Going Up! Broken Elevator Crackdown Proposed

New Haven landlords could soon face stricter penalties for neglecting to fix broken elevators — as part of a city push to make sure disabled tenants aren’t left stranded in their apartments.

At its Oct. 3 meeting in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall, the Board of Alders Legislation Committee advanced a proposed ordinance amendment that requires landlords to fix broken elevators within two days (rather than three) or face a new fine. 

That proposal now heads to the full Board of Alders for further review and a potential final vote.

The amendment would also charge the Livable City Initiative (LCI) with fining landlords $250 per day for broken elevators lasting beyond the 48-hour deadline, unless the landlord has offered to pay for alternative accessible accommodations and missed income, or unless the broken elevator is due to ​“circumstances beyond the Owner(s)’ control” and the landlord has a service contract with a 24-hour line of communication.

Previously, tenants could take up violations of the city’s elevator-access ordinances to the state’s Commission on Equal Opportunities, a process that would not typically lead to a fast and immediate response. 

“We felt like we needed to do something more,” said Sally Esposito, a member of the city’s Commission on Disabilities, which worked with the city and Alders Sal DeCola and Richard Furlow to craft the ordinance amendment.

In a subsequent presentation to alders, city Disability Services Director Gretchen Knauff explained that the city also wants a means of pressuring landlords to ensure that elevators are not regularly breaking and leaving tenants with no way in or out of a building’s upper floors. 

“We got a couple of reports that the elevator would break, they would fix it, and a few days later, it would break again,” Knauff said at the Oct. 3 aldermanic committee meeting. 

Knauff argued that the ordinance amendment would also incentivize landlords to have ongoing contracts with elevator maintenance companies, since having such an agreement in place would exempt any delayed repairs outside the landlord’s control from city fines.

The ordinance amendment also requires landlords to have large-print signs in English and Spanish with information about how to call LCI in the event of a 48-hour elevator problem.

Knauff noted that for tenants living above the first floor who are unable to take the stairs, a broken elevator can lead to missed work hours (and eventually lost jobs) or canceled medical appointments (and eventually a request that the patient find a new doctor).

“People were really desperate to maintain their daily lives,” said Esposito.

Why LCI?

Westville Alder Adam Marchand asked why LCI was chosen as the agency responsible for elevator enforcement, and whether the department is up for the challenge of taking on this new responsibility.

Westville/Amity Alder and Majority Leader Richard Furlow, one of the alders who helped draft the proposed amendment, explained that LCI would not be conducting the kinds of diagnostic elevator inspections that are typically the responsibility of the state’s building department. ​“They’re just responding,” he said, framing the proposed new system as an alternative to tenants calling the fire department to help them downstairs for non-urgent reasons.

Although the group working on the proposed ordinance initially considered tasking the city’s building department with the elevator enforcement, they ultimately looped in LCI because the anti-blight agency can respond to urgent complaints at any hour of the day, according to Furlow. 

According to Corporation Counsel Patricia King, the fines would likely take the form of a lien on the landlord’s property, in line with other fines levied by LCI.

Marchand questioned whether this fining mechanism would be effective enough. ​“I’ve just heard mixed things” about the lien system, he said. ​“You want the fine to have a stinging effect.”

In response, Knauff noted that the requirement to ​“move someone, pay for their housing, pay for their salary” would likely amp up the pressure on landlords to act swiftly and avoid penalties.

Marchand maintained that this enforcement mechanism may be flawed. For example, he noted that ​“if a landlord doesn’t pay” for a necessary relocation, the city isn’t able to actually mandate that outcome; LCI can only continue to fine the landlord.

He asked, too, if a power outage would leave a landlord responsible for fines.

“I would say that’s a circumstance beyond the landlord’s control,” responded Knauff.

Ultimately, the alders unanimously voted to advance the proposal by giving it a favorable recommendation to their colleagues on the full board.

Marchand referenced ​“some pretty egregious incidents” with ​“people literally trapped” without a functional elevator.

Furlow spoke of an ongoing problem of ​“landlords that would not address elevators being out for weeks at a time.”

This was a problem late last year in the Fair Haven Heights apartment complex known as Bella Vista, a set of five towers owned by the Meriden-based landlord Carabette, where hundreds of people who are elderly and/or disabled reside. 

In late 2022, one of the elevators in Bella Vista’s Building D broke down for weeks at a time. That elevator was the only one to reach the below-ground levels of the building’s parking garage — leaving one tenant, who has asked to be referred to by her middle name, Marie, to test the strength of her recovering heart and take the stairs in order to leave the building.

Marie said on Tuesday morning that though that elevator has not been out of service for more than a day since it was fixed in December 2022, she’s pleased by the proposed extra layer of enforcement. ​“That’s wonderful news,” she said. ​“It’s awful when it breaks down for a long time.”

Elevator hiccups are not limited to apartment buildings controlled by private landlords, according to tenants at the Charles McQueeney Towers, a high rise at 358 Orange St. specifically for people who are elderly and/or disabled. The building is run by Elm City Communities, the umbrella organization encompassing the Housing Authority and its non-profit affiliates.

At McQueeney, according to ninth-floor tenants Terrance Campbell and Maria Capp, one of the building’s two elevators has been broken for several months.

“That elevator is old,” said Campbell. ​“It’s not working at all.”

“The other one’s crickety-crackety,” added Capp, who uses a walker. The pair said the other elevator typically breaks down about twice per week for periods of about an hour or an hour and a half.

When she tries to leave the house but finds that both elevators are down, Capp cannot descend nine flights of stairs. ​“I’m stuck,” she said.

According to an email from Elm City Communities Director Karen DuBois-Walton, the building’s smaller elevator broke down on June 20, went back online for two weeks, and then stopped working. DuBois-Walton wrote that this elevator ​“requires a more significant repair” and that Elm City Communities is waiting on a vendor to issue repairs. ​“Delays have occurred due to difficulty obtaining parts by the vendor,” she wrote.

Meanwhile, DuBois-Walton said, the second, larger elevator in the building last underwent a ​“significant repair” toward the end of May and ​“has been in service since with only short interruptions noted.” She wrote that ​“all attempts are made to not leave the building without service to our residents. During any period of extended outage we relocate residents with mobility concerns,” adding that ​“separately, we are undertaking an assessment of all elevators in our portfolio.”