The agency that runs Prince William County’s neighborhood enforcement program wants a major expansion so that it could address an entire community’s needs instead of answering one complaint at a time.

The Neighborhood Services Division today is expected to propose doubling the size of its program to battle neighborhood deterioration, which is driving already plunging property values further down.

The $7.5 million plan would add 40 staffers to the 38-person department over the next five years and transition from a complaint-based system to one targeting neighborhoods.

The agency says it does not have enough manpower or money for a cohesive approach to solving broader problems as complaints skyrocket.

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“We walk past a few violations in order to get to the ones that were called in,” Neighborhood Services Division Chief Michelle Casciato said. “Just doing the complaints is not having the effect we would like to have.”

And the complaints have fostered an unhealthy neighbor vs. neighbor battle of accusations and rebuttals through the confidential system, she said.

“What we find is that people are called in for some violations and they get very upset about those and they’ll come in with a list of 30 or 40 or 50 other complaints,” Casciato said. “That sets up a very bad dynamic in the neighborhood.”

The department also would like to commission a study of the most effective enforcement efforts to form a new program.

Overcrowded and improperly maintained homes have been among the top complaints of illegal-immigration critics in Northern Virginia and was a factor in Prince William’s crackdown passed in October, Board of Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart said.

“The county definitely needs to consider beefed-up zoning enforcement,” he said. The proposal would follow similar efforts by Loudoun County and Fairfax County to target property violations.

But the inability to effectively address housing problems is one of the reasons the county pursued its controversial crackdown on illegal immigrants, Stewart said.

“The county definitely needs to consider beefed-up zoning enforcement,” he said, cautioning that this is will be a difficult budget year to expand existing programs.

Immigrants are concerned that any expansion of the program could be unfairly targeted toward their neighborhoods, said Mexicanos sin Fronteras (Mexicans Without Borders) coordinator Nancy Lyall.

dgenz@dcexaminer.com