Crackdown: 1,221 Properties’ Owners Face Fines

(Updated with link to list) Because their Wooster Square landlord has ducked the city’s inspection program, two young kids have been forced to sleep on the couch for two years due to a broken, moldy ceiling in their bedroom.

Now the city is cracking down on that landlord, and hundreds of others.

The kids live at one of hundreds of properties whose landlords have failed to sign up for city government’s Residential Licensing Program. The program requires inspections of all rental properties throughout the city with two or more units, with exemptions for owner-occupied homes.

Now the city is cracking down.

The city has released a list of 1,221 properties whose landlords face $100 fines and the wrath of a collection agency if they don’t sign up for the program. The list includes a range of landlords: notorious slumlords, everyday homeowners who didn’t file papers claiming their exemption, as well as civic-minded city employees.

Some landlords interviewed for this story said they didn’t know about the program, did not receive any notices about it, or did submit the paperwork and still didn’t get off the list. One said he was intentionally protesting a ​“ridiculous” requirement.

The collection agency, Penn Credit, will be calling people on the list in about two weeks, said Erik Johnson (pictured above), the head of the Livable City Initiative (LCI), the city’s neighborhood anti-blight agency. Johnson said when the collection agency calls, landlords will get one last chance to sign up for the program before facing a $100 fine.

Click here to see the delinquent list; click here to register online for the program or claim an exemption.

[Editor’s note: Updated with better links.]

Johnson said the crackdown comes as his office follows a directive from the Board of Aldermen to get more landlords to comply with the program. The program, launched in 2006, requires certain landlords to pay a fee and get their properties inspected every two years. The licensing program applies to owner-occupied homes with four or more dwellings and non-owner-occupied properties with two or more units. Fees start at $100 for two- and three-unit buildings; they are $40 per unit for larger buildings, up to $1,000. Properties that are 100 percent Section 8 housing are exempt because they already get inspected. Landlords must renew their licenses every three years. The aim is to protect tenants and keep up the city housing stock.

“If you’re a landlord, you’re a business,” Johnson said. ​“You should subject yourself to an inspection to ensure the health and safety of the people who live here.”

People like the woman and three kids who live at the rundown Wooster Square apartment that’s pictured at the top of this story.

“I would love to have an inspection,” said the woman upon answering her front door Wednesday.

She opened her children’s bedroom to show why: The ceiling collapsed two years ago, revealing mold that has created a stench in the room, making it unsafe to live in. Her kids have been sleeping in the living room for two years, she said. One of them lay on a couch, wrapped in a blanket Wednesday morning.

The woman, who declined to give her name for fear of retribution, said she has rented the apartment for nine years without any help from the landlord.

“He has not made one single repair,” she said.

She said her front porch fell into such disrepair that the mailman refused to deliver the mail. Her husband fixed the porch himself because the landlord refused to, she said. Among other complaints: When it rains, the dining room ceiling leaks. And there are no lights in the hallway or on the front porch.

The woman said she pays $1,250 for a three-bedroom apartment, even though one of the bedrooms is uninhabitable. She was delighted to hear that the city may force her landlord, who lives in East Haven, to fix up her apartment.

“I love living here, but I would love for her to make some improvements,” she said.

Along the same street, another neighbor had an opposite reaction. She isn’t an absentee landlord, but a homeowner living in her own home.

“This is insane,” she said upon seeing her name on the delinquent list. She said she had filed paperwork declaring her exemption from the inspection program, but the city has yet to correct its records to reflect her submission.

“I submitted paperwork three times,” she said.

A few streets away, at Saint John Street in Wooster Square, Becky Atluru (pictured) was surprised to see her new property on the city’s black list. She bought 278 Saint John St. last September, according to land records, but the city still lists the previous owner as the landlord.

Atluru said she and her husband have been busy remodeling the 1860 property, replacing windows and fixing up hardwood floors. Atluru lives in North Haven; she plans to rent out the two apartments there. Informed of the city’s inspection program by a reporter, she jumped online later Wednesday and downloaded the paperwork to sign up.

