Halena Sepulveda | October 15, 2024

After the Partnership for the Public Good filed to sue the City of Buffalo, alleging the city failed to follow its Proactive Rental Inspections, or PRI, law, the city filed a motion to dismiss, arguing the responsibility for inspections falls to individual landlords and not the commissioner.

“We think we’re right on the law that there is a violation of the state constitution, and that the city has not been performing the mandatory duties that the