LCI Takes The Stand

(Updated) Courtroom sleuths raised, but could not unravel, a housing code mystery: 

Did LCI last pass or fail a Vernon Street apartment? And were city-discovered code violations resolved last September, or do they persist to this day?

Those questions sat at the center of a nearly hourlong hearing that took place Tuesday early afternoon in New Haven’s third-floor housing court at 121 Elm St.

The case in question is a so-called housing code enforcement action filed by tenant Lakeysha Harrison and New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA) attorney Amy Marx against two holding companies controlled by local landlord Matthew Harp. Harp’s real estate company Renaissance Management and its affiliates own and run publicly subsidized low-income apartments across the city.

In this particular case, filed by Harrison in February, the Hill tenant is seeking to compel her landlord to address a host of alleged problems with her second-floor Vernon Street apartment, including rodent infestation, holes in the walls, and faulty or inoperable doors and windows and sinks, among other concerns. 

Harp’s company’s attorney denied the entirety of Harrison’s housing-code-violation claims in a Tuesday court filing. The landlord’s lawyer included in the filing a counterclaim arguing that the tenant has failed to keep her apartment clean, safe, and garbage-free.

While Harrison and Marx introduced roughly two dozen photos in court of conditions at the property, the hearing focused less on the current conditions of 23 Vernon St. than it did on the role and recordkeeping of the city’s housing-code enforcement / neighborhood development agency, the Livable City Initiative, or LCI.

The hearing also raised questions about the disposition of a criminal housing court matter last September. That’s when Harp pleaded guilty to two housing code violations, including one at 23 Vernon, and was ordered by a judge to pay a $500 fine. At that same September hearing, a senior assistant state’s attorney told the court that Harp had addressed 23 Vernon’s prior housing code violations to LCI’s satisfaction. That is: LCI had inspected the property in September, passed it, and cleared the way for Harp to plead guilty to the infractions and pay a fine.

That inspection history — and its resulting ambiguities — came up in court on Tuesday as Marx questioned Mark Stroud.

Stroud, a deputy director at LCI, is the top official overseeing city government’s housing code inspection program. Marx subpoenaed him and questioned him Tuesday about LCI’s recent history of inspections, orders, and findings at 23 Vernon St.

Marx first walked Stroud through a Jan. 31, 2022 housing code compliance order that LCI sent to Harp about 23 Vernon St. (The order identifies the apartment in question as on building’s first floor. Harp’s company’s attorney on Tuesday, Tucker McWeeny, tried to get the court to throw out the case entirely because Harrison lives in a second-floor apartment. Marx made her case to the court that the initial LCI order identifying the apartment as on the first floor was a ​“scrivener’s error” and that the concerns identified with LCI at the apartment are clearly in reference to Harrison’s. Judge Walter Spader, Jr. turned down McWeeny’s motion to dismiss the matter for now.)

That LCI order from early last year states that a Jan. 25, 2022 inspection of 23 Vernon St. by LCI’s Nicole Minervini found cracked floor tiles, a loose sink, holes in walls, broken cabinets, and a rodent infestation, among other issues.

Stroud told the court that, after that initial January inspection, a LCI inspector returned to the Vernon Street property in May of 2022. LCI failed the property after that inspection, and soon thereafter requested a warrant to try to get the state’s attorney’s office to prosecute Harp for persistent housing-code violations in criminal housing court. (Click here to read a previous Independent article about how and why LCI-detected housing code violations can escalate to the point of prosecution.)

Stroud then said that a LCI inspector returned to the Vernon Street property for a ​“recheck” on Sept. 12, which was the day before Harp was next scheduled to appear in court.

And did LCI pass or fail 23 Vernon after that Sept. 12 inspection? Marx asked.

“Fail,” Stroud replied.

So, to recap: LCI inspected and failed the property in January 2022. It inspected and failed the property in May 2022. And it inspected and failed the property in September 2022.

Stroud said that, according to his records, LCI had not reinspected the property since last September. ​“That was the last we did.”

Judge Spader said that sounded right. After all, Harp had pleaded guilty to various housing code violations, including one at 23 Vernon, last September.

But wait a minute, Marx said. She said her understanding is that the state allows landlords to make guilty pleas on code-related infractions and pay associated fines only after the housing-code issues in question have been addressed. 

Indeed, during the September 2022 criminal housing court hearing, Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Donna Parker said that Harp was ​“now in compliance” in regards to 23 Vernon, among other properties with resolved violations. (A representative from the state’s attorney’s office did not respond to an email request for comment by the publication time of this article.)

Update: On Monday, Asst. Corp Counsel Pinto told the Independent by email that a subsequent search of LCI records found that Stroud had indeed told the state’s attorney’s office last September that most of the LCI-found housing code issues at 23 Vernon had been addressed by that time. 

