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November 21, 2013….After a year long battle against the city of New Britain on landlord licensing that resulted in the land-side defeat of that city’s mayor, a new battle on landlord licensing has emerged. Apparently some cities learned nothing from the New Britain battle as Windham just introduced its own “Arbitrary and capricious” policy and began billing owners of 2 units or more for a license and inspection of their units…only problem is they are not inspecting all the units but want to get paid for inspecting all units.
CTPOA is in the early stages of a response, but clearly we see this as another illegal tax, just like New Britain wanted and CT cities have no ability to levy taxes on their own, so a Court challenge appears imminent.
November 8, 2013… After a year long battle between CTPOA and Democrat Mayor Tim O’Brien over his landlord licensing ordinance and 9-1-1 Hot Spot fee, landlords turned into political activists and helped decide the New Britain elections outcome.
CTPOA helped organize landlords back in September and began having landlords register their tenants to vote as well as telling those that do vote, to vote for Erin Stewart. The effort paid off as on election day the landlords delivered nearly 1,000 votes to help the 26 year old Republican to an 1,100 vote victory and become mayor of New Britain despite a 5 to 1 disadvantage in registered Democrats over Republicans in the Hardware City.
Landlords became fed up with being called “Slumlords” and attacked repeatedly in the press by O’Brein and vowed to replace him, on Election day, they kept that promise. This marks the first time landlords in Connecticut became political and organized themselves for an election, something they vow they will do in the future if they are ever attacked again by a politician.
Sept. 17, 2013… The CT Property Owners Alliance is pleased to announce the formation of its Political Action Committee and will host an event on Wednesday September 18th, 7:00pm at the Whinstone Restaurant in New Britain to celebrate. It’s only fitting the event be held in New Britain with all the controversy created by its current Mayor Tim O’Brien and his housing policies. Michael Telesca, a longtime landlord and chairmen of the State Independent Party is heading up the committee.
Sept. 7, 2013…Our president, Bob De Cosmo was appointed by Senate President Donald Williams to serve as the residential landlord representative on the newly formed CT State Blight Task Force. The task force is to make recommendations back to the General Assembly by February 2014 on the issue.
Sept. 3, 2013 ….Every September we begin scheduling meetings and events for landlords as the summertime has historically been a tough time to get people together.
This year, we are rapidly filling up our event log with meetings being planned for Litchfield County in early October, an October Housing Forum in Waterbury, an event in New Britain on Sept. 18th at the Winstone Restaurant and follow-up meetings scheduled in Bristol and New Haven, all this plus we are forming a new chapter in Danbury…so you can see; we are busy once again!
July 26, 2013… At a well attended gathering at the Spring Grove Pavilion in Waterbury, State Representative Larry Butler from the 72 District received the 2013 Legislator of the Year Award from the CT Property Owners Alliance.
CTPOA President Bob De Cosmo thanked Representative Butler for his continued hard work and dedication to housing matters while presenting the award to Butler at the “Front Porch Day Picnic” sponsored by the Greater Waterbury Board of Realtors.
Representative Butler vowed to continue his efforts to create funding for programs that will revitalize housing and improve neighborhoods.
We look forward in working with the cities of Waterbury and East Hartford to deploy this new program as they are the two towns where the Pilot program will operate.
Thanks go to all who have worked with us to create a new vision for how neighborhoods be stabilized by working with private sector developers in partnership with existing agencies and targeted government funding, we hope this Program will soon become the model for all Urban Revitalization efforts.
April 10, 2013 We are almost ready to roll out a Bristol Property Owners Chapter and we are really excited about this as we are working with the Downtown Renaissance LLC group on this project.
CTPOA had a very good turnout out the Housing Committee public hearing in Meriden on February 28….There where lot’s of landlords in the room and the testimony given to the panel was really insightful…..click to read the Meriden Record Journal coverage of the public hearing.
It should not be too much longer and we’ll know if CTPOA will be working on an Urban Revitalization Program in Waterbury and East Hartford as the CT Dept. of Economic & Community Development make their final selections on their grant applications. We had a follow-up interview with the lead partner on the project, CT Housing Investment Fund on February 25th and we think it went well.
House Bill # 6015 An Act Prohibiting Municipalities From Charging Fees for 9-1-1 Calls is being drafted and is going forward. Our lobbying registration for the 2013 session has been filed and I expect this to be a big fight to get this bill through…but in reality, I think we’ll have a lot of support for our effort to repeal the New Britain 9-1-1-Ordinance as ‘NO HUMAN LIFE SHOULD BE PUT AT RISK BECAUSE OF A CITY’S BUDGET PROBLEMS!”
CT Legislature holds public hearing on Eviction Reform Monday, 4/1/13 at the State Capitol…click here for more details
CTPOA welcomes the Windham County and the Greater New Haven landlord groups into the Alliance as well as the many new members that joined because of the New Britain landlord licensing ordinance.
The Legislative session for 2013 is about to begin and we know that many housing issues will be on the table like last year. We also know that the cities and State have serious budget issues and both are looking at rental property owners as a “Band-aid” source of revenue to fund their aggressive spending habits. In fact a bill is being monitored by us that would allow cities to charge extra fees on landlords, we will keep you informed if this becomes a serious threat to our members.
As demonstrated by our actions in New Britain, we will defend all property owners from programs that seek to take away your rights, equity or cash flow, regardless if it is a mandates, ordinances or legislation….2013 promises to be a very busy year for us.
The New Britain Landlord Licensing Saga Continues….and our Court case against the city continues. Calls for a discussion have been made and some initial communication has taken place.
Considering the failed landlord licensing program in New Haven, the recently enacted ordinance in New Britain is even worse and makes little sense to experienced rental property owners, bankers, REALTORS and legislators that we speak with.
We must ask how much political capital has been invested by the O’Brien administration on passing this law in light of the battle that it created and is there so much invested by the administration that a true compromise cannot be reached?…Talks will continue with stakeholders.
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