Leaders in the city of Fresno are now promising tougher enforcement of city codes and the potential criminal prosecution of slum lords. The move is in response to the highly publicized problems at the Summerset Village Apartments.
Crews are still repairing the gas lines at the complex, where as many as 1,800 people lived in just 200 units.
In response, City Manager Bruce Rudd says they are hiring more inspectors, creating a code enforcement ‘strike team’, and potentially criminally prosecute landlords who refuse to fix problems with their buildings.
“My message. The mayor’s message. And the council members message to those property owners who have allowed your properties to deteriorate: consider yourself on notice,” Rudd said.
The city also plans to build a database of complexes with the most complaints and police and fire calls as well as getting inspection warrants to do interior inspections over the objections of land lords. The city’s attorney says the warrants are not like a criminal search warrant and are a resource available to inspectors right now
However, that might also mean bringing Fresno PD with inspectors because run down apartments sometimes have illegal activity that landlords are overlooking.
“There have been situations in the past where we have needed a PD to escort or join code enforcement at the site because of issues we have believed are occurring at the location,” Rudd said.
Lastly, the city is setting aside $30,000 to help relocate tenants from slum conditions.
The announcement does little to comfort Sergio Cortes with the advocacy group “No More Slumlords” who says previous promises have been empty.
“When we go out and canvas, tenants tell us that they don’t trust the city any more. They don’t call code enforcement because they don’t see any result,” Cortes said.
Cortes said that too often the city has been willing to give extensions to landlords and otherwise fail to hold landlords to city code violations.
The enforcement ‘strike team’ will likely not be in place until mid-January.
