Deidre Williams | April 9, 2024

Three years ago when Buffalo launched a Proactive Rental Inspections program, it was the city’s latest attempt to solve a lead poisoning problem that has plagued Buffalo’s old housing stock for decades.

Mayor Byron W. Brown said it would help the city identify lead paint contamination and correct the problem “before it can hurt residents.”

But Brown’s commissioner of permits and inspection services now says the inspection program lacks the funding to be sustainable and the PRI ordinance should be revised.
 
Commissioner Catherine Amdur said in a report she filed with the Common Council that funding is a problem because landlords are not charged fees for the city inspections; the inspections are more time-consuming than expected; and the ordinance places Erie County Health Department responsibilities on the city.

She recommended in a March letter to Council members that the Council revise the ordinances that established the inspection program.

She also noted the city is not the government agency with the primary responsibility for lead paint remediation or lead poisoning.

“It is not equitable for the city to take on the duties of the Erie County Department of Health when we already have extensive responsibilities designed to us by the city charter and New York State Division of Building Standards and Codes,” she said.
 
“It is important to clarify that the City of Buffalo is not the government agency with the primary responsibility for lead paint or lead poisoning. We have a supporting role with state and county partners,” she said.

Critics of the Brown administration say they understand Buffalo does not have the primary responsibility for lead poisoning, but said the city isn’t even fulfilling the requirement of its own law.
 
“They celebrated this law as a proven lead solution, which it has been in other places,” including Rochester, said Andrea Ó Súilleabháin, executive director of the think tank Partnership for the Public Good.

The nonprofit organization was among a group of 39 community groups that gathered in Niagara Square in February to urge the city to inspect far more rental properties for indications of toxic lead paint, such as chipping and peeling paint, as required by the city’s PRI law.
 
“There’s no question you have to implement that law. The law has passed so there’s really no point in saying it’s not our job or even saying we don’t have the money for this. It was adopted as law in the City of Buffalo, so you have to figure it out now,” said Ó Súilleabháin.

Hazards of lead paint

Lead has been banned from paint since 1978, but it remains among the most common environmental toxins for young children.
 
Lead is a toxin that even at small doses can cause serious health effects in children, including lower IQ levels and learning and behavior problems. In adults, lead exposure is linked to heart disease, high blood pressure and kidney and nervous system problems.

Every year, thousands of children under the age of 6 are diagnosed with elevated blood lead levels in Erie County. Thousands more are exposed to lead hazards in their homes every day.

Lead exposure remains a major issue in cities like Buffalo and Rochester with concentrated, segregated poverty and old, deteriorated housing stock.

Children who survive severe lead poisoning cases may be left with intellectual disability and behavioral disorders, according to the World Health Organization, which says there is no known safe level of concentration in the blood.

The city’s law

The city’s PRI ordinance requires all one- and two-family non-owner occupied properties to register with the Department of Permits and Inspections via the rental registration, even if the properties are vacant. All occupied properties will be scheduled for proactive inspections and will be required to maintain a certificate of compliance. If a property is inspected and fails to meet the standards for a certificate, it will not be permitted to operate as an income property and tenants may not be evicted for nonpayment of rent.

Under the PRI legislation, city building inspectors check for various factors affecting health and safety, including lead paint, infestation, safety exits, smoke detectors, carbon dioxide detectors and leaking pipes.

The goal was to ensure rental properties meet the minimum standards of safe and healthy housing in compliance with applicable city and building codes, according to the city’s website.
 
The PRI inspections are performed at no cost to the owner. They are supposed to occur as part of an automated process.

Since 2021, when the PRI local law was implemented, Buffalo has completed 4,382 inspections out of 36,000 units covered under the legislation, and 458 certificates of compliance have been issued, according to the report Amdur filed with the Common Council. This year, city inspectors have completed 200 PRI inspections and issued 89 certificates.

Mayor lauded the program

When the inspection program was announced, city officials lauded the program as a way to improve the quality of housing in Buffalo and improve the health of residents. Brown praised it as a way to combat lead poisoning.

“Over the last several years, the city has worked aggressively to combat lead poisoning in our neighborhoods,” Brown said. “This latest step increases the ability of the inspectors to proactively identify problem housing units and work with the landlords to correct these issues before residents, and especially children, are poisoned and forced to deal with the long-term health problems that accompany exposure to lead paint.”

Brown also wrote an article for the National League of Cities about the city’s lead paint strategies. He said the new legislation could correct the problem because it connects a landlord’s ability to rent with an inspection that “guarantees a quality home.”

“Renters will no longer have to deal with potential lead contamination after moving in when they are more vulnerable to landlord inflexibility. With this legislation, landlords are forced to deal with this issue before they’re able to legally rent a unit.”

But now, Amdur said the program is not sustainable the way it is structured.

Problems with the ordinance

In her report to the Council, Amdur outlined issues with the PRI ordinance.

For instance, landlords are not charged a fee for the inspections of their rental units, and it is not feasible to continue the program without charging for inspections, she said. She estimated it would cost Buffalo taxpayers about $2.1 million per year to fully implement the inspection program.

“It’s worth noting that the City of Rochester, which is cited as a model for PRI, charges a fee for their inspections. Our program is currently paid for by $1 million in (American Rescue Plan) funding, which will be exhausted by the end of 2026,” she said.

As of March 22, the city had $136 million – or 41% – left of its $331 million allotment of ARP funds, according to the city’s Finance Commissioner Delano Dowell.

The city has allocated tens of millions of dollars of its ARP funds for revenue replacement to offset budget shortfalls and costs.

Amdur also cited the length of time to conduct the PRI inspections, which “have proven to be some of the more time-consuming inspections performed by our department.”

The PRI ordinances place responsibilities of Erie County on the city, Amdur said. And the schedule of inspections, every three years, is aggressive and unattainable so early in the program. “Even the City of Rochester typically inspects on a six-year cycle.”

And she said, fines and penalties for noncompliance were mentioned but not properly written into the legislation, “making enforcement challenging or impossible in some cases.”

Who is responsible?

The Erie County Sanitary Code, Buffalo City Code and State Property Maintenance Code all require property owners to prevent paint deterioration and to maintain their properties in a condition that is not conducive to lead poisoning, according to the New York State Attorney General’s Office.

Since 2017, the AG’s Office has been investigating lead paint hazards in Buffalo.

The Erie County Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program is responsible for the case management of lead poisoned children in Erie County, according to the county’s website. The program addresses the potential for lead exposure, as well as preventing lead poisoned children from further exposure. The program conducts investigations and provides information to the parents or guardians of children under age 18 who have tested positive for elevated blood lead level.

The city has been saying lead poison prevention is the county’s responsibility off and on for about a decade, Ó Súilleabháin said, which is one of the reasons the Buffalo and Erie County Lead Safe Task Force was created, she said.

Until last December, Amdur was a co-chair of the task force, along with Melanie Desiderio, deputy environmental health director at the Erie County Health Department. They remain members of the task force.

The task force “was really to say yes, the county Health Department has some specific duties in state law around childhood lead poisoning,” Ó Súilleabháin said. But the city has some responsibility, too.
For instance, if a child gets a positive lead test at the pediatrician, the county Health Department is notified, and it will go out and see if there’s a possible source at the home.

“That’s definitely true in state law, but that does not mean that the city doesn’t also have legal responsibilities. There are both city and state code enforcement laws and regulations that require the city to check for this,” Ó Súilleabháin said. “Checking for peeling paint and lead hazards is in the city code, and then most blatantly in 2020 the PRI law that they passed says expressly under its purposes: full remediation of lead base paint hazards.”