Oakwatch pushes city to monitor ‘disruptive’ properties

When students throw loud parties in Oakland, they rob their neighbors of precious sleep, according to North Oakland resident Hanson Kappelman.

“When there’s a disturbance at 1 or 2 a.m., it wakes people from a sound sleep,” Kappelman, co-chair of Oakland’s neighborhood group Oakwatch, said. “It disrupts their lives.”

In an effort to push back, Kappelman and other members of Oakwatch, a group focused on enforcing city codes in Oakland, monitor homes that are frequently disruptive — which denotes properties that residents have called police about to address complaints three or more times in one year.

At a monthly meeting Wednesday, the group added two more Oakland addresses to its running list of disruptive properties, one on Juliet Street and one at the intersection of Frazier and Dawson Streets.

A landlord and the city own the two new properties on the list. At the first, a home on Juliet Street, Pitt and city police, the Department of Permits, Licenses and Inspections  and the Liquor Control Board deemed the property disruptive because students who lived in the house regularly hosted small concerts for local bands there.

At the second, a public park at the intersection of Frazier and Dawson Streets, city police labeled the property disruptive because officers said they found syringes near it and said it had become “known for drug activity.” Labeling the park as disruptive means that residents who live near the park are concerned about it and that the police will monitor it more closely.

City ordinances currently say that if the police deem a specific property disruptive, the Pittsburgh public safety director can fine the homeowner or landlord. Police said at the meeting that the landlord of the Juliet Street house addressed the complaint by sending a letter to the tenants demanding they cease hosting the concerts. The city is scheduled to follow up with the two new properties later this month.

The fines currently stand at $100 per day if a landlord or homeowner neglects to bring the property up to city code — whether by repairing the property or notifying tenants of the violations. Complaints can range from alcohol-related disruptions, over occupancy, or to structural issues that violate city building codes.

If the city cites a landlord or homeowner for a disruptive property, they can appeal the citation within 15 days of the city’s notice and have a hearing with a disruptive property appeals board.

Five people serve on the board, which is made up city officials and property owners. A property owner can win against the city if they can prove that they didn’t own the property at the time of the citation, if they were not aware of the violations and can prove they couldn’t have done anything to fix the violation, or if they were aware of the violations and took vigorous action to fix the issue.

The PLI inspects disruptive properties, and if a property on the list does not receive any complaints for one year, the city removes it from the list.

Along with the new properties on the list, most of the discussion at Oakwatch’s public meeting focused on the group’s effort to put city officials in motion to address troublesome properties in Oakland.

In a joint effort, the Pittsburgh police, the Department of Public Safety — where the city’s disruptive properties coordinator works — and the PLI work to identify disruptive properties and hold owners accountable.

Julie Reiland, PLI’s government and public relations liaison, said the city ordinances allow police to help keep neighborhoods orderly. Reiland works to connect the different city officials who compile the disruptive property list.

“[The ordinances] give the police more teeth to hold property owners accountable,” Reiland said.

Oakland, a neighborhood comprised of students and permanent residents, currently has 11 total properties designated as disruptive, according to Oakwatch’s Property Progress Report.

But in the midst of Oakwatch’s push, which relies on cooperation with the police, officers said it’s not necessary to label every loud party as a disruptive property.

At the meeting, Kappelman asked city police why a fight that had spilled out into the street from a house party in February was not an incident that could count the house as a disruptive property.

According to Lt. Kevin Wilson, police didn’t tie the Feb. 7, incident to the house party because it had occurred out on the street and the resident of the house was not involved in the fight. Wilson said the resident of the house had asked the two people involved in the fight to leave the party one at a time when the conflict first started in order to break the two up.

He said police arrested the two people who had been fighting.

“It’s not that we’re trying to not attach properties to the list,” Wilson said at the meeting. “We have better ways to allocate our resources than going back to the same property again and again and again.”

Though not every loud party leads to a disruptive party designation, Kappelman said he has been pleased with the work of the police and said that pursuing troublesome properties is an effective way to keep the neighborhood quiet.

“Landlords don’t factor the fines into their business plans, so they’re more likely to go to the tenants [and address the complaints],” he said.