Pinto’s full email comment to the Independent stated: ​“At the civil housing code enforcement hearing on April 4th, Mr. Stroud answered Attorney Marx’s question to the best of his knowledge at the time, however, a subsequent check of LCI’s records indicated that on September 12th, 2022, Mr. Stroud, on behalf of LCI had informed the State’s Attorney that two of the three outstanding housing code violations had been corrected at 23 Vernon Street. He further informed the State’s Attorney, that the one outstanding violation was not deemed to represent a significant risk to the life, health, and safety of the tenants, and that LCI would follow up on the remaining issue. The State’s Attorney relied on this information in their case at the September 13, 2022 hearing, and subsequent plea bargain with the landlord of the property. We have alerted all parties of this new information and, as ordered by the court, LCI will be performing a reinspection of the property prior to the next court date.”

McWeeny emphasized that the assistant state’s attorney had said last September ​“that the issue in this order had been resolved.” 

He stressed that that criminal court disposition in September reflected Harp’s completion of necessary fixes to LCI’s order from the previous January. After Tuesday’s hearing, Harp also pointed out to the Independent that LCI had inspected the property last September — and that the matter had been resolved in court at that time.

“Who made a representation to the state’s attorney that it had been resolved?” Marx asked Stroud during Tuesday’s hearing.

Stroud said he normally sends an email to the state’s attorney in question before a landlord’s criminal housing court hearing about whether or not a code violations have been resolved.

And does LCI have such an email in this case? McWeeny asked.

“There is nothing showing as such,” Stroud replied.

New Haven’s CitySquared website, meanwhile, which provides a public-facing online portal for certain property records, states that LCI inspected and failed 23 Vernon St. three times in 2022: on Jan. 23, May 2, and, most recently, on Aug. 5 (pictured above).

After giving Stroud the ok to leave and before letting Marx begin questioning her second witness in the case, Spader expressed his frustration at the record of inspections before him.

“I don’t have a recent inspection from LCI” to review, he said. The last inspection appears to have been from September 2022. This housing code enforcement case was brought in February 2023. Did no one think to ask LCI to revisit the property in the two months since this case was filed to have an official report on its current condition?

“I did ask,” Marx contended. She said she’s asked LCI several times to come out. She said the lack of a more recent inspection and updated report perhaps reflects on LCI’s incomplete performance of its duties.

She also pointed out that ​“critical to this case” is finding out who exactly represented to the state’s attorney’s office last September that the previous housing code violations had been resolved.

Judge: Lack Of Re-Inspection "Concerning"

Spader scheduled a follow-up hearing on this matter for two weeks from Tuesday.

In the meantime, he said, he plans to order LCI to visit 23 Vernon and inspect the property so that he can see exactly what the city’s official take on this property is before weighing in on the merits of the tenant’s and landlord’s arguments.

In an order posted to the court’s website later Tuesday afternoon, Spader elaborated on that plan.

He wrote that the court began hearing testimony in the housing-code enforcement action Tuesday, and that the case would be continued until April 28 for further testimony.

However, he wrote, ​“the Court is in need of a follow-up inspection by LCI of 23 Vernon Street, 2nd Floor, New Haven, prior to that April 18 court date. LCI’s representative testified that the premises has not been reinspected since September of 2022. The Plaintiff’s complaint alleges issues at the premises since January of 2022 and further alleges that the defendant has made no efforts at correcting any of the problems identified in an earlier LCI inspection. Accordingly, the Court is Ordered a re-inspection of the premises. The Court Clerk is to send a copy of the complaint which identifies the plaintiff’s allegations to LCI so that their re-inspection can be focused on the plaintiff’s allegations.” He wrote that the two parties attorneys should confer before the April 18 court date to see if the alleged issues can begin to be remedied.

“As testimony is not finished, and without prejudice to the Court’s ultimate decision, it is concerning that no re-inspection was performed after prior failed inspections,” Spader continued. ​“Although, the plaintiff could have brought this action sooner, even though the non-payment case was pending and not withdrawn, as plaintiff’s counsel represented the action was resolved over last summer with UniteCT payments — so the action was of no real legal effect and any pleading put before the Court could have quickened the Court’s dismissing the case. The purpose of Housing Code Enforcement Actions (and LCI enforcement, criminally) is to attempt to provide quick resolution to tenants allegedly living in housing that is not ​‘up to code.’ While the remedies available in criminal proceedings are more limited, the Court is willing to fashion equitable solutions and remedies in civil court, when appropriate. The Court, again, has only begun to receive testimony, so cannot say there are any violations, or even if the prior inspections related to the 2nd or 1st floor of the premises, but trusts that all of the participants in the trial have the same goal of ensuring code-compliant, safe, habitable premises for the area community.”