For decades the City of Syracuse has had a problem with absentee landlords but now there's a new housing Sheriff in town.
Absentee landlords who neglect their properties creating threats to health and safety as well as ruining neighborhoods, often think they can ignore citations and court orders because they either live so far away or they can hide their identities behind limited liability corporations.
But Assistant Corporation Counsel Shannon O'Connor is serving them with citations, threatening to take over their properties and tapping into their personal wealth. She's tracking down these property owners as far away as Ireland and Alaska "The gentleman in Alaska was just shocked, "really you want me to be in court in a month for a housing code violation?" and our response was absolutely, you own the property here and if you don't come we're going to get a default judgement and enforce it."
When she took over enforcing housing laws, O'Connor realized that code enforcement was piecemeal. She set about a coordinated approach bringing together inspectors with police and fire officials, finding patterns, issuing arrest warrants and using the law to the city's advantage. "Its a cultural change when you think about it. Because every department is going to be working toward one goal."
O'Connor is building up an impressive track record which she presented to members of the Syracuse Common Council Wednesday. From January through April, her office processed more than 16-thousand old and new cases. She said cases that took 3 to 4 years to resolve are now averaging 2 to 3 months.
But two neighborhood groups have opposite opinions about O'Connor's success at cracking down on absentee landlords. Rich Puchalski of Syracuse United Neighbors asked, "Show me the before and after pictures you know,. you can tell me how many cases you bring into court...what are the results?"
But Babette Baker of Tomorrow's Neighborhoods Today praised O'Connor's crackdown. "One house can really affect 21 houses around it. So we are really excited about what she is doing."
O'Connor says eventually her crackdown will result in a noticeable difference in neighborhoods and the quality of life in Syracuse.
