COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC HEARING AND PUBLIC MEETING BEFORE COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, 6/5/01 10:09 a.m. - - - BILL 000602 - Amending Subcode PM of Title 4 of the Philadelphia Code, entitled "The Philadelphia Property Maintenance Code," by providing for the suspension and revocation of a residential rental property license, multifamily dwelling license, rooming house license, or vacant lot or building license for failure to correct code violations related to licensed properties or for failure to pay fines and costs imposed for such violations and by providing that there shall be no right to recover possession of the premises or to collect for rent during a period of license suspension or revocation, all under certain terms and conditions. BILL 000657 - Being held until L&I hearing on 6/12/01, 10 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCILMAN RICHARD T. MARIANO, Chair COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE L. BLACKWELL COUNCILMAN DARRELL CLARKE, Vice Chair COUNCILMAN DAVID COHEN COUNCILMAN FRANK DICICCO COUNCILMAN ANGEL L. ORTIZ COUNCILWOMAN FRANK RIZZO - - - VINCENT VARALLO ASSOCIATES, INC. Registered Professional Reporters Eleven Penn Center, Suite 600 Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 561-2220 2 I N D E X Bill 000657 Otis Haigler, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Legislative and Regulatory Affairs Manager Department of Licenses and Inspections Darryl Zaslow, Esq. . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Home Owners Association of Philadelphia 3 P R O C E E D I N G S
We're here for a public hearing for L&I. We have a quorum: myself, Councilman Mariano; Councilman Clarke, Councilman Rizzo, and Councilwoman Blondell, and Councilwoman Blackwell. Will the clerk will please read the title of the first bill.
Bill No. 000602, an ordinance amending Subcode PM of Title 4 of the Philadelphia Code, entitled "The Philadelphia Property Maintenance Code," by providing for the suspension and revocation of a residential rental property license, multifamily dwelling license, rooming house license, or vacant lot or building license for failure to correct code violations related to licensed properties or for failure to pay fines and costs imposed for such violations and by providing that there shall be no right to recover possession of the premises or to collect for rent during a period of license suspension or revocation, all under certain terms and conditions. (Witness comes forward.)
Are you going to 4 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 testify Mr. Haigler?
Good day, Councilman Mariano and members of the Committee. I am Otis Haigler, Jr., Legislative and Regulatory Affairs Manager for the Department of Licenses and Inspections. Today I'm here to provide testimony on 000602, which if enacted, will amend the Philadelphia Property Maintenance Code by providing for the suspension and revocation of licenses issued by the Department pursuant to the property maintenance code for failure to correct code violations and pay fines and costs imposed for such violations. The Department offers no objections to the enactment of this bill with the proposed Administration amendments and will work cooperatively with Councilwoman Krajewski and other 5 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 members of Council to address the concerns expressed in the bill. We in Licenses and Inspections understand the frustration of Council and the public regarding the problems associated with the failure of persons to correct violations in a timely manner. This bill, along with other tools such as the enactment of Bill No. 980711, giving us the authority to issue code violation notices tickets for certain code violations, will strengthen our enforcement efforts to gain compliance for violations that have been ignored in the past. The Department will continue to use all of its resources to gain voluntary compliance for violations, which is the ultimate goal of code enforcement. Thank you for the opportunity to allow the Department to provide this testimony. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have at this time.
Mr. Haigler, will you read the amendment into the record.
Sure. Proposed amendments to Bill 000602, under Section PM-102.7.2, Suspension and 6 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 Revocation: Any license issued pursuant to the provision of this code shall be -- strike the bracket before the word "subject to" and insert "subject to, bracket, revocation" to read as follows: "Any license issued pursuant to the provisions of this code shall be subject to suspension by the Department for failure to comply with the requirements of this code after a re-inspection has been made to determine compliance pursuant to Section A-503.1 of the administrative code, or for failure to pay any fine and/or cost imposed under this code or the administrative code, and such suspension shall continue until there has been compliance and until any unpaid fines and costs have been paid. "If a person has had a license suspended under this provision on three occasions within a period of three years, then each subsequent failure to comply with the requirements of this code or failure to pay any fine and/or costs imposed under this code or the administrative code shall result in revocation of the license, and the person shall not be permitted to apply for a any new license under 7 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 this section for one year after such revocation. The Department shall provide written notice and an opportunity for a hearing prior to any suspension or revocation of a license under this section."
Thank you, Mr. Haigler. Any questions from anyone of the committee of Mr. Haigler? (No questions.)
Seeing none, we have some more witnesses. Mr. Darryl Zaslow, will you please come to the table. Mr. Haigler, you might want to hang around, all right?
