Council discusses code violations for rentals

City Council is looking into addressing code violations that have not been addressed for a long time

During the communication and correspondence section of a recent meeting, Milford City Council was made aware of a problem facing a long-time resident and a rental property next door that had multiple code violations. According to Councilman Michael Stewart, the resident reached out to him and indicated she had gotten no assistance from code enforcement.

“A constituent reached out to me with some concerns of a property that is next door to her that used to be a rental. It is now going to be gifted to the owner’s daughter, so it will not be a rental anymore. But the concerns are the timing of how long it has it taken with the trash being outside, the grass wasn’t cut,” Councilman Stewart said. “She’s reached out to code enforcement. She said she has not heard back from code enforcement. I do have pictures and some emails and stuff that she had sent. I like to turn this into the city clerk, and maybe we can get copies so the council can see, and the mayor can see what she’s talking about. There’s like 10 jugs of motor oil, used motor oil, just sitting out there in the yard and stuff that wasn’t cleaned up for like, one month.”

Councilman Stewart continued, stating there was also an issue with a tree hanging on the constituent property.

“There’s a tree that is on the property that leans over into her property. That is a concern. I do not know if our arborist has checked it out, but she hired an arborist who said the tree is dead inside and it needs to come down,” Councilman Stewart said. “From what I understand, we had an arborist check it out and there are conflicting reports where the arborist for the City of Milford said the tree is not dead. There’s ivy around the base of it that needs to be cleaned up. I don’t know where to go with that one, but I would like to see some assistance for her, because there’s a lot of concerns that she has brought up there. I think are some good concerns about landlord tenant codes and what we are doing with this.”

Mayor Todd Culotta stated that he understood the city manager had been in contact with the property owner and Councilman Stewart confirmed that to be true, stating he appreciated Mark Whitfield reaching out to the constituent, but felt that there should have been some guidance given regarding whether the tree could be cut back to the property line. Mayor Culotta confirmed that once the tree crossed the property line, the property owner had the right to cut it back to the property line.

“I just wanted to piggyback Mr. Stewart. She did reach out to me as well. I just wanted to touch on a little bit of the stuff. And we don’t want to miss anything, because I know she’ll be listening, and we wanted to voice her opinion, so this will be addressing her concerns. The things that she’s looking to see. Maybe something gets done,” Councilwoman Nirmala Samaroo said. “It is the two rotten trees that she’s talking about, and then some type of changes moving forward with rental property agreements and holding them accountable for both landlords and tenants. There was some stuff about disposal of motor oil and rusted abandoned oil tank and trash and debris brought up, but those were addressed today so and thank you Mark for communicating with her and getting some of those stuff done.”

Councilwoman Samaroo continued.

“And two things I just had. And I’ll finish up with the landlord, she’s just concerned that this is happening, and the landlord’s renewal of license that she doesn’t want it to happen to other residents as well. So that’s a big concern,” Councilwoman Samaroo said. “And then another concern was bugs, roaches and stuff, getting over to her place, and she wants to probably see some type of treatment in place, so it doesn’t happen to the other neighbors as well as her.”

Whitfield suggested that the matter be turned over to the code committee as there were suggestions regarding rental housing permits and possible changes to code. He felt looking at a point system that would avoid reoccurrence of violations, not just on this rental property, but others, and that may hold both landlords and tenants more responsible.

“There are a number of issues that were brought up that I am working with Rob [Pierce, City Planner] and his team with regard to enforcement. I understand the motor oil was removed today,” Whitfield said. “There’s still an issue of a tree for that, and then it was a request with regard to assisting removal of items. Again, we can work with Public Works, but again, there’s typically a charge, but we’re more than happy to go out and remove items, but we got to treat all property owners the same in terms of that removal.”

Councilwoman Katrina Wilson stated that she, too, had heard from the constituent.

“This has been going on for a very, very long time. So, whatever we can do as the city to assist this property owner that’s been there for 20 years, whatever we can do to assist her. I would hope that you and the planning, the code enforcers, would try to do it’s been an uphill battle for numerous years, and she’s been a very loyal person to the City of Milford,” Councilwoman Wilson said. “She actually used to work for Milford Chronicle, so she covered us for years in all of our activities that we’ve done here for the City of Milford, and she’s feeling very overwhelmed and not having timely responses from the department that has pretty much upset her. And I just wanted to let her know that we, as a council and as a city, that we’re going to try to do our very best to assist her and her family, as we do for everyone. But because it’s been so long, we want to, we want to resolve as much of it as possible, as quickly as possible.”

Councilman Jason James expressed concerns that this had gone on for so long.

“I think this whole council, not just myself, we’re solutions oriented, but I’m concerned to hear this has been going a long time, and we this is a rental property, and we had rental inspections. I’ve lobbied aggressively for more frequent rental inspection. Lobbied for additional code enforcement. We did get that,” Councilman James said. “But I guess Mark and Mayor, I guess my ask is that whoever Code Enforcement Committee is, or whoever that body is, could you guys reach out to them or corral them and say, have a meeting sooner rather than later, and if there’s low hanging fruit to get knocked out, and there’s other things that can be recommended to code enforcement for changes, we should do that sooner than later.”

Mayor Culotta and Whitfield agreed that this matter needed to be addressed sooner rather than later.

“Hearing the point system situation, I can’t think of anything that would be more efficient in leveling the playing field and having everybody accountable to the same rules, and in being able to remove some of the worst players that do not maintain their properties until the city is involved,” Councilwoman Nadia Zychal said. “If we can get some of these repeat violators off of our roles by not rewarding them with rental licenses, which are a privilege, they’re a privilege, not a right, If they don’t abide by the basic rules that everybody else plays by, they are not entitled to a renewed rental license. So yeah, the sooner that we can cobble together something that gets this done, I think the better,”

City Solicitor David Rutt informed council they were getting off the agenda and suggested that this be put on a future agenda for discussion. Mayor Culotta stated that this was more an education for new council members to let them know how the city can legally step in and enforce violations.