Committee OKs LCI’s Landlord Licensing Revamp

An ordinance that would revamp New Haven’s landlord licensing program advanced closer to final passage at the Board of Alders’ Legislation Committee’s meeting Tuesday night.

The Livable City Initiative (LCI), the city’s anti-blight agency, had proposed a draft of the plan to reform the landlord licensing system in May, in the aftermath of a deadly fire at an illegal rooming house at 150 West St.\ earlier that month. On Tuesday evening, LCI Director Serena Neal-Sanjurjo and Deputy Director of Housing Code Enforcement Rafael Ramos returned to the Legislation Committee to present a set of amendments to the ordinance.

The ordinance would create three different types of licenses for landlords, which could last between one and three years.

Landlords with almost no violations would be eligible for a three-year ​“Type I” license. Those with fewer than five non-life-threatening violations would qualify for two-year ​“Type II” licenses, and those with more than five violations would receive a one-year ​“Type III” license. (Read more about these changes to the licensing system here.)

Many of the recommended amendments to the ordinance were grammatical fixes. LCI’s main addition to the ordinance requires that the city town clerk’s office document landlords’ non-compliance with inspections on the property title itself. This procedure would prevent code violations from slipping through the cracks if a landlord decides to sell a property rather than repair it.

“What we have found is that some property owners feel, ​‘OK, I’m just gonna sell it and move on’” when faced with a lien, said Neal-Sanjurjo. ​“That happens a lot in this city,” she said afterwards.

Committee Chair and Fair Haven Heights Alder Rosa Ferraro Santana suggested another solution to landlords who consistently violate housing codes.

“Why don’t we just buy the property?” she asked. ​“It costs us more money for LCI to go out there and clean it up.”

“I think that would be something to look forward. Maybe not now,” Santana said.

Neal-Sanjurjo answered that city officials, alongside the Affordable Housing Committee, have been looking into that option.

“The way I see it, this is a way to put some teeth into enforcement,” interjected Westville alder Adam Marchand. ​“This is not a licensing overhaul.”

He asked Neal-Sanjurjo how close this ordinance would get to her vision of the long-term changes necessary to the licensing system.

“From what I’ve learned over the last four and a half years, I think we’re at 80 percent,” Neal-Sanjurjo said. One limitation, she added, is that the landlord licensing program is voluntary, as per the city’s law. ​“I can’t say that this will get 100 percent participation,” she said.

Newhallville and Prospect Hill Alder Steven Winter has been working on the ordinance with activists from the Room for All Coalition affordable-housing advocacy group.

“So many of my constituents are having housing code issues,” Winter said.

The committee voted to pass the ordinance, including the amendments that Neal-Sanjurjo and Ramos set forth, on to the next step: a final vote at the full Board of Alders.

Golden: More Transparency For Tenants

Robin Golden, a New Haven Legal Assistance Association consultant working with the Room for All Coalition, approached the committee to testify before the vote. Golden advocated for measures that would make the licensing process more transparent to tenants.

She asked for the checklist that LCI uses for inspections to be publicly accessible online.

“It’s important for tenants to know what their homes should look like,” she said.

Golden also argued that landlords should be required to post their licensing certificates in a visible location, displaying the type of license — I, II, or III — that they received. Tenants and visitors could infer the severity of their landlords’ violations from these posted signs. Finally, she asked for a database of landlords and their license type to be accessible online.

Santana responded that Golden’s proposed changes ​“make sense,” but later brought up that the city’s corporation counsel would need to review those changes.

The committee voted to look into Golden’s suggestions as ​“an item of homework,” as Marchand put it: As the ordinance makes it way to the Board of Alders, Golden and LCI will work with the city’s lawyers to determine the language for Golden’s proposed amendments.

Winter moved to change the labels of the three types of licenses from ​“I,” ​“II,” and ​“III” to ​“A,” ​“B,” and ​“C.” He argued that those labels would ​“communicate a sense of quality to the public.” But the motion failed when none of the other committee members seconded it.