items picked up more frequently, perhaps as often as every week, Stelford said.

“I think this council has a desire to be more aggressive on how things look and compliance. Council is not asking you to be unreasonable, but firm, and move it to a resolution, as opposed to moving it another week or two down the road,” Mayor Mike Turner said to Napolitano.