Syracuse’s Common Council on Wednesday passed an amendment to the city’s rental registry that will require certain landlords, including some in the University Hill neighborhood, to allow interior inspections.

Under the amendment, landlords of homes with one or two families must submit to both exterior and interior inspections by the code department every three years to be compliant with the rental registry, a list of one- and two-family homes that landlords are required to be on. Previously, the rental registry only required exterior inspections every two years.

While the city’s code enforcement department currently performs periodic interior inspections of buildings with three or more families, there were no periodic interior inspections of one- and two-family homes until the passage of the amendment.

Several companies that rent to Syracuse University students own properties that are classified as one- or two-family residences, meaning these properties will be under the scope of the amendment, which goes into effect on July 1.

Ken Towsley, director of the city’s code enforcement department, has said that only one-third of one- and two-family homes are on the registry, which has no enforcement mechanism. The amendment removes a list of compliant landlords that allowed the city to keep track of how many landlords were on the registry.    

Councilor-at-large Khalid Bey proposed the amendment at a Jan. 31 meeting of the council. At that meeting, Bey said the change would help the city crackdown on landlords who are “serially negligent.” A few councilors were confused about the details of the amendment and how it would differ from what the code enforcement department currently does.

Towsley said at previous meetings that his department would still need to request a warrant from a judge if a landlord refuses to allow an interior inspection. He has also said that the code enforcement department would re-allocate its resources to fulfill the new requirements.

The vote on the amendment was repeatedly delayed as the administration of Mayor Ben Walsh was reallocating resources in the code department.  

Councilor-at-large Timothy Rudd voted against the amendment, as did Councilor Joseph Carni, of the 1st district, and Councilor Chad Ryan, of the 2nd district.

“I think this law is an illusion of action. I don’t think anything will happen,” said Rudd after Wednesday’s meeting. 

Rudd said the city should use its forthcoming Bureau of Administrative Adjudication to financially penalize landlords who do not enroll on the rental registry.

The New York State Assembly passed a bill allowing Syracuse to create the bureau in June 2017. The bureau, which former Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner advocated for, would issue fines for code violations in the way that the current parking violations bureau issues tickets.  

Rudd said he believes if the code department focuses on enforcing the new requirements, the city will be unable to fully implement the bureau.

“You have to create financial incentives and penalties for slumlords to repair their properties,” Rudd said. “Until we cut off the revenue from those property owners, there’s no way anything will change.”

Published on March 26, 2018 at 8:21 pm

Contact Casey: casey@dailyorange.com | @caseydarnell_