VICTOR SCHMITT-BUSH
Assistant News Editor
Possible infringement of privacy is making both landlords and tenants wary of a Fredonia Village Board proposal to change the rental housing codes, but village attorney Dan Gard is fighting back. He believes that this is just misinformation and fear mongering spread by a small percentage of landlords who do not want to be held accountable for stricter housing standards.
“There is a very vocal minority of landlords who have gone above and beyond to try to create hysteria over this law,” he said.
As far as private information goes with this new law, the registry of both landlords and tenants will be required. That means that the landlord must file their name, address and phone number with the Code Enforcement Office in Fredonia, but for tenants, it’s much less.
“The only information that is required of tenants is their name and date of birth,” said Gard. “When you’re weighing privacy concerns versus laws, the balancing act is, ‘Is there a compelling government interest?’ In this case, there is.”
Gard indicated that on several occasions, the village has had to suss out unregistered properties that were in terrible condition.
“We found out even during this process, that there is one landlord in town that has four unregistered rental properties,” he said. “Those are the people that we are targeting with this law. You can’t tell me that with a landlord who fails to register, who believes that he should accept rents for a condemned building, that they have any reasonable expectation that these laws shouldn’t be enforced against them.”
Village trustee Michael Barris opposes this sentiment, however. He said in the Observer that there could be some serious implications that the Fredonia government is overstepping its boundaries.
“I ask that we have some deep thought on this issue,” said Barris.
The reason for his concern goes back to the era of the Nazi regime.
In the Observer, Barris said his first employer owned a medical office in Berlin in 1938, and her office was vandalized by police officers because they had all of her information and kept her under heavy surveillance.
“That is the basis for my concern,” Barris said in the Observer. “It set a standard in my life in terms of government agency information gathering.”
Gard begs to differ.
“Again, this is not an invasion of privacy,” he said. “Invasion of privacy would mean asking for their social security information, account information, or anything like that. We aren’t even asking for the gender of the individual.”
Village mayor Athanasia Landis agrees, and she said that there are three compelling reasons to have this law passed.
The first reason is to alleviate some of the primary complaints from residents about rental properties. The second reason is that she wants to make sure tenants have proper housing. The third is that of ensuring that the landlords treat these properties properly.
Landis said that the village has looked at every other municipality that has the same demographic as Fredonia, and it has decided to follow through with the proposal with these factors in mind.
Fredonia “[isn’t] reinventing the wheel or anything,” as she put it in the Observer, but the new restrictions in occupancy based on square footage have also raised some concerns among students and townsfolk. Some landlords are worried that this new law is discriminatory against students.
“You’re saying we can’t have students in a certain size room,” said landlord Dave Bird. “Fredonia State has rooms smaller than closets [that they are allowing students to live in].”
The occupancy restrictions will be as follows: one occupant per 80 to 100 square feet, two for 100 to 130 square feet and three for 130 square feet or above. Prior to this proposed change, it was one occupant allowed per room of 80 to 120 square feet, two people for rooms 120 to 180 square feet, and three for above 180 square feet.
A 100 square foot room is 10 x 10, and a 180 square foot room is 12 x 15, so the standards being set are much higher.
The village is expanding required space, but the Observer said in an editorial that this is actually more of a limitation than an expansion.
“Fredonia benefits greatly from these students coming to town,” said the Observer. “And yes, there can be problems that come with them as there are with any other college town.”
This editorial suggests that this new law could underhandedly be attempting to soften the blow that the village experiences every year as a result of FredFest. Actions can be made to prevent chaos, but the author felt that progress cannot be made if the village is failing to be transparent about its true intentions.
Even so, Gard feels that the people involved in creating this new law should not be ashamed at all.
“I’m proud of this board,” he said. “I think that the residents of the village of Fredonia should be proud of this board and this administration for standing up against some very vocal people in the interest of protecting a group which does not have the ability to protect themselves.”