Renaissance Landlord Fined Another $500

A state judge fined local landlord Matthew Harp another $500 Tuesday for now-fixed housing code violations at one of his company’s Hill rental properties.

That was the outcome of Harp’s latest appearance in New Haven’s housing court in a third-floor courtroom at 121 Elm St.

State Superior Court Judge Walter Spader, Jr. ordered Harp — whose real estate company Renaissance Management and its affiliates own and run many publicly subsidized low-income apartments across the city — to pay two $250 fines stemming from housing code violations that the city’s Livable City Initiative (LCI) found in a first-floor apartment at the 13-unit rental building at 672 Howard Ave.

This fine comes roughly four months after Harp was hit with a separate $500 fine for a separate set of now-fixed housing code violations at two of his company’s other local rental properties.

According to LCI’s files, the city’s housing code enforcement agency inspected the Howard Avenue property on March 1, 2022 and found missing locks on the apartment’s windows, loose electrical outlets in need of repairs in the living room, missing or broken ​“outlet” plates in the living room, a rodent infestation throughout the building, damaged flooring and burn marks in the kitchen, missing or broken carbon monoxide detectors, an inoperable vent in the bathroom, a damp ceiling in the bathroom, and a problem with the sewer system that caused sewage to back up in the toilets and bath tubs in the building. 

LCI sent Harp a housing code compliance notice on March 3, ordering him to make the necessary repairs to the property. After some of those code violations persisted, LCI then applied for a warrant in September and got the state’s criminal housing court prosecutor to pursue a case in court.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Harp stood alongside his attorney Karen Baldwin Kravitz as Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Donna Parker told the judge that Harp would be pleading guilty to two code violations and the state would be nolleing five more.

“There were several code” violations, Parker said, including ​“missing outlets” and missing locks on windows.

“They have all been fixed to LCI’s satisfaction,” Parker said. Since Harp had already addressed the five other housing code violations in this case before Tuesday’s hearing, she continued, the state would be nolleing those other five.

Spader made clear to Harp that these two housing code violations he was pleading guilty to are infractions. They do not create a ​“criminal record,” he said. And ​“since you did the work” on the other matters, Spader said, he’d accepting the state’s move to drop the five other violations. 

But ​“you do admit to these two counts?” Spader asked. 

Yes, Harp replied. 

“I will accept the plea,” Spader said as he ordered the landlord to pay a total of $500 in fines.

Also in housing court on Tuesday were Zvi Horowitz and Samuel Pollack, whose company Seramonte CT LLC owns over 450 apartments on Mix Avenue and Kay Vue Drive in Hamden.

Standing alongside their attorney Ian Gottlieb, Horowitz and Pollack were each arraigned for 12 counts of violating the state’s public health code related to persistent mold issues in the apartment buildings’ basements. Those violations qualify as Class C misdemeanors, if Horowitz and Pollack are found guilty. Click here to read an article by the New Haven Register’s Meghan Friedmann about those alleged health code violations and about Seramonte’s plans to address them. And click here to read a recent Independent article about Seramonte taking Hamden’s Fair Rent Commission to court over a handful of recent rent-hike-stifling decisions at these same properties.

The state ​“has received a partial abatement plan,” Parker told the judge.

Gottlieb said that his clients have ​“already put in motion” parts of that abatement plan. He said that there are still some ​“items in the basement” that ​“need to be removed in order for the remediation to be complete.” Spader then continued Horowitz’s and Pollack’s cases to a future date to give all parties time to see ​“what we can do to resolve this situation.”

Click here to read a previous Independent article about how and why LCI-detected housing code violations can escalate to the point of prosecution. Click here, here, here, here, here and here for previous Independent stories about other landlords who have been fined through after going through housing court’s​“criminal docket.”