Good morning, Mr. Zaslow. State your name and spell it for the record.
On behalf of the Home Owners Association of Philadelphia that is named 8 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 HAPCO.
Thank you. To members of Council, Henry Ford had no 6 license to drive his first automobile. Driving a wagon on the street was considered a fundamental right, not a privilege which the government can withhold. In our day, we take it for granted that a license is necessary for driving an automobile and that that license can be suspended or revoked upon severe and abusive violations. We believe, however, that the government should act sparingly in revoking or refusing to provide a license when declaring that something which was a fundamental right, the right to own property, is now licensed by the State. The City of Philadelphia has already declared that you have the right -- and, in fact, you do so have that right by law -- to suspend a license for rental properties and to require a license for rental properties. Before such a license is granted, a property needing to meet standards, which you have set. But that's an extraordinary power, the power to grant a license, 9 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 to say to me as an attorney, which I am, that you may not practice law upon a certain violation occurring or to say to any of us that you may not drive an automobile upon the occurrence of a certain level of violation. And in the same way, when you say to a property owner whose business is providing good and decent housing in our city that if you have some violation on your property, you're going to lose your license to collect your rents and to operate your property. That's the severest penalty that a government can impose upon a business person, short of saying that the conduct that you're now engaged in is criminal. So we would suggest that there needs to be some concern over the language of the bill which provides that upon the occurrence of one single violation, that an owner is unable to correct, that that person's license to collect rent on that property, to evict a tenant, to deal with a tenant who's creating a nuisance is going to be suspended. Three violations occurring over no set length of time and arising to three violations which are uncorrected, revoking a license permanently for 10 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 this period of a year, not permitting an owner to go into City Hall and get other licenses for other pieces of real estate for three violations is also a severe penalty of the highest order. I would suggest with all due respect to the members of Council that we could send a team through this very building -- in fact, probably through this very room -- and find a violation.
Mr. Zaslow, up in my office, you could find about 120 violations, and if you do that and document it for me and get it to the right people, I would appreciate that 'cause I've been complaining for a long time. You're absolutely right.
Thank you. From the vantage point of someone who needs to make a living from it is if upon the occurrence of just one violation, your right to deal with the property is suspended, that's a problem. Taking a look at Bill 602, before this amendment that was just read into the record, the bill as it stood dealt with the issue of delegation 11 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 of legislative authority. As the members of Council well know, you are not permitted by law to delegate your legislative power to an administrative agency. You as the elected officials are the ones elected to do the thinking as to what you want the policy to be and your administrators are to just administratively carry it out. Now, the bill as originally written with this terrible harshness of a suspension for one violation or one revocation permanently for three is very clear in the bill and is not a violation of the standard of not delegating legislative authority. The way the bill is originally written, it was terribly harsh but it didn't run afoul of the requirement that you not impermissibly delegate legislative authority. The bill is clear. You say to the people in L&I, if there's a violation you suspend it, that's the started period. Now, we argue with that standard and it's most appreciated by HAPCO and all of the people providing decent housing in this city your willingness to listen and to contemplate the amendment which has been proposed this morning, the amendment which gave discretion to L&I to decide 12 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 whether or not there should be a suspension. That's appreciated because now we're giving some human thought to it, not just to mechanically suspend a license. There are always extenuating circumstances. The problem with the amendment is, is that the amendment now precisely runs afoul of the mandate that you not delegate legislative authority to an administrative agency. That's what has occurred with the amendment. You're saying to the administrative agency, If you think you should suspend it, suspend it, and if you don't think you should suspend it, then don't, without providing a standard. We would suggest, with all due respect, that that is inappropriate and impermissible. " As we all know, the very heart of due process is notice and an opportunity to be heard, and you've given property owners facing this drastic suspension of license, you've given them that right. They have a right to have a hearing. The problem with the bill is that in giving the right to have a hearing, this due process 13 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 right to be heard, there are no standards in the law which says what is the standard for whether or not the right should be granted or not. There are no 5 standards. It says, and it's very nice, you have the right to go and file an appeal. But once the appeal is placed, what are the standards? From the point of view of the board who will be sitting there, what standards should they apply? From the standpoint of property owner or an attorney who wants to bring a case before the board, how do we know if we have a frivolous case or a case which can be argued? Surely, it's not just whether or not the board feels sorry for the owner; we appreciate that as well. But there needs to be something of a more precise standard. And we would suggest that the amendment which we're hearing read this morning does not correct that problem. As a matter of fact, it creates the problem. We also would ask Council to focus on another constitutional issue, which is the interference by government in the right of private contract. America is built on the greatness of enforcing private contracts between individuals. 14 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 We're not some big collective that people can't make their own agreements. Everybody can have a private contract.
