VICTOR SCHMITT-BUSH
Assistant News Editor
For those who feel strongly against the Fredonia Village Board recently proposed amendment of the 179 housing standards law, you can now sleep soundly. The amendment has been officially rejected as of Oct. 23, 2018.
The vote to suspend the continuation of this local amendment was nearly unanimous. Trustees Michael Barris, Roger Britz and Douglas Essek all voted no, while Trustee James Lynden voted in favor of it and Trustee Kara Christina abstained, resulting in a vote of 1-3-1.
Before making his decision, Essek said that the landlords as a whole are not to blame for the Village’s problems.
“I just want to make it clear that if I misgave the impression that I blamed landlords, [that’s not what I intended],” he said. “I think I hold the landlords responsible for the people that they rent to. I don’t believe the cost of [this proposed law] will give us the benefit that we are requiring so I vote no.”
Prior to the vote to reject the law, Lawyer John Gullo made it clear in his speech during the public hearing that there was nothing ambiguous about who the trustees were blaming during the last public meeting on Monday, Oct. 15. He was the only person to speak during the hearing just before the proposal was voted down.
“The things you said during the last meeting were very clear,” said Gullo. “You blamed the landlords for the problem. That’s not the right message. They are taxpayers. They are pillars of this community, and they’re voters. They’re not the problem, and I think you need to walk that back a little bit.”
The problem, according to Gullo, is much different. The village board has focused more on increasing zoning rules and putting a larger burden on the police department to enforce them, but Gullo thinks this is just unreasonable and avoids tackling the real problems that Fredonia is facing.
“[The police] need to pay attention to the stuff I listed in the letter; the meth labs, the burglaries, the real problems that we have and respectfully, this stuff (zoning rules) isn’t even on that list,” Gullo said. “Unfortunately, to solve the problems that we have with the zoning code, you actually are saying we need new laws … but you don’t. Just enforce the ones that we have and we would probably be just fine.”
Although the village is 18 months behind in inspections, the Fredonia Village Board has taken a huge step by hiring a new zoning officer, according to Gullo. He also said that difficulties flow from the top of the organization, and those on the bottom get hit with the brunt of it all. According to Gullo, the board has to take accountability and it’s their fault that things are getting out of hand.
This is because, according to Gullo, there is a lot of confusion about the law.
“There’s a requirement that new laws be clear and unambiguous, that the terms that are involved are defined, and you’re making changes but not defining the new terms,” said Gullo.
He recalled that one of the changes that they made included increasing maximum occupancy, which is an undefined term. Whereas prior they used the term habitable space, which is a defined term from the prior code. Now the code bases maximum occupancy on bedrooms and bedroom size.
“Unfortunately, my interpretation of what a bedroom is and what your interpretation of what a bedroom is are both perhaps very different,”said Gullo. “I think a bedroom is a room with a bed. Your code enforcement officer has a different way of looking at it.”
This could lead to an automatic vulnerability for anyone charged with breaking this law, according to Gullo. When the criteria isn’t clear, authority can pick and choose what acceptable living conditions may be, and it would be much easier for them to win in court against someone who is willing to fight against it.
Before finally being voted down, the law was tweaked again, as it had been in the weeks leading up to the Oct. 22 meeting. This time, the law stated that tenants were no longer required to register, but nothing changed on behalf of the landlord registry. The landlords present at the meeting, according to Gullo, did not object to this change.
The meeting ended shortly after Gullo said, “What I’d like to convince you to do tonight is to start over again and do this in a different way. The landlords are more than willing to participate in their discussion to try to solve what you think are the problems.”
When asked by Mayor Athanasia Landis if he had anything to say, Village attorney Daniel Gard, the author of this proposed law, chose not to speak.