The Chautauqua County Health Department’s Public Health Director and Environmental Health Director were both in attendance at Monday’s City Council work session in Jamestown to discuss new rules and regulations regarding lead in homes.

Lacey Keefer Wilson, county public health director, said there are new state rules and regulations regarding lead in homes and how to resolve that issue. The new regulations are the impetus behind a state requirement that will require inspections of rental properties statewide. City Council members have been discussing a city rental inspection ordinance that would work in concert with the state regulations, though the city rental inspection ordinance isn’t expected to be ready until later in the spring.

Lead can cause major health problems for two age groups.

“We talk about it primarily impacting the health outcomes for children,” Wilson said. “But, I cannot go without saying that it is also an issue for those over the age of 60 as well that we see with health outcomes that can be impacted by exposure to lead. This is a specific concern for an area of the county like ours where almost a third of the population is over the age of 60.”

The state is requiring the creation of a Lead Rental Registry. Wilson said the heart of the issue is to get information out early, and it is not meant to hurt any local property owners in the 14701 area code.

“It’s actually meant to really support local property owners,” Wilson said. “There’s a lot of funding opportunities and things that will flow down through to us. But, this is more so to rein in what we informally talk about as predatory property ownership.”

Predatory property ownership is something that Wilson said is seen in small town America where properties might not be owned by someone local or even in the country, and what money they get out of it goes back to wherever they live. The new regulations are meant to double down both on this and improve the health outcomes for the age groups of concern.

Jessica Wuerstle, county environmental health director, said at the moment the approaches to lead in homes have been reactive, such as when they learn of a child being exposed or a home having a problem. The Lead Rental Registry is meant to be a preventive approach.

“The idea is that every structure in the 14701 zip code that has two or more rental units will be subject to this inspection process on a three year cycle,” Wuerstle said. “The statistics that we’ve gotten from New York state suggest approximately 5,062 apartments with rental units. We are just sort of ramping up. The state’s just rolling out what kind of funding they will be able to support us with, what kind of software platform this is going to look like.”

Conceptually, Wuerstle said the software platform should have multiple users with the ability for rental owners to register their own properties. It will be open to the Health Department and potentially code enforcement officers, and each different level of access will be able to see a different part of the registry.

“So the idea is that the landlords can use this tool to enter their data, enter their inspection records, and then we are able to see that, follow up and then hopefully the platform will recreate the paperwork that also comes with all of these things, so we can see the letters and notifications as needed,” Wuerstle said.

She added that the state approached this with a few options of implementation and that they anticipate the county health department having a hand in these inspections. The health department is also responsible if something is found in the rental, and each place will receive some sort of lead safe certificate afterwards. This is not only something happening in the 14701 zip code, but across the state. Wuerstle said this is the main reason the health department expects to be in charge of the inspections and to not have any third party inspectors available, as they will probably “be sucked up by the Buffalo area.” The current timeline expects inspections to begin in fall 2025.