In the law, the government does not have the right to interfere with a private contract except in limited circumstances, and those circumstances are where the contract may be illegal, there's a danger arising out of the contract; or in the housing field, it's been judicially determined that if the property is unfit for human habitation, then the government is going to step in and say, No, we're going to interfere with that contract. You, Mr. Property Owner, cannot have a contract which says I'm going to rent an unfit house. We would suggest, however, looking at the matter from a legal point of view and a constitutional point of view that the interference with the contract between the landlord and the tenant suspending the license but the ripple effect of it being that the ability to collect rent is suspended, the ability to evict a tenant is suspended, the ability to operate your business and your property is suspended because the license is a requirement to operate your business. 15 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 So we would suggest that the severity of the penalty here, the very severe penalty which is being placed upon the property owner is far beyond what the law would permit to say is a protection of the public from a constitutional basis. We would ask that Council consider considering the bill by way of further amendment as may be appropriate, contemplating an easing of the admirable concern to make properties better but recognizing that suspending the right of every property owner in this city upon a single violation and a revocation upon three violations. Violations, as we all know, can be of the most minuscule nature; it can be the tiniest violation which an owner who knows 30 days for a re-inspection is such a short time. Someone is away for a week and they're busy for a week and they're sick for a week and they've lost their time limit and their license is suspended. Council, HAPCO appreciates your concern for the needs of providing housing in Philadelphia and we would request that Bill 602 be subjected to further review and refinement of appropriate standards truly warranting the critical action of 16 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 the suspension and revocation of a hard-earned license. I thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Mr. Zaslow. Any questions for this witness? And I want Mr. Haigler -- do you want to comment on a couple things Mr. Zaslow said? Councilman Rizzo has a question first.
Oh, for Haigler? We'll let Haigler do his thing. Mr. Zaslow, stay. Mr. Haigler?
Yes, Councilman Mariano. In reference to giving the Department the discretion to determine whether or not to suspend or revoke a license, under the current provisions of the code, which is already currently the law, if I would read under Section PM-102.7.2, this deals with revocation, there was no provision in there before for suspension, so suspension is more or less a mitigating factor before we went straight to 17 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 revocation. And under the provisions of the current law, as I read it, under this section, it says: Any license issued pursuant to the provisions of this code shall be subject to revocation. So we inserted -- or it was inserted the word "suspension," and "revocation" was deleted from that provision. So there was already discretion given under that section; it was given for revocation, not suspension. So, in essence, this mitigates it a little bit. As far as the administrative hearing process, the Department currently conducts administrative hearings now for certain violations of the code. I established an administrative hearing process when I was chief of the Commercial Industrial Fire Unit primarily to help the homeowners out, because to a certain extent, homeowners were being held subject to problems that their contractors were responsible for. Like, for instance, with submitting reports, documents for certain types of work that was done by the contractor, the contractor had not submitted the report to document, we would cite the homeowner for 18 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 not having those reports and documents in our possession. So we would conduct administrative hearings periodically to bring the homeowner in because they paid the contractor and they were under the assumption that the contractor did whatever they were supposed to do.
And they didn't do it. So we brought the homeowner in before we sent them to court. So that was a way of trying to resolve that issue before we would send the homeowner or the person who owned the property to court. That was that little bit of a stopgap measure that we placed in place. Now, we've been doing this within the Department for years administrative hearings for various code violations, various units of the Department does it. They do perform that service for the public. So I just wanted to clarify that this is not something new.
Thank you, Mr. Haigler. Councilman Rizzo, you have a question 19 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 for Mr. Haigler?
Yeah. Mr. Haigler, I just want to take a minute of your time. You heard the exchange about the condition of public buildings. I'd like to talk about for a moment a double standard. Could you describe L&I's involvement in inspecting public buildings versus the private sector and I'd like to give you an example and have you comment on it. If you inspected, or L&I inspected, a building and it didn't have panic bars on the exterior doors, they most likely would -- especially if they're dead-bolted would be cited. In this building, City Hall, you need a key to get out of this building in the event of an emergency, fire, panic, people could be trapped in this building. Why do we allow conditions like that to exist in public buildings when we won't tolerate that in the private sector?
But we do. (Unintelligible, parties talking over each other.)
When I first came 20 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 here to government, I came from the private sector and had some experience in corporate safety. And I asked the question and I was told that public buildings are exempt from the same standards that public buildings are.
