The two-man Board of Public Works and Safety met this morning, and it was a crisp, professional session.
Most readers are interested in an update on the 1018 E. Spring Street situation. Owner Ronald Niehoff’s request for a 60-day extension on his deadline to make necessary repairs and elevate the structure to the general vicinity of code compliance was rejected, and the board reports that he is incurring daily fines as a result.
However, at present only City Attorney Shane Gibson knows for sure the exact parameters of the fining and collection process.
The city’s ad hoc task force, including the acting building commissioner, has made a follow-up inspection and given Niehoff additional instructions with respect to his lawn driveway of gravel (with access via the street side curb), and presumably this is to be addressed separately from the previous list of violations.
In a related discussion, it was determined that in spite of an ordinance that places responsibility for rental property smoke alarm enforcement on the fire department, no procedure currently exists to achieve this, and the general consensus is that entry to perform such an inspection currently could not take place without the participation of the building commissioner.
There are two conclusions to be drawn from this and other meetings involving our elected and appointed governmental officials.
First, most of them are aware that the chronic dysfunction known widely as the New Albany Syndrome – the tolerance of baseline standards, the culture of non-enforcement, the decades of daily excuses for failure punctuated by periodic outbursts of outright venality – must be purged if the city is to so much as begin making progress in a rapidly changing world.
Second, without effective tools – enhanced legal resources, a city court, rental property inspections with genuine enforcement teeth -- with which to engage the multi-tentacled beast of chronic New Albany underachievement, such efforts are doomed to minimal success at most.
Does your city council person agree?
Or does an atmosphere of dysfunction provide the perfect breeding ground for the obstructionist populism practiced by those without a plan, like our Siamese Councilmen?
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4 comments:
The ordinance has to do with the landlord's obligation to check smoke detectors when tenants move out and others move in.
Admittedly, given turnover, this is something that wouldn't be easy to check each and every time someone moves.
However -- and this is my take -- if the landlord had to keep some sort of record as part of rental property inspection, there might be a better way to see to it being done.
I think everyone's on the same page here; certainly a good number of rental property owners already do as Shirley suggests, but remmember that the point of this is that there currently isn't a way to enforce it -- hence the notion of inspections.
As I noted to Bill T. today at the meeting, what I feel is important is that each time I attend such a session, I come away from it knowing that there's another ordinance that isn't enforced, can't be enforced, or won't be enforced.
Consider each instance of non-enforcement another brick in the wall, and each instance of enforcement as taking a brick away.
The goal? No wall.
Not at all, Steve.
It's because Chas has a new seat to Tony's right.
We miss you, big guy.
Reporting a deficiency to a landlord is no guarantee that the landlord will take care of the problem. And where would the tenant go for help?
Back in the early '80s I rented my first apartment in a large apartment complex which was at one time a very nice one. I was there at the beginning of the downward slide. The roof leaked, a big piece of drywall fell from the ceiling, when it rained the light fixtures filled up with water.
The landlord had no interest in fixing it. The lease was written in such a way that I did not have the option of withholding the rent and I didn't want to spend money on legal action so my only option was to wait out the lease and move.
I was talking to a woman Saturday who has spent the past year struggling to find decent rental property in New Albany. She had high hopes for a house that she had just agreed to rent but was telling me some of the problems she had encountered with slumlords (and she had no idea that I had any interest in this subject).
When she moved into her current house the landlord was in the process of making some repairs which once she moved in he never finished.
She was promised washer and dryer hookups in the basement but after doing a load of laundry she realized that there was no drain for the washer. The water just emptied out onto the basement floor.
After months of asking the landlord to take care of problems and finish repairs she was giving up and moving. Fortunately for her she did not have a lease but it was pretty obvious that she couldn't really afford the expense of moving.
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