Mayor’s bill to clean up city’s properties

Turn the music down, mow the lawn and take out the trash – this is the message being sent to… Turn the music down, mow the lawn and take out the trash – this is the message being sent to landlords, tenants and property owners in Pittsburgh by mayor Luke Ravenstahl.

Ravenstahl recently introduced legislation that would hold property owners responsible for the costs of police and emergency responses to their properties. While the primary purpose of the ordinance is to reduce the number of vacant and blighted buildings being used as havens for criminal activity, it also targets homeowners and tenants who have violated any number of state or city laws and ordinances.

The Disruptive Property Ordinance states that “properties that generate repeated calls for public safety service because of activities that are violations of the law place an undue and inappropriate financial burden on the taxpayers and the city, and an undue burden on the city’s public safety resources.”

The ordinance continues by stating that it is designed to stop “repeated activities [that] interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life and property for the neighbors … and that lead to the deterioration of neighborhoods.”

This would include any activities ranging from public drunkenness and noise violations to curfew violations of minors and “any violation related to the maintenance of property free from noxious weeds, excessively high grass and refuse.”

To accomplish this goal, the proposal uses the monitoring of 911 calls to count how many police or emergency responses there are to a single property. When a property is the subject of three public safety responses in a 60-day period, the director of Public Safety can designate that property as disruptive.

For a six-month period after a property has been declared disruptive, the costs of any future police or emergency responses will be billed to the landlord or property owner. The costs would be assessed at an hourly rate and would include the wages and benefits for public safety employees and administrative costs, in addition to the expenses of vehicle maintenance and use.

Gabriel Mazefsky, Ravenstahl’s policy manager, said that the proposed ordinance is “much like a security deposit.”

“This really benefits the student who’s trying to achieve,” he said, in reference to the impact the ordinance would have on a college neighborhood like Oakland.

In addition to paying the costs of emergency responses, Mazefsky noted that criminal charges could be filed against the owners of disruptive properties as well. If public safety officers respond to a property three or more times within a year of the property being declared disruptive, then “a person could be deemed a public nuisance and have misdemeanor charges pressed against them,” Mazefsky said.

“It’s certainly not a new idea.”

A proposal similar to the current Disruptive Property Ordinance, known as the Ricciardi Bill, was passed by the city council in 2005, but was never enforced due to financial and legal reasons.

Mazefsky also noted that Cleveland has had a policy similar to Ravenstahl’s proposal in place for over a year, during which 130 properties were declared to be nuisances. A number of cases have since resulted in criminal charges.

Property owners who feel they have been wrongly charged with being disruptive can appeal to a Disruptive Property Appeals Board, which would consist of five members appointed by the mayor.

Despite the appeals process, the proposal still faces legal problems. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the American Civil Liberties Union has threatened a lawsuit against the city if the ordinance is implemented, claiming that it violates due process.

“I’m really hopeful that we’ll get them to be in a supportive position,” Mazefsky said.

He added that the ACLU’s concerns are “a serious matter,” but believes that once the civil liberties group receives more information about the proposal they will remove their objections.

The ACLU could not be reached for comment.

Councilman William Peduto, who represents Oakland, also supports legislation that holds property owners responsible for disruptive activities. However, he believes that Ravenstahl’s proposal inadvertently targets responsible landlords.

“We have a lot of terrible slumlords in the city,” Dan Gilman, spokesperson for Peduto, said. “It’s not fair to hold a landlord who has a five-tenant complex to the same level as someone who has a 300-tenant complex.”

Gilman also argued that other predominantly “college towns” – such as Morgantown, W. Va., State College and parts of Philadelphia – also have similar laws. However, he does recognize the legal problems that have arisen with the proposed ordinance.

“There’s no due process,” he said. “It’s not three arrests and you’re out, it’s three calls [to 911] and you’re out.”

Gilman also pointed out that problems could result from abuses to the system.

“Some people might report their neighbors simply because they don’t like them,” he said. “There’s no doubt that this would affect college neighborhoods.”

According to Gilman, Peduto supports neighborhood inspections rather than city-wide inspections to reduce the cost. The Oakland Housing Inspection Zone, which was introduced by Peduto, targeted only properties in Oakland for building code violations and other disturbances.