Thomas MacMillan Photo
Claudette Robinson-Thorpe has an idea she said would improve New Haven’s way of licensing rental apartments — stop making landlords like herself pay for the cost of inspections.
Claudette Robinson-Thorpe (pictured), who besides being a landlord is also an alderwoman representing the Beaver Hills neighborhood, submitted her idea this week in the form of a proposed order calling for a review of the Livable City Initiative’s (LCI) residential licensing program.
That’s the anti-blight program, begun in 2006, that requires certain landlords to pay $75 every two years to have a building with two to three rental apartments inspected. (The fee is $150 for buildings with four to ten apartments; $250 for 11 to 20; $375 for more than 20.)
The residential licensing program applies only to properties with two or more units that are neither owner-occupied nor 100 percent Section 8 housing. (Inspections already take place at Section 8 properties.)
Robinson-Thorpe, the landlord of two duplex rental properties near her Norton Parkway home, said she thinks the program should run very differently. Landlords shouldn’t have to pay anything unless they are found to be violating housing code regulations, she said.
Erik Johnson, head of LCI, said the licensing fees are necessary to cover the cost of running the program, which helps ensure that people are living in safe conditions.
Aldermen are already considering some changes to the program, proposed by LCI. Those changes have already been approved by aldermanic committee; the full board will vote on them in coming weeks.
The changes would streamline the program’s appeals process. It would send inspectors to rental apartments every three years, not two, as is the current practice. The proposal would adjust the licensing fees slightly, so that they are more equitable between large and small property owners, Johnson said.
The lowest fee would rise to $100 for buildings with up to three apartments, though it have to be paid less often. The fee would change to $40 per dwelling unit for larger buildings, capped at $1,000.
Another change is that the licensing program would be linked to the city’s anti-blight ordinance, giving LCI the ability to put liens on the properties of unresponsive landlords, and even foreclose on properties.
At a December committee meeting on the proposal, Douglas Losty of the New Haven Property Owners Association spoke out against the plan. Foreshadowing Alderwoman Robinson-Thorpe’s comments, Losty said his members “would rather have a strenuously-enforced complaint-driven procedure rather than a licensing ordinance,” according to minutes from the meeting.
Discussion of the plan continued at a public information meeting before a Board of Aldermen meeting this past Tuesday night. There, Fair Haven Alderwoman Migdalia Castro praised the new city proposal. She said the licensing program gives LCI “more teeth” to fix recurring property problems, and it ensures that properties will be inspected even if tenants are for some reason afraid to complain about their living conditions.
“Me being a landlord, I don’t feel like I should be penalized” by having to pay a licensing fee even when my properties pass inspection, said Robinson-Thorpe.
Johnson speaks at an informational meeting Tuesday night.
“This is not supposed to be a revenue-generating activity,” said Johnson. The fees cover only the costs of running the program, he said.
The proposed extension of the licensing period would make life easier for good landlords, Johnson said. “If you do what you’re supposed to do, you’re not going to see us for three years.”
“Most people are good landlords,” Robinson-Thorpe said later in the evening. If LCI comes in, inspects her property, and finds nothing, “I shouldn’t have to pay,” she said.
Robinson-Thorpe said she has never — “not once” — been cited for any violations by LCI.
The program is not working anyway, said Robinson-Thorpe. Anyone can just take down a smoke detector after the inspector leaves, she said. What LCI should do is inspect all properties regularly and charge only when violations are found, she said.
Robinson-Thorpe’s call for a review of the licensing program is headed next to the aldermanic Legislation Committee.
Responding to Robinson-Thorpe’s call for the elimination of fees for landlords without violations, Johnson said the fees cover the cost of licensing program. The program is necessary in a town where 77 percent homes are rentals, and where the housing stock is the second oldest in the country, he said.
Taking up Castro’s argument, Johnson said a “significant number” of the city’s renters are people living on low incomes and “often don’t have voices.” They may be afraid to lose their apartments if they complain.
“What’s the definition of a good landlord is the other thing,” Johnson said. A landlord might be treating his tenants perfectly; that doesn’t mean he’s checked the fire escape, or cleaned the furnace, he said.
“I want to get away from the idea of a good landlord or a bad landlord,” he said. “People are running businesses and should be subject to certain minimum standards just like most businesses are. … If I have a restaurant and I say I have a really good kitchen, does that mean the health department shouldn’t make sure? These are people’s homes and these are people’s lives.”