Kelly, chairing the meeting, agreed the current system for dealing with property complaints is ineffective but argued it could be dramatically improved without launching a licensing program.
“If, for example, we started with proactive inspections – if we increased our fines and categorized them, minor versus major infractions,” she suggested. She said the city could build in incentives, subjecting properties to greater or lesser inspections depending on their records.
“We haven’t done any of this,” she told subcommittee members. “If we had a good database that can track [a history of violations]; if we also did develop a system so that we know about portfolio [limited liability companies] so that if someone has a finding of numerous violations on one of their properties, they will be fined on all their properties.
“There are so many measures that we can take right now that will have drastic impact and that are proven to have a positive impact.”