LCI Takes The Stand

by THOMAS BREEN The new haven independent

Courtroom sleuths raised, but could not unravel, a housing code mystery: 
Did LCI last pass or fail a Vernon Street apartment? And were city-discovered code violations resolved last September, or do they persist to this day?
Those questions sat at the center of a nearly hourlong hearing that took place Tuesday early afternoon in New Haven’s third-floor housing court at 121 Elm St.
The case in question is a so-called housing code enforcement action filed by tenant Lakeysha Harrison and New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA) attorney Amy Marx against two holding companies controlled by local landlord Matthew Harp. Harp’s real estate company Renaissance Management and its affiliates own and run publicly subsidized low-income apartments across the city.

23 Vernon St.

In this particular case, filed by Harrison in February, the Hill tenant is seeking to compel her landlord to address a host of alleged problems with her second-floor Vernon Street apartment, including rodent infestation, holes in the walls, and faulty or inoperable doors and windows and sinks, among other concerns. 
Harp’s company’s attorney denied the entirety of Harrison’s housing-code-violation claims in a Tuesday court filing. The landlord’s lawyer included in the filing a counterclaim arguing that the tenant has failed to keep her apartment clean, safe, and garbage-free.
While Harrison and Marx introduced roughly two dozen photos in court of conditions at the property, the hearing focused less on the current conditions of 23 Vernon St. than it did on the role and recordkeeping of the city’s housing-code enforcement / neighborhood development agency, the Livable City Initiative, or LCI.
The hearing also raised questions about the disposition of a criminal housing court matter last September. That’s when Harp pleaded guilty to two housing code violations, including one at 23 Vernon, and was ordered by a judge to pay a $500 fine. At that same September hearing, a senior assistant state’s attorney told the court that Harp had addressed 23 Vernon’s prior housing code violations to LCI’s satisfaction. That is: LCI had inspected the property in September, passed it, and cleared the way for Harp to plead guilty to the infractions and pay a fine.

At Tuesday’s housing court hearing.

That inspection history — and its resulting ambiguities — came up in court on Tuesday as Marx questioned Mark Stroud.
Stroud, a deputy director at LCI, is the top official overseeing city government’s housing code inspection program. Marx subpoenaed him and questioned him Tuesday about LCI’s recent history of inspections, orders, and findings at 23 Vernon St.
Marx first walked Stroud through a Jan. 31, 2022 housing code compliance order that LCI sent to Harp about 23 Vernon St. (The order identifies the apartment in question as on building’s first floor. Harp’s company’s attorney on Tuesday, Tucker McWeeny, tried to get the court to throw out the case entirely because Harrison lives in a second-floor apartment. Marx made her case to the court that the initial LCI order identifying the apartment as on the first floor was a “scrivener’s error” and that the concerns identified with LCI at the apartment are clearly in reference to Harrison’s. Judge Walter Spader, Jr. turned down McWeeny’s motion to dismiss the matter for now.)
That LCI order from early last year states that a Jan. 25, 2022 inspection of 23 Vernon St. by LCI’s Nicole Minervini found cracked floor tiles, a loose sink, holes in walls, broken cabinets, and a rodent infestation, among other issues.
Stroud told the court that, after that initial January inspection, a LCI inspector returned to the Vernon Street property in May of 2022. LCI failed the property after that inspection, and soon thereafter requested a warrant to try to get the state’s attorney’s office to prosecute Harp for persistent housing-code violations in criminal housing court. (Click here to read a previous Independent article about how and why LCI-detected housing code violations can escalate to the point of prosecution.)
Stroud then said that a LCI inspector returned to the Vernon Street property for a “recheck” on Sept. 12, which was the day before Harp was next scheduled to appear in court.
And did LCI pass or fail 23 Vernon after that Sept. 12 inspection? Marx asked.
“Fail,” Stroud replied.
So, to recap: LCI inspected and failed the property in January 2022. It inspected and failed the property in May 2022. And it inspected and failed the property in September 2022.
Stroud said that, according to his records, LCI had not reinspected the property since last September. “That was the last we did.”

Judge Spader said that sounded right. After all, Harp had pleaded guilty to various housing code violations, including one at 23 Vernon, last September.
But wait a minute, Marx said. She said her understanding is that the state allows landlords to make guilty pleas on code-related infractions and pay associated fines only after the housing-code issues in question have been addressed. 
Indeed, during the September 2022 criminal housing court hearing, Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Donna Parker said that Harp was “now in compliance” in regards to 23 Vernon, among other properties with resolved violations. (A representative from the state’s attorney’s office did not respond to an email request for comment by the publication time of this article.)