FULTON – At last night’s Common Council meeting, September 15, a Fulton resident concerned with the current process for handling bad neighbors and poorly kept rental properties spoke her disapproval of the council’s recent decision to not triple rental permits.
Karen Perwitz first came to the council during the August 4 meeting and told her story of dealing with her ‘horrific’ neighbors and their garbage surrounding the rental property. She asked for a nuisance abatement law or another way to hold the landlords accountable for problem tenants.
“We don’t have fines, we don’t have penalties, we don’t have nuisance abatement laws. We have nothing,” Perwitz said. “I talked to the head of the codes department in the City of Oswego. Their policy over there is strong and it is severe, and that is exactly what we need for [Fulton.]”
She said she thinks it would be beneficial for Fulton’s codes department to meet with Oswego’s and adopt their policies. Without any changes made to the city’s laws in regards to nuisance neighbors and unkept rental properties, she is considering putting her house of 25 years up for sale and leaving Fulton.
“I am a homeowner and I pay taxes,” Perwitz said. “I don’t deserve to live like this… I am not going to continue living this way and it is up to this council to start getting some stuff in place and start getting it done now, not six months from now. It’s only going to continue to get worse.”
Last month, the council considered raising the costs of rental permits from $50 to $150 each and changing the permit life from five years to three, but after several Fulton landlords spoke in opposition to the change during a public hearing August 18, the council decided to drop it and not vote on it during a following Common Council meeting.
Since last month’s meeting, Perwitz said the garbage around the property has not improved and now has skunks and possums drawn in by the trash on the ground. She said the mayor spoke with the landlord last week but nothing has been done.
She said she believes it was a wrong decision to drop the proposed change to the rental permits because several other municipalities have that same cost.
“Raising the rental permits would have only brought us in line with other municipalities,” Perwitz said. “Right now, we’re a laughing stock because our fees are so low that anybody in the world can come in here, buy a property, turn it into a rental property and have the same issues that I’m living with now. It’s completely and utterly unacceptable.”
First Ward Councilor Tom Kenyon stood by the council’s decision because he did not want to make a law that would ‘go after’ all landlords in the city, but would rather find a way to hold absentee landlords accountable.
“Why should I go after a landlord that keeps his property up? So that’s why I voted the way I did,” Kenyon said.
Mayor Deana Michaels said the issue is not the employees in the codes department, but rather the laws and that she wishes to fix those laws.
“We have a problem with our code enforcement – not the people. The people understand the job needs to get done. The laws on the book, the legislation – that’s the problem,” Michaels said. “I vow to this council that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to fix the laws that are working against us. I get it. We haven’t made as much progress as we wanted to this year… but that doesn’t mean that we can’t make progress now moving forward.”
She and other city officials are going around all wards in the city this week to identify problem areas, such as dilapidated properties, and come up with a solution. Second Ward Councilor Douglas Chapman said it was his ward’s turn that day and out of his top six issues, two were able to be solved at that time.
The council passed all items on the agenda, which can be found here.
The next regularly scheduled Common Council meeting will be held Tuesday, October 6 at 7 p.m. in the Fulton Municipal Building.
Discover more from Oswego County Today
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The increased rental fees should be considered the cost of doing business as a Landlord. The additional fees collected could go a long way towards expense coverage such as enforcement, costs of labor etc. The increased fee should in no way be considered as a penalty or fine Mr. Kenyon. Your thinking on that is incorrect. It should be viewed as a revenue generation tool to cover the City’s costs. The imposition of that increased fee is across the board to those property owners that keep their properties and tenants in order as well as for those that do not. As we all are aware, there are plenty that don’t ! Forward thinking Mr. Kenyon and the rest of the Council. Get with the times. Landlord and tenant accountability in the city are long overdue. For those of us that live adjacent and next door to these properties…why not give me a tax credit equal to the amount of depreciating value of our real estate? Let your heart bleed for the majority owned, single family tax payers and not the “poor” landlords – absentee or not. There should also be a “tenant” registration requirement. The city should know with the permitting process EVERYONE who resides in a rental property. Mr. Kenyon? Your info is publicly available as is mine – but not the tenant next door who’s apartment seems like a revolving door of occupancy? Not good. These concerns are reverberating across the city. Time to wake up Fulton government.