Well, then I would appreciate you looking at the doors on this building. Councilman Mariano indicated about the conditions in his office.
Because as chief of the Commercial Industrial Fire Unit, I can unequivocally tell you that when I was in charge of the inspectors that were out doing the inspections, we wrote up all kinds of schools for locks on doors. We wrote up all kinds of public buildings.
Mr. Haigler, will you cite City Hall today? I mean, would you do that? Seriously.
I believe City Hall has been cited in the past for violations of the code.
I can't tell you that, I 21 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 really don't know. That's in the enforcement process and --
Then, Mr. Haigler, then you're wasting L&I inspectors' time if you're just going to be citing public buildings and not doing anything about it. Today, I'd appreciate --
-- you looking at the exit doors on the ground floor of this building and tell me if them being dead-bolted is an appropriate -- is appropriate. And I think you know the answer to that.
Thank you, Councilman. Let me just say Councilman DiCicco joined us. Thank you, Councilman.
With all due respect to my colleague, Councilman Rizzo, in case you don't already know, there is a double standard when it comes to public buildings and politicians versus the private sector. I mean, all you need to do is look around the City of Philadelphia and see where political posters are allowed to flourish on 22 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 every pole.
God forbid if you stand still too long in the City of Philadelphia, someone will either attach an honor box to you or staple a political poster. So we're talking about urban blight. And interestingly enough this week, there's a major bill that has something to do with billboards. It is okay for certain groups of people who get a half million dollars to support billboards, but political posters, obviously, are acceptable to everyone but the private sector, so there is always a double standard when it comes to government and government officials. Thank you.
Thank you, Councilman DiCicco, for that statement. It was well-intentioned for the record. Any other questions for these witnesses? I want to move this along if we can. Councilman Cohen, who's not on the committee but is a member of Council -- this is on 23 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 the first bill, Councilman, we're not to the second one.
No, sir. Councilman DiCicco just couldn't save himself. He jumped ahead and he will be cited for that.
No, I'm just trying to figure out how I can get a half a million dollars for every community group in my district.
Well, maybe every politician will give you a half a million dollars to --
And since you were a part of that deal, Councilman, I'm going to come to you after Thursday to try to figure it out for me. Thank you.
And Councilman Cohen is a senior member of Council so write him up on that. He gets a gig for being out of order. I 24 6/5/01 L&I - BILL 000602 gave him a little leniency. Thank you.
No, this is the first bill; we're not to the second bill, okay?
So seeing no 10 questions on Bill No. -- for these witnesses on Bill 11 No. 000602, I'm going to do something a little different here for expediency. At this time, I'm going to recess the public hearing and go right to the public meeting, and then I'm going to come back into the public hearing and introduce the second bill, but we're not going to do anything with it today. - - - 25 6/5/01 L&I - PUBLIC MEETING - BILL 000602
So at this time, we will recess the public hearing on Bill 00602 and enter the public meeting, okay? I'll make a motion?
I move that Bill No. 7 602 be reported out with a favorable recommendation as amended.
I make a motion on the amendment on Bill No. 602. (Duly seconded.)
Okay, Bill No. 602, we're going to vote on the amendment. It was already entered into the record and we want to vote on that amendment in the public hearing.
Okay, it's been read and seconded. All those in favor, say aye. Those opposed, say nay. Seeing none, the amendment pass. Now we're going to vote on the bill as 6/5/01 L&I - PUBLIC MEETING - BILL 000602 amended. Councilman Clarke?
I make a motion that Bill No. 602, as amended, be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation and a request for a suspension of the rules so as to permit first reading on the next calendar session.
Thank you, Councilman Clarke. A motion's on the floor. Do I hear a second? (Duly seconded.)
I hear a second. All those in favor of Bill No. 000602, as amended, and a request for a suspension of the rules, say aye. All those opposed, say nay. Okay, the ayes have it and the bill 20 passes at least out of committee. - - - 27 6/5/01 L&I - PUBLIC MEETING - BILL 000657
Now we're going to go back and we're going to recess the public hearing -- we're in a public meeting. Now we're going back to go into the public hearing. Now we're going to recess the public meeting and go into the public hearing. The public hearing committee of Licenses and Inspections concerning Bill No. 000657 will stand in recess until June 12, 2001, at a.m. 10 Thank you. (Adjourned 10:33 a.m.) 28 C E R T I F I C A T E I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of Tuesday, June 5, 2001, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of same. RE: COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS BILL NO. 000602 __________________________________, JOSEPHINE CARDILLO, Registered Professional Reporter