Laura Glesby photo
LCI hearing officer Bob Megna: Fines approved.
It took an hour and a half for volunteer hearing officer Bob Megna to issue $1,000 fines to 27 local landlords — part of the city’s latest effort to revive a mandatory landlord licensing program after a lapse in enforcement.
Megna issued those fines primarily to small landlords at a meeting with Assistant Corporation Counsel Jonathan Bedosky and officials with the Livable City Initiative’s housing enforcement arm on Friday morning at City Hall.
Megna, a former state representative and newly-appointed hearing officer with the Livable City Initiative, had convened the group to go through a series of civil citation cases — all of which were “uncontested,” meaning that the landlords facing fines never responded to letters from the city.
The fines are part of an effort led by LCI’s new director, Liam Brennan, to amp up enforcement of the city’s landlord licensing ordinance. The ordinance requires all owner-occupied buildings with at least four residential units and non-owner-occupied buildings with at least two residential units to be registered with a Residential Business License.
In recent years, the city has struggled to ensure compliance with the ordinance. According to Brennan, only about a quarter of the city’s 9,423 residential buildings are licensed, while another approximately 16 percent have received exemptions.
In order to revamp the licensing program, LCI’s strategy has been to inform property owners of the ordinance requirement by mail — and to pursue fines against them if they do not comply after a second warning. As a hearing officer, Megna has the power to impose fines on landlords who fail to comply with the city’s landlord licensing ordinance.
Address by address, Bedosky presented a manila folder containing copies of letters mailed to each landlord, information about the building in question pulled from the tax assessor’s office, and a form that Megna could sign officially imposing a fine.
With each case, Bedosky repeated a nearly-identical set of facts.
“The first notice is dated June 18, 2024,” he said, pointing out each time that the letter contained instructions in English and Spanish about how to register for a license and how to apply for an exemption.
“They were sent a penalty rate sheet on September 5, 2024,” he continued, with information about the fines for non-compliance. He requested a fine of $1,000 each time, the designated fine when 46 to 61 days have passed since the second notice.
The first building in question was a three-family house at 11 Dorman St., owned by Adam Haston. Haston’s mailing address, as listed in city records for the building, was also 11 Dorman St.
Bedosky read aloud this information as he handed Megna the corresponding property records and letter copies.
“To your knowledge, he lives there? So he might be exempt?” Megna asked.
Since the home was a three-family, LCI Deputy Director Mark Stroud pointed out that, as indicated in the letters, the landlord would have needed to apply for an exemption. “It appears they didn’t do that in this case.”
Megna wordlessly wrote down “$1,000” on the citation form and signed his name.
Haston, it turns out, is a landlord who owns at least a few dozen housing units across the city. Business records associated with a holding company that he controls list his address in Beaver Hills.
According to Brennan, it’s not uncommon for landlords to register their mailing address at a place where they don’t actually live. “We had one landlord tell us she lived at three different addresses,” he recalled. “She lived in Rowayton.”
That’s why, Brennan said, LCI is issuing fines to homes that on paper, at least, might seem to qualify for an exemption. “We need the property owners to prove their exemptions,” said Brennan.
At Friday’s meeting, a pattern quickly emerged: many of the houses were two-family homes whose owners purported to receive mail at that same address.
Several, like a two-family East Shore home owned by Andre Edwin and a three-family Newhallville home owned by Wanda Taylor, appear to actually be owner-occupied, at least based on voter records.
If Edwin and Taylor indeed live at those properties, they would be exempt from the licensing requirement.
The goal, Brennan said, is not to punish homeowners and small landlords, but to ultimately ensure that LCI can inspect every qualifying apartment for safe and sanitary living conditions. He said that the department has “worked out” fines for owner occupants who show up at City Hall when “they are actually exempt and can prove it.”
About 3,000 landlords have received an initial notice, according to Brennan, and another 2,000 have received a second notice warning them of a fine for non-compliance.
Jonathan Bedosky: Presenting cases for LCI.