Alder Richard Furlow, with Building Official Bob Dillon: “How is this permissible?” LCI’s Ray Jackson and Sinclair Williams at Thursday’s hearing. 781 Whalley, as seen on Thursday morning. A Livable City Initiative (LCI) hearing officer assessed another $200,000 in anti-blight fine s against a Whalley Avenue building’s landlord — who didn’t show up to City Hall Thursday in order to avoid being served with an arrest warrant. Such is the latest with the long-vacant and dilapidated former office building at 781 Whalley Ave. That property at the corner of Whalley and Fitch has been owned since 2019 by a holding company controlled by Sim Levenhartz. In 2022, Levenhartz’s company won City Plan Commission approval to construct a new 245-unit apartment complex at that site — but never followed through on that plan, instead putting the property up for sale. On Thursday morning, more than a dozen Westville neighbors crowded into a second-floor City Hall meeting room alongside a handful of LCI employees for a hearing presided over by volunteer hearing officer Gerald Antunes, who is also a former city police captain and a former Quinnipiac Meadows alder. For the second time in less than four months, LCI was seeking permission to fine Levenhartz for the building’s prolonged state of disrepair — including blight-code violations related to graffiti, a broken fence, openings that invite trespassing, and wall damage stemming from when a car crashed into the southeastern side of the building in 2018. Antunes levied $59,000 in anti-blight fines against Levenhartz for 781 Whalley in late January. On Thursday, he approved another $200,000 — this time at the city’s updated fine value of 10 cents per square foot per day of code violation. Antunes also warned Levenhartz’s attorney, Ken Rozich, that he would allow for daily $2,000-plus fines to resume accruing if Levenhartz doesn’t make “significant” progress in the next 10 days in addressing various city agencies’ concerns with the property. “It’s not right. It’s not fair to the community,” Antunes told the room about the long-vacant building at 781 Whalley. He told Rozich that Levenhartz not being present at Thursday’s hearing was “only telling me that the owner doesn’t care about this community.” Rozich said that his client had planned on attending Thursday’s LCI hearing. He had even driven downtown. But when he was parking, Rozich said, “he learned [about] a warrant for his arrest from the Building Department. That’s why he wasn’t here.” So, Rozich stressed, “he’s absent for a reason.” The warrant that Rozich was referring to was first brought up earlier in Thursday’s hearing by city Building Official Bob Dillon. Dillon described the “large hole” in a side of the building thanks to damage caused by a car crash eight years ago. “This has been an ongoing issue since 2018,” he said. Even though the landlord pulled a building permit in March to repair that car-crash-damaged portion of the building, the permit application “was incomplete.” Despite the Building Department’s nudging, “he’s done absolutely nothing” to submit a completed building permit and embark on the necessary repairs. Dillon said his department has given Levenhartz until June 5 to submit a complete building permit application with a structural engineer’s drawing. “They have to restructure that wall” which is “compromised” by the 2018 car damage, he said. Dillon added that the Building Department decided to “escalate” the matter by bringing it to the state prosecutor for criminal housing court, Donna Parker. “This needs to come to an end. I’m looking for the owner to engage and fix the building. I thought Mr. Levenhartz was gonna be here” today to talk about it. In a text message sent to the Independent Thursday afternoon, city police Lt. David Guliuzza — the district manager for downtown — confirmed that Levenhartz “has an outstanding warrant issued by City of New Haven Building Department.” Guliuzza had been present at City Hall at around 10:30 a.m. — the scheduled start time of the LCI hearing. Asked if Guliuzza was able to serve the warrant on Levenhartz, he replied, “Unfortunately Mr. Levenhartz was a no show.” “Not Here To Just Hang You By Your Toenails” Hearing Officer Antunes. Before Antunes signed off on the $200,000 fine — and before Rozich stated that Levenhartz hadn’t shown up in order to avoid being served a warrant — LCI attorney Sinclair Williams and LCI neighborhood specialist Ray Jackson made their case to Antunes for assessing still another fine for blight-code violations at 781 Whalley. Jackson said that a Jan. 29 inspection and a Feb. 12 reinspection revealed “open windows,” graffiti on multiple sides of the building, and “broken bricks on the walls of the property” stemming from the 2018 car crash, among other problems. “I’ve gotten complaints [from neighbors] about the graffiti and just the exterior, how it looks,” Jackson said. “It’s bringing down values of properties in the neighborhood.” It’s also a “sore eye in the neighborhood.” Following a second reinspection conducted Thursday morning before the hearing, Jackson found that the graffiti had been removed — but a fence is still broken and the “back wall still looks broken.” In the landlord’s defense, Rozich said that he’s been in touch with Williams and the owner “has been trying to rectify the issues,” as evidenced by the removal of the graffiti. Rozich said he has been “involved” with this property since the end of March. “There has been advanced forward progress” since then. He also told Dillon he would communicate to his client the need to complete the building permit application by June 5, in line with the Building Department’s deadline. The neighbors who spoke up at Thursday’s hearing remained unconvinced that enough repair work had been done. They argued that a hefty fine should be levied and still more fines should keep accruing. “This building is not only blighted,” said Westville/Amity/Beverly Hills Alder Richard Furlow, who is also the board’s majority leader. “It is ill-fated for the morale, the health, and the wellbeing for the entrance to a historic district.” Taking graffiti off of a wall “does not mean that now this building is in good repair.” “How is this permissible?” he asked about 781 Whalley’s seemingly abandoned status over the past two decades. “It’s been enough. It’s been years.” “It’s a sad day for everybody, including the owner,” added Lyric Hall’s John Cavaliere. He described the “utter desolation” and “ominous vibe” that has prevailed at this building for far too long. Westville Village Renaissance Alliance’s Lizzy Donius said that she is “increasingly enraged” by how long this building has been left in disrepair. “The owners of this building have shown that they do not care. … This is demolition by neglect.” Rozich acknowledged the neighbors’ frustrations. “I don’t necessarily disagree,” he said. He tried to direct Antunes’ attention away from bigger-picture concerns with the property and instead to the “five or six violations” that LCI had found during their anti-blight inspections. Antunes should take into account if those have been adequately addressed when deciding whether or not to fine the landlord. Ultimately, Antunes found that the fixes that the landlord has made in recent weeks — removing graffiti, putting up painted wooden boards over the door and some of the windows to prevent unwanted entry — are all “temporary” in nature. True repairs should be “permanent.” He described the “broken windows” philosophy by stating that a building in disrepair for so long only invites further disorder. “It’s kind of tough for me to be lenient” given how long this property has been a problem in the neighborhood. He then looked at Williams, and, in reference to the fine he was about to approve, he said, “I think we’re going to go with the $200,000, sir.” “I’m not here to just hang you by your toenails,” he said to Rozich. He said his role is also to bring “justice” to the community. Asked for a comment after Thursday’s hearing, Rozich said he will have to talk with his client about the new $200,000 fine. He said he doesn’t believe Levenhartz has paid the $59,000 fine from January. What about the future of this property? Does Levenhartz still plan on building 245 apartments here? “He’s currently marketing it,” Rozich said, and looking to sell the property to someone else. At Thursday’s hearing. Lyric Hall’s John Cavaliere. The screen on the wall of the meeting room showed rotating slides of 19th and 20th century paintings after losing connection to LCI’s computer. The post Landlord Fined $200K, Skips Hearing To Avoid Arrest appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less