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Much has been reported about how difficult it is to enforce housing codes to deal with everything from junk and debris all over a property to rotting porches and roofs.
As the Jamestown Housing Court Judge until December 31, 2021, I can confirm there are many obstacles to effective housing code enforcement, but there are also some creative ways to obtain some obedience to the law.
Because something is difficult to enforce is not an excuse to not even try.
The biggest challenge to achieving a cleanup of an "income" property covered by junk and debris, is ownership by a corporation or a limited liability company (LLC), especially if they are out-of-state legal entities.
Unlike an individual owner of a troubled property, with a corporation or a LLC there is no person to summon in front of the judge.
In my earliest time as the Housing Court Judge, it was surprising and disappointing how many corporate and LLC owners of "income" property simply ignored their Housing Court summons into City Court. Unlike with a human being, the judge cannot issue a warrant to have the police bring a corporation or LLC into court.
Even more frustrating was having an LLC not show up in Housing Court but sometimes the same day, the LLC sent in a lawyer for the LLC to get the court to evict a tenant from another "income" property owned by that same LLC..
My research showed that a City Court judge could sign a warrant for the eviction of the tenant of the LLC but hold onto it until and unless the LLC appeared in court on its outstanding Housing Court violations for any property the LLC owns.
There were those in the LLC landlord community and their attorneys who were caught by surprise by this technique.
An LLC that had almost always ignored the Housing Court, suddenly started appearing in court and began remedying their Housing Code violations. As soon as the LLC was in compliance with the law, the court released their warrants for evicting the tenants of the LLC.
Jamestown Housing Court was making progress in getting LLCs to maintain their "income" properties until March 16, 2020, when the pandemic literally shut down Housing Court.
The City Court Judge in Buffalo, who had the authority to supervise all city courts in Western New York prohibited Jamestown City Housing Court from reopening in 2020 and into 2021.
The Housing Court once again finally began hearing housing code violation cases in the summer of 2021.
Another technique city or town housing code enforcement officials can use is to find out who the tenants are and summon them into court as well as the LLC owner. Utility accounts will often be an easy way to identify the tenants.
When the problem is junk, debris, garbage, car tires or junk cars on the "income" property, it is highly unlikely the LLC created that deplorable mess. Odds are great that the tenants are responsible for the mess and the court should order the tenants to clean it up. If a tenant ignores a court order, the court may issue a warrant for the tenant's arrest. Unlike an LLC, the court is able to have the police bring the tenant into court. The tenant will then normally comply with the order of the court and clean up the property.
Another Housing Court challenge is dealing with "income" properties that an LLC bought, for example, from the county tax foreclosure sale for as little as $2,000 or $3,000, with no binding obligation to bring these "junk" properties into any kind of property code compliance. Most of these tax foreclosed properties should be demolished, not left standing as a true blight on the community.
As a practical matter, an LLC that bought a two- or three-family structure for $2,000 or $3,000 is likely to ignore a court order to paint the building, replace the roof, replace a porch or pay to have plumbing or electrical services brought up to code when those investments might be $10,000 or $20,000, or more. The LLC can stop paying the property taxes on the decrepit property and the county will eventually have the "junk" property put back in a county tax foreclosure auction.
The very real problem of low property values for a significant portion of Chautauqua County's housing units cannot be remedied by any court. The law of supply and demand will not go away. The county's population declined by 7,000 people from 2010 to 2020 and the city of Jamestown's population also declined. There are thousands of fewer people in 2023 to own or rent essentially the same number of housing units as in 2010.
The condition of housing in Chautauqua County will ultimately not see significant improvement until the population of the county stops declining and, once again, begins growing, as our neighbor Erie County did from 2010 to 2020.
Fred Larson is a retired Jamestown City Court judge.