“Do we really want to throw taxpayers in jail?” asked James Ewell. “Could somebody on the Town Board answer that? That’s what this law says…This is a very broad law, and I bet you could find a code violation in every house in the town of Saugerties. So either it’s selective enforcement, or … I don’t know how else you would put it.”
Provisions banning equipment that is seldom used, cars that may be kept for parts, leftover building materials that some contractors keep on their sites, all create a whole class of lawbreakers who are engaging in activities that should not be the business of the town, Ewell said. “Inadequately maintained could mean you don’t mow your lawn.” (If he lived in the village, that would be against the law.)
Ewell warned that the town could face lawsuits if a property owner could show it acted without proper safeguards. “We are still paying one (legal judgment) to Bonded Concrete,” he noted, a reference to a suit that resulted from a former building inspector’s decision, backed by the then Town Board, to stop work on the company’s plant on Kings Highway.
Gaetana Ciarlante said the law states that it applies to a building that is, or may become, dangerous, and “any building may become dangerous.”
The law’s intent
Weeks said one protection of homeowners’ rights is that the building inspector’s authority stops at the front door. He does not have the right to inspect what is inside the building. As for knowing the complainant’s identity, “99.9 percent of the time, it’s your neighbor.”
Such terms as “unsafe structures,” “unfit structures for human occupancy” and so on are all defined in the property maintenance code of New York State, he said. “Anybody who wants to read it is more than welcome to stop by my office and I’ll give them a copy; they can read it or make copies, and it is also available on the Department of State’s web site.”
The proposed law is really aimed at absentee landlords, Weeks said. “Several homes in Saugerties are going through foreclosure, and I would be glad to take anybody in this audience out and show these homes to you. These foreclosures are being done by big chain banks located in Illinois, where our property maintenance law – we have no way of enforcing it. By passing this law here, if a building is left vacant or unfit for human occupancy as defined in the property maintenance law, we will then be able to go there, board them up and clean them up.”
While the town always has the option of taking a violator to court, “the last place we want to go is court,” Weeks said, citing the expense and time required. His department generally acts on complaints it receives; “we don’t go around picking on people.”
“If someone doesn’t like their neighbor, or the way you look, you could have petty complaints coming up,” commented one audience member among many who attempted to answer Weeks en masse.
While many in the audience acknowledged the need to control unsightly or dangerous property, all said the law, as written, is too loosely-worded and could be abused.
Councilman Jimmy Bruno said he has similar questions as some members of the audience. Bruno acknowledged that the law could be improved, and said the board would go over it and change it.
“Every month we get two or three residents with a concern about a property that may have been in a fire and was never put back together, or a next-door property that’s in foreclosure and the grass hasn’t been cut in a year, or have issues with snakes or rodents,” said Councilman Fred Costello. “These aren’t in rural areas; they are in densely populated neighborhoods. As a homeowner and as a resident we feel sympathetic to that situation – these are not something I want to live next to.”
The agenda allowed half an hour for comments; the discussion ran nearly twice that long.
George Redder, an attorney for the town, acknowledged that sections of the law were adopted from the laws in other towns. The law is a draft, and was meant to be circulated and discussed, he said. He said that where there was a problem of determining the status of a property, the town would have a licensed engineer perform an inspection. “The town doesn’t want to get sued,” he said.
Town officials said another version of the law will be drafted and another public hearing will be held.
