Promise kept: Rochester demands landlords fix up or pay up

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When Rochester Mayor Malik Evans unveiled his Housing Quality Task Force three years ago, he promised that property owners who flouted city codes and ignored tenant rights would end up in court and face steep fines.

City Hall has kept that promise.

More than $500,000 in fines have been collected, the worst offenders have been hit with penalties that can accrue by thousands of dollars on a daily basis, and some property owners under the task force microscope have sold all or portions of portfolios.

“We don’t bring everybody to court, we bring folks to court when other enforcement mechanisms aren’t working, when orders are being ignored, when the tickets are being ignored,” corporation counsel Patrick Beath said.

Usually, trips to court can be avoided. Beath said the city much prefers to work with property owners to find solutions and ensure necessary repairs are made, thereby keeping as many rental units on the market as possible. After all, what the city doesn’t need is fewer available housing units.

As part of the city’s quality housing initiative, the law department added a lawyer, Michael Furlano, and housing cases have been his sole focus. There also are more housing inspectors than ever before, and just recently the city hired a new law clerk tasked with sifting through code violations to expedite actions against habitual offenders.

“We’ve been even more aggressive with this new staff member, giving us more teeth, sharper teeth,” Beath said. “We’re able to scour our property records, scour our code enforcement records and bring actions against landlords in real time as they’re racking up fines.”

Mayor Malik Evans said the monetary penalties let property owners know the city is serious about ensuring heating and water systems are in working order, that roofs don’t leak and that stairways and hand railings are sturdy.

“Hitting back in their wallets is the best way to get their attention and hold them accountable,” Mayor Malik Evans said.

Over the past three years, the city has filed petitions in state Supreme Court in Monroe County against 56 property owners. Those filings involved 152 properties. Often the parties have been able to reach agreements and fines were suspended or reduced.

In May of 2023, Michigan-based Tardis Properties LLC was hit with a petition that listed 260 code violations across 10 of the 16 rental properties in its Rochester portfolio. The initial court filing threatened the fines of $500 per day for each violation until the issues were corrected.

Tardis Properties eventually agreed to pay $14,360 in fines, which would be reduced by $3,000 if violations were corrected in a specified time period. City officials say that is the preferred method of resolution.

“We want to work with them,” Evans said.

That’s especially true, Beath said, with property owners that have a sincere interest in providing safe, quality housing but are having difficulty coming up with immediate funding for repairs.

“There’s a whole lot of property owners who want to do the right thing but they may not have the means,” Beath said. “We want to support them and work with them.”

Sometimes that involves introducing landlords to city programs that provide grants for repairs. Other times it could mean acting as an intermediary to facilitate a sale.

“If we can play matchmaker, we would,” Beath said.

Since August of 2023, 41 properties that were listed in court filings and had extensive code violations have been sold. It may be coincidence or there may be a direct correlation to the legal action, city officials said.

Brooklyn-based UR Alliance LLC, along with Yongyi Ye and Kevin Ye, were among the first property owners hit with a court action following Furlano’s hiring. The city alleged there were 94 open code violations on seven properties. Within 23 months, the respondents had sold six of the houses, city records show. Tardis Properties sold seven of its houses and Fred Norten, through limited liability companies Hickory Capital Partners, MOBC Properties and Sequoia Lending Group, also sold seven.

Even if a property owner wants to bring houses up to code, there are challenges. The city sought contempt charges in the fall of 2024 against Norten, who officials said ignored a court order to correct violations.

Norten was the sole member of three LLCs, including Hickory Capital Partners, that collectively owned a mid-sized portfolio of rental properties. A petition filed in state Supreme Court in Monroe County in February of 2024 alleged there were 302 open code violations across 12 of those properties, including 148 that directly impacted the health and safety of residents.

By August of last summer, Furlano filed a motion in court to have Norten cited for contempt for failing to make court-ordered repairs.

Norten, however, said in affidavit filed in his defense that “nothing could be further from the truth.

“Mr. Furlano labels as mere excuses the real issues of no access to certain properties, the lack of workers, and lack of resources,” Norten said in the affidavit.

His affidavit also said that at two of his properties, he and city inspectors were refused entry by the tenants, making it impossible to remedy code violations.

Supreme Court Justice Kevin M. Nasca did find Norten in contempt and fined him $250, but he declined “at this time” to impose the $500-per-day-per-violation penalties that were requested by the city. The respondents have since sold four of the properties.

John Nacca, the Rochester-based attorney representing Norten/Hickory Capital Partners and Tardis Properties, did not respond to a request for comment.

One of the most egregious cases since ramped-up enforcement began — at least in terms of sheer number of cited violations — involved a series of LLCs operated by Tal Levi of Harrington Park, New Jersey. In an April court filing, the city alleged there were 536 code violations on 13 properties, of which 125 were deemed to pose an immediate hazard. Some of the violations were more than a year old.

The filing triggered action, including a negotiated a repair schedule. As of July 11, Levi had cured 212 of the violations and another 156 were expected to be remedied before the end of this month, his lawyer, Marc A. Romanowski of Rupp Pfalzgraf, wrote in a letter to Justice Joseph D. Waldorf.

While Romanowski’s letter said his client had “demonstrated remarkable responsiveness and good faith efforts since this proceeding was initiated,” the city still believes there must be punishment. After all, they say, he leased properties that presented hazards, including the presence of lead paint. Furlano’s filing asked for fines totaling $32,400.

Romanowski has argued that such an amount would be counterproductive and suggested a reduced fine of $6,500. “Every dollar paid in fines is a dollar that cannot be spent on purchasing materials, hiring contractors and otherwise addressing the underlying conditions that resulted in the violations,” he wrote.

Furlano countered, arguing that Levi failed to correct the violations for more than a year and has displayed “a pattern of indifference towards the unsafe and dangerous conditions he allowed his tenants and neighbors to endure.”

The court has yet to rule on the matter.

The fine, Furlano wrote the court, “should reflect his recalcitrance, and should not provide Mr. Levi with a discount.”

Said Beath: “We are continuing to hold landlords accountable when they don’t do right by their tenants.”

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