Ethan Wolin, Contributing Photographer

New Haven will now have an easier time punishing landlords for housing code violations — and can levy fines of up to $2000 per day.

In a meeting Monday evening, the Board of Alders approved a measure giving the city’s Livable City Initiative, the agency that oversees housing code enforcement, a clear process for issuing citations. This means that LCI will be able to issue more citations to violating landlords than they currently do. 

Ward 8 Alder Ellen Cupo, who chairs the Legislation Committee, said the ordinance amendment “seeks to address the delays in resolving housing code violations.”

“For many years, many of our city residents in all our neighborhoods have been dealing with absentee landlords who are not keeping up their properties and leaving residents living in unsafe, unsanitary conditions,” Ward 7 Alder Eli Sabin ’22 LAW ’26 said before the vote. “LCI has not always been able to do the enforcement that’s necessary to hold landlords accountable in the pocketbook.”

Monday’s vote followed a Legislation Committee meeting last month in which alders advanced the proposal after hearing testimony from officials and residents.

Previously, LCI was subject to an ordinance that implied a housing code violator must be convicted in court to be issued a fine, Director Liam Brennan LAW ’07 explained. Consequently, LCI was issuing threats of citations that the agency could almost never impose.

Brennan said having a “clear citation process” will give LCI much more power to check landlords making violations. He added that the revised ordinance will make LCI’s citation process uniform across housing code, anti-blight and residential licensing — all of which fall under LCI’s enforcement umbrella. Anti-blight and residential licensing already had the citation processes that LCI was seeking out for code violations.

Under the new system, unpaid hearing officers in New Haven will hear cases and enforce housing code citations. LCI will no longer have to bring cases to state courts or the state Board of Appeals to levy fines.

The amendment also increases the fines from $250 for each violation to a maximum of $2000 for each day a violation remains unresolved, in accordance with the limit set out in Connecticut law.

Brennan took over LCI in August 2024.