LCI Collects, & Heads To Court

The Livable City Initiative (LCI) has collected $27,200 over the past few months in hearing officer-approved fines of landlords who have missed inspections, failed to register with the city’s rental business licensing program, or not acted quickly enough to correct blight or housing code violations at their properties.

And the agency is now taking four more landlords to court in a bid to collect an additional $23,700.

LCI Executive Director Liam Brennan provided that update Wednesday in response to a series of questions from the Independent about the latest with city government’s enforcement of landlord fines sanctioned by third-party, mayoral-appointed hearing officers.

Brennan elevated to a new level of public prominence that little-known volunteer municipal position after taking over LCI last summer and stepping up the agency’s recruitment of such hearing officers. 

In the subsequent months, hearing officers have approved fine after fine — sometimes reaching into the five and six figures — for violations of the city’s anti-blight, housing code, and residential rental licensing programs.

Brennan has repeatedly told the Independent after each proceeding that, if a hearing officer upholds such a municipal fine and if the landlord doesn’t pay the ordered amount, then the city can seek a civil judgment in state court.

So. Since LCI really kicked these hearing officer proceedings into high gear last October, has anyone actually paid? And has the city tried taking any non-paying landlords to court?

Brennan told the Independent that, as of Wednesday, a total of 10 different landlords have paid a combined sum of $27,200 in hearing officer-approved fines for various city code violations at 13 different rental properties.

Those include:

• $9,650 paid by W. Matthew Harp for 220 Division St. (residential rental licensing program violation)

• $8,050 paid by W. Matthew Harp for 75 Brewster St. (blight violation)

• $2,000 paid by Grace Young and Bruce Cross for 26 Bishop St. (residential rental licensing program)

• $2,000 paid by Iva Lopes for 73 Asylum St. (residential rental licensing program)

• $1,825 paid by W. Matthew Harp for 672 Howard Ave. (residential rental licensing program)

• $575 paid by Menahem Edelkopf for 368 West Rock Ave. (housing code violation)

• $500 paid by Carl Makula for 161 Lenox St. (residential rental licensing program)

• $500 paid by Alexander Lack for 72 Daggett St. (residential rental licensing program)

• $500 paid by Colin Ryan for 56 Starr St. (residential rental licensing program)

• $250 paid by Jianchao Xu for 219 Fountain St. (residential rental licensing program)

• $250 paid by Jianchao Xu for 113 Ivy St. (residential rental licensing program)

• $100 paid by Richard Phillips for 152 Willard St. (residential rental licensing program)

“You may notice that several properties have settled for less than their initially assessed fines,” Brennan wrote in an email comment to the Independent. ​“In recognition of property owners who have promptly registered with the RLP [residential licensing program] after receiving assessments, we have adjusted several fines to $500. This reduced settlement amount takes into account both the historical gaps in ordinance enforcement and these owners’ swift commitment to compliance.” 

Brennan added that LCI has newly gone to state court to seek civil judgments in four different cases for landlords who have not paid hearing officer-approved fines.

Those include:

• $18,200 sought from Jianchao Xu’s 56 – 58 Avon St LLP for 516 Elm St.

• $2,000 sought from Levi Hecht’s 55 Trumbull St LLC for 55 Trumbull St. (Reached for comment by the Independent, Hecht pointed out that he hasn’t owned that property since 2021, and the LLC actually no longer exists. While the city assessor’s database still shows Hecht’s former LLC as owning the property, the city land records database, shows that 55 Trumbull St. is in fact now owned by 55 Trumbull Holdings LLC, a holding company controlled by Avraham Lipsker.)

• $2,000 sought from Amit Lakhotia’s Terrace St LLC for 70 Terrace St.

• $1,500 sought from Jack Lam for 95 Nicoll St.

Brennan said that money collected through residential and blight fines go into LCI accounts designated for those units.

The same is likely true for housing code-related fines, though because the city has not historically collected such fines (due to a lack of a hearing officer appeals process for housing code violations), the city is still figuring where exactly to deposit those. The only housing code-related fine payment in the group listed above was for 368 West Rock Ave.

Brennan added that, for housing code and residential licensing ​“assessments,” or fines, the city must first obtain civil judgments from court before filing liens on the relevant properties. 

For blight violations, however, the city can record liens after the assessment without the need for a civil judgment.

“Regarding some of our recent blight cases, we have prepared liens for several properties, including some on Fitch Street, which will be submitted for the Mayor’s signature shortly,” he wrote.

He also noted that LCI has filed liens on the city land records for two different hearing officer-approved sets of anti-blight fines last October: 

• $16,700 for 240 Winthrop, an ex-nursing home owned by a company controlled by Harry Dorvilier of Jamaica, N.Y.;

• And $13,200 for 1303 Chapel St., the burned-out Walter Camp House owned by a company controlled by Ocean Management’s Shmuel Aizenberg.