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Proposed City Ordinances Should Target Bad Landlords and Bad Tenants | News, Sports, Jobs

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No one should be happy with the state of some houses in Jamestown.

At a time when home values ​​have skyrocketed in the city, there are still homes whose values ​​weigh on the rest of the neighborhood. Everyone knows that some owners are nowhere to be found when it comes time to make a repair or fix a problem. Everyone knows that there are landlords who don’t care what happens to their property as long as they get their rent check.

There are thousands of townspeople who want to see these landlords go out of business for good. And we agree. The city should make it so hard for a bad owner to stay in business that they disappear.

But it takes two to dance on the pile of garbage on the lawn. It’s unfair to put the blame entirely on landlords, as some landlords can’t keep up with maintenance because tenants abuse properties like a cheap rental car. Jamestown has long had a problem with a poor renter population and a poor homeowner population.

It is difficult to argue that a Rent Inspection Ordinance and a Public Nuisance Ordinance are not necessary. The city needs to have a way to address the neighborhood issues — including the waste of police resources — that some properties create. We hope, however, that the orders work both ways. Why should a landlord be solely responsible for a tenant’s behavior? Why should a landlord lose their property if they are fulfilling their part of the tenant-landlord contract by providing safe, code-compliant housing?

New York State has made it impossible for landlords during the COVID-19 pandemic. Landlords couldn’t evict tenants, had trouble applying for housing assistance without tenants’ cooperation, and still had to pay their taxes and expenses even though they weren’t getting rent.

City ordinances are consistent with state thinking regarding the tenant-landlord relationship by placing the fault on landlords – even though the landlord in some situations is not at fault or existing state regulations make eviction of poor tenants almost impossible.

The city council and the development department are right to impose stricter ordinances. Bad owners should be held accountable. The same goes for bad tenants.



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