In September 2005, Democratic mayoral candidate Rick Gray opened his campaign office and declared that slumlords "will rue the day that I am elected mayor."
He is about to fulfill that vow.
Last week the mayor unveiled the findings and recommendations of his Task Force on Rental Housing. The task force was formed in April and was "charged with assessing policies and procedures related to rental housing and property maintenance in the City of Lancaster."
Its proposals cover a wide territory, from establishing a housing court to try code offenders; not allowing landlords with liens against rental units to buy more properties at sheriff's or redevelopment sales; and revoking licenses of landlords who won't evict tenants who cause police to be called to the property four times in one year.
As the task force began its work, Gray found two startling things.
The first was that the city did not have a complete inventory of the city's housing stock and had no idea how many rental properties existed.
Gray's chief of staff, Pat Brogan, said, "Without a housing inventory, how do you enforce an ordinance?"
It was that ordinance which led to Gray's second revelation.
He assumed landlords who were causing problems were enabled by a toothless ordinance and that his administration would have to give it more bite. That wasn't the case. Many of the things he felt would be necessary — a licensing and permit system for landlords, for example — already existed. But they weren't being enforced.
In an interview last week, Gray leaned back from his desk to illustrate his frustration with the tendency for governments to believe the passage of legislation will cure all ills.
"Too often, they'll say, 'We have a drug problem. Let's pass a law making drugs illegal.' "
He circled his arms in mock satisfaction. "There, the problem's solved. Or, 'We have a speeding problem, so we'll pass a speed limit law. Now the problem's solved.' "
His message is clear: An unenforced law is a useless law.
The idea of totally rewriting the city code is no longer being considered.
Rather, Gray says, "I think it's more important to actually enforce the ordinance we have while looking at some modifications" of it.
The task force recommendations address those issues early.
The first recommendation calls for rental properties to be inspected and exterminated prior to occupancy "as required by ordinance."
The second recommendation calls for the city to develop a "comprehensive and current inventory of rental units within the city."
The fifth recommendation advises using rental licenses and permits as practical tools to force compliance. It says, "Rental licenses and/or permits should be revoked from problem owners who fail to respond to multiple citations for property code violations."
The sixth recommendation calls for the city to "work with Lancaster County to enforce Pennsylvania law that prohibits the purchase of additional properties through a sheriff's sale by a buyer whose rental license has been revoked."
Another recommendation: "Work with the President Judge to establish a 'Housing Court' to expedite the disposition of cases involving violations of the Property Maintenance Code, Nuisance Code, and other violations affecting the quality of life in our neighborhoods. The same District Judge should hear these cases at least once each week in order to track non-responsive and repeat offenders."
The Housing Court concept appeals to Gray.
Currently, hearings take place before magisterial district judges, who preside over the district in which the property is located. Different judges may hear different cases involving the same landlord. Staff work is often duplicated in separate offices.
"I'm going to ask President Judge [Louis] Farina to give us a Friday morning once a week." Gray explains. "The city will even provide the clerk."
Further, the same district judge would preside over the court every week to provide both stability and consistency.
But Gray realizes enforcement alone does not guarantee success. The city must be willing to adapt and change its procedures if the current ones are not working.
Again Gray offers a speeding analogy.
"If someone says speeding is a problem, you can try different things," he says. "Traffic calming measures, angled parking, enforcement. Then you measure the things you have control over and see if you're solving the problem.
"You ask, 'Has it made a difference?' If not, then try something else."
Gray is also practical in his understanding of landlord and tenant issues.
"Most landlords are good landlords," he allows. "How many guys have one, two, three pieces of property and manage them well? Most of them want to comply, most of them want to work with us.
"The majority of people don't need to be told they have to keep their place in decent condition."
Similarly, he acknowledges, "The majority of tenants are good tenants. I've had people living next door to me for years. They're not renters, they're neighbors.
"The problem is with transient tenants who never buy into the neighborhood. They don't have to be neighborly, they never get to know their neighbors."
Gray says his main focus is on situations where "good tenants get stuck with bad landlords and bad tenants get stuck with good landlords. That's what we're trying to address."
The recommendations reflect that view.
They call for an increase in code violation fines, as well as a coordination of code and law enforcement efforts.
The recommendation is that "each month, the Bureau of Police identifies the top 'problem properties' based upon the number of times police are called to a particular address" and then sharing that information with housing inspectors.
In conjunction with that, that task force recommends that "license revocation must be considered for property owners who fail to evict tenants whose behavior results in more than four police response incidents in one year."
Members of the task force:
Tom Funk, John Graupera, Tim Gregg, Gordon Kautz, James Kearney, Carol Parrish McCoy, the Rev. Susan Minasian, James Orgass, Randy Patterson, Walt Siderio, Darlene M. Taylor, Anne Marie Theurer and Susan Warchola.
Jim Kearney brought 32 years of experience as a legal aid lawyer in Lancaster as a member of the task force. Prior to being named development director of MidPenn Legal Services three years ago, he dealt with many tenant/landlord issues in the city and believes, "you could hang a medal on 95 percent of the landlords in town." But the other 5 percent "are chewing up an enormous amount of time and effort.
"It's not just how they affect individual tenant lives, but they drain the entire city in so many ways, " he says. "The amount of city staff time, of attorneys' time (spent on the few problem landlords) is enormous."
And it's not just a drain on human resources.
"You look around the city, and if there are lousy places on a block, everything starts to deteriorate," he says.
Kearney believes increasing the number of city housing inspectors is a priority.
"If there are only four police officers in a town, and people know it, someone will take advantage of that situation," he comments. "We expect these (eight) code officers to cover the whole city. Then there's the number of duties we expect the code officers to do. We think they do one thing, but they have a lot of other duties as well.
"I'd really like to see more funding for inspectors so we can get more of them and give them a crack at the problem."
The complete report and documents related to their work can be found at
LancasterOnline.com. Also available are examples of initiatives undertaken by other cities in the region to deal with rental-property related issues, as well as a sample "property inspection checklist" that would be used by city inspectors.
Gray's timeline calls for a review of the report by city council and the city solicitor.
"I want to hear from city council and learn what their priorities are," Gray offers. A review by the city solicitor is necessary to determine if the recommended ordinance modifications and alterations to the fine structure can be done.
However, "There are a lot of administrative things in there that I don't see why they can't be done right now," he said.
Chip Smedley is a staff writer for the Sunday News. You can e-mail him at csmedley@lnpnews.com.
