Published: December 28, 2008 12:53 am      

TOP 10: NO. 4 Housing blitz turns up some unpleasant truths

City’s building inspection department fights blight

By Joyce M. Miles

milesj@gnnewspaper.com

Peeled paint, sagging roof, cracked foundation. No smoke alarms, too few bathrooms, too many vehicles in the yard.

Old rules were like new again as a restaffed building inspection department hit the streets this year and started battling inner-city blight.

Led by veteran inspector Jim McCann, new hires Jason Dool, David Miller and Clayton Dimmick seem to be giving it their all.

Dool, who recently was promoted to senior building inspector, says the team investigated some 800 code complaints, sent out 600 official notices of violation and referred more than 100 property neglect complaints to City Court, all through

November.

By conventional standards, the numbers don’t sound that big. By the standards of a city that failed to fight blight effectively because it didn’t commit the funds to pay for adequate code enforcement, they’re striking.

“I never had the manpower to turn these kinds of numbers before,” McCann says. “To me they’re huge. For three young men who never did the job before ... these numbers are phenomenal for the city.”

Early on, the team targeted rental housing conditions and launched an enforcement blitz in the city’s east and north quads. Whole blocks were canvassed for the first time since 1978; then, street by street, starting with the ones judged to have the most dilapidated housing, the department initiated full outside/inside inspections of rental houses. Landowners could open up their apartments voluntarily or police could break down doors. Either way, the inspectors were coming in.

The blitz has turned up evidence of things McCann already knew in his gut: substandard rental housing is fairly plentiful in the Lock City, and living conditions are sometimes horrendous. One raided Genesee Street apartment house was found to have minimal water and no gas or electricity; instead, five tenants got juice from an extension cord plugged in at a neighboring property. A raided South Street house racked up more than 100 code violations, including raw sewage covering the basement floor.

Most violations are not that egregious, but the enforcers treat them all the same. Once they’re written up, property owners have so many days to correct problems, be it inadequate plumbing or front-yard parking, or they’re going to housing court — where once twice-monthly sessions are now weekly, thanks to the growing number of cases kicked over to it.

When the Common Council agreed to fund the housing blitz, members thought they were finally going after so-called slumlords. As it turns out, a lot of people pulled into housing court are anything but. Some are elderly or disabled; some are poor; some are trapped in legal limbo, thanks to the mortgagors that kicked them out of their homes but, for their own reasons, didn’t take back the deeds. Sometimes they’re people who simply don’t see “problems” the same way code enforcers do, and they’re angry to think they’re being picked on.

Judge Tom DiMillo and prosecutor Matt Brooks believe the goal of housing court is not to punish people for owning problem property, it’s to get them to solve the problems. Their approach is thus carrot-and-stick, as DiMillo spells out the consequences of guilt on the charges — heavy fines or jail time — then says he’ll give a person reasonable time to fix the problems and make the charges go away.

The catch, for defendants, is they have to report to him personally, once a month or more, how they’re progressing; and all the while, building inspectors are keeping tabs, too. Meanwhile, Brooks aims to track distant property owners — LLCs and mortgage companies — and try pinning liability on them.

Court cases tend to go on three to six months, after the city already gave cited property owners a month or more to correct violations voluntarily. It’s something of a disappointment to resident activists who hoped the crackdown would net a quick, obvious payoff.

Decades of benign neglect can’t be reversed in a year or two, McCann said, but the war is under way and he senses the community supports it. As they’re reading more about renewed enforcement and seeing the inspectors out in the field, he said, residents are responding with lots of tips on which properties should be checked out next.

“I actually think I hear residents saying there’s a change here,” said McCann, who put off retirement last year when the Council finally agreed to fund an inspectors’ corps. “We’re far from seeing a shining star, but at least I’m seeing light.”