In response to direction from aldermen, LCI has made it easier for landlords to participate in the program over the past year by lowering fees, giving them more time to comply, and increasing the payment options, Johnson said. Landlords can now sign up and pay online.

Landlord Ron Candelora (pictured at right), who owns a handful of properties in town, said he is withholding payment because ​“I’m quite irritated with the way the program is running.” He said the second time an inspector visited one of his properties, the inspector became very ​“picky.”

“They wanted me to weather-strip a hallway door,” even though the hall was not heated. ​“The inspector also wanted me to sweep the basement floor,” Candelora recalled.

“You’re ridiculous,” he recalled telling the inspector. ​“Your regulations are out of hand. You don’t know where to stop.” Inspectors ​“want to push landlords as far as they could, but you don’t want to go after the tenants for any reason.”

Since then, Candelora has not paid the licensing fee. ​“They’re getting worse and worse and more picky. They’re overstepping their bounds.
I’m protesting,” he said.

Most landlords on the list, like Gil Marshak (pictured), said they are happy to participate, but didn’t know they were out of compliance. Marshak and a partner manage and rent 25 to 30 properties in the city, including this recently renovated house on Orange Street.

Marshak said he supports the residential licensing program: ​“I think it’s a very good program, because hopefully people that are not as responsible as we are” get held to high expectations. He said he has cooperated with the program at his properties. He wasn’t aware that he had failed to register for inspections at three of his properties.

He said he has a good relationship with LCI and is in contact with its staff frequently. But ​“nobody ever called me” about any missing paperwork, he said.

He said one of the properties on the list, 55 Pine, is already inspected through the federal Section 8 subsidized housing program, and therefore should be exempt.

Reached at City Hall, Johnson said LCI is trying to reduce the amount of city staff time spent tracking down and calling landlords to ask them to sign up or file exemptions. Instead, his office is using the threat of fines to shift the burden of compliance to the landlords.

LCI inspects half of city rental properties one year, then half the next year. Johnson said 5,500 properties are eligible for inspection this year. LCI started with a list of 5,500, then subtracted the properties that have filed for exemption. The city then sent three letters over the course of six months urging landlords to sign up.

Through that process, LCI culled the list to 1,221 property owners who did not respond.

“The city’s done its due effort to make sure people know,” Johnson said. ​“If they’re not getting their mail, they should make sure their address is correct at the tax office.”

The city’s crackdown has caught in its net some city employees, such as city parks department staffer Sabrina Bruno (pictured) of Livingston Street. Bruno lives in her home and is exempt from the program. She said when she got a letter in the mail, she contacted then-Building Chief Andy Rizzo to ask what to do. She learned she was supposed to submit a utility bill proving she lives in her home.

“I don’t think I ever actually followed through on that process,” Bruno said. ​“I will get right on it, because I don’t want to have to be on the list.”

Assistant Police Chief Luiz Casanova, who owns a rental property at 538 Ferry St., said LCI had not communicated with him about his missing paperwork.

“They’re not communicating, because I never received a single letter from them,” Casanova said. He said the city does have his correct address because it sent him the tax bill for the property, which he paid.

Instead of being embarrassed to be on the list, Casanova said LCI ​“should be embarrassed.”

“They’re not sending notices out to the proper address,” he said. He added that his property is exempt because it is all Section 8.

East Rock Alderwoman Jessica Holmes shared the concern that the city hasn’t done a good enough job getting the word out to homeowners who are exempt from the inspections.

Holmes said she glanced at the list for her ward and found many people who are exempt from the program.

She said she has been calling the people on the list to warn them.

“The first they’ll hear about it is going to be a call from a collection agency,” she said.

“The residential licensing program is good, and needs to be implemented,” Holmes said. ​“But in terms of communication, there’s a lot of room for improvement.”