Landlord Fines Could Reach $2,000

Renting out unsafe homes could soon get a lot more expensive for landlords, if a proposed hike in housing code violation fines becomes a reality.

Mere days after enabling legislation came into effect on the state level on Oct. 1, the Board of Alders Legislation Committee heard a proposal from the Elicker administration on Tuesday night to raise civil penalties against code-violating landlords from $250 to a maximum of $2,000.

The committee alders decided to table the item, noting that key details still need to be clarified, while expressing general support for harsher enforcement against poor living conditions. That means the committee will likely take it up again for further consideration before passing it along to the full Board of Alders for review and a potential final vote.

On Wednesday, Mayor Justin Elicker called the proposed fine increases a ​“hefty incentive” for landlords to comply with the city’s housing code.

“While the vast majority of landlords provide safe environments for their tenants, we also have a real challenge for some landlords not complying with our housing code,” he said. He said that the city works with landlords to address safety concerns in homes, and resorts to issuing fines only when landlords are uncooperative.

Elicker said that this proposal for harsher civil penalties has to come with more resources for the city’s anti-blight Livable City Initiative (LCI). This would allow the city to keep up with inspections and enforcement. He noted that the number of New Haven households who rent has substantially grown in recent years, from 35,125 in 2012 to 40,138 in 2022 according to Census data.

One critical remaining question is whether the state law allows the city to fine landlords up to $2,000 in total, or up to $2,000 per day. Though the city has proposed the latter system, Corporation Counsel Patricia King informed alders on Tuesday that her office is still looking into whether that’s actually legal.

As the state legislation requires, landlords would face a maximum of $2,000 in civil fines per day, even if an inspection finds multiple code violations.

The civil penalties in question are fines issued by city agencies, primarily including the Building Department, the Fire Department, and the Health Department.

Those fines are a separate system from when the state’s attorney’s office takes landlords to housing court over code violations — a criminal enforcement mechanism that has historically also involved court-ordered municipal fines of up to $250, and that the city has primarily relied on up until now. According to a spokesperson for the Division of Criminal Justice, criminal housing court fines pursued by the state’s attorney’s office are still capped at $250.

According to City Spokesperson Lenny Speiller, the city has referred an average of five cases per month to the state’s attorney for housing court prosecution. 

“If the ordinance is passed, the city will have another option to hold landlords accountable for housing code violations that threaten the safety and wellbeing of New Haven residents,” he wrote in a statement. ​“The city would then determine on a case-by-case basis whether to issue a civil fine or to refer the matter to the State’s Attorney and housing court.”

Elicker elaborated that housing court has the authority to ​“actually require improvements,” as opposed to the city, which simply has the power to issue fines. As a result, he said, ​“for a landlord over and over violating housing code, we’re more likely to go the state’s attorney’s route.”

When asked whether the city would be able to pursue both civil and criminal enforcement mechanisms for the same code violation, Speiller wrote, ​“Corporation Counsel is currently reviewing whether dual fines would comport with due process requirements.”

Downtown/East Rock Alder Eli Sabin had proposed the bill to the state legislature, acting in his role as the legislative coordinator of Connecticut Voices for Children. 

He noted on Tuesday that as the city faces a housing shortage, with a large number of housing units currently in century-old buildings, tenants are often left with few safe living options. Keeping a rental unit safe is​“an obligation” of landlords, he said.​“If you’re paying rent, you deserve what you’re paying.”

“So many residents are living in squalid conditions,” noted Westville Alder Adam Marchand.​“We’re in a crisis.”

Alders Required To Hear Appeals

The state law passed last session gives landlords the right to appeal civil fines that they claim resulted from a tenant’s actions. Specifically, the law says that those kinds of appeals should go to the local legislative body — in New Haven’s case, the Board of Alders itself.

As King noted at Tuesday’s committee meeting, the Board of Alders doesn’t currently have a system by which it conducts such hearings. The local ordinance amendment proposed by the city gives alders the option of appointing a ​“hearing officer” to handle those appeals.

Westville Alder and Majority Leader Richard Furlow suggested that the alders could also set up a system similar to the Board of Alders Tax Abatement Committee, a committee of alders that meets monthly to hear individual requests from city residents to modify tax debts.

Hill Alder Evelyn Rodriguez was the sole alder to express concern that $2,000 fines may be too high. ​“I think that’s a bit too drastic,” she said. ​“How did we come up … with an amount of $2,000” for New Haven specifically?

King emphasized in response that the law would allow fines of ​“up to” $2,000.

“We recognize that there are some landlords, people who only own one property or maybe live in a two-family house, and they may not be appropriate for a $2,000 [fine] necessarily unless there’s a history of non-compliance,” King said. 

At the same time, she said, ​“I think we’re aware that there are certain landlords in the city who have large numbers of rental properties that are not necessarily equipped to be compliant with code violations. I think we want to have the ability to impose a significant fine on those landlords, but also have the discretion to impose a lower fine on a landlord who may be more responsible or may not be in a position to pay the fine.”

Alders: More Info Needed

Ultimately, when it came time for alders to vote on the item on Tuesday, Rodriguez said that though she believes there’s a need for stronger enforcement against derelict landlords, the ​“up to $2,000” provision was too vague for her to approve. 

She called on the city to distinguish between smaller landlords who may be renting out an apartment or two in their own homes and larger landlords who rent out a multitude of units.

Her colleagues on the committee agreed that more information was needed.

Westville Alder Adam Marchand called for more detail on how enforcement agencies would determine how high a fine to impose in any given situation. ​“I don’t suppose it would be, ​‘It’s your discretion, frontline worker.’ Surely there would be some policy,” he said.

On Wednesday afternoon, Mayor Elicker said in an interview, ​“We’re working on the administrative side to develop a policy.” He said that he’s open to working on this with alders, but that he currently envisions ​“a graduated scale where additional violations would trigger higher fines” — a system that penalizes repeat offenders more harshly.

Overall, though, the committee alders primarily expressed support for higher code violation fines.

Cedar Hill Landlord: What About Owner-Occupied Rentals?

Two tenants in favor of the proposed law and one landlord with reservations came to the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall to testify on Tuesday evening.

Barbara Chow-Yen pressed alders and city officials on whether the law would uniformly apply to large landlord companies and small landlords alike.

Chow-Yen, who owns a two-family home in Cedar Hill, called for alders to consider landlords who may have purchased a two- or three-family home to live in while renting out adjacent apartments. 

What if ​“tenants break it up” and then ​“go to LCI?” she asked. Would a $2,000 fine apply to ​“every landlord across the board?”

On Wednesday, Elicker responded to this concern. ​“The graduated fines is a way to be sensitive” to different landlords’ circumstances, he said. ​“Most importantly, the goal here is not to fine people. It’s to ensure compliance. … In an ideal world, we wouldn’t have to penalize anyone.”

Meanwhile, tenant Ratan Koneru argued that “$250 is a drop in the bucket compared to the tens of thousands of dollars I’ve paid to landlords” over the course of just a few years of being a tenant in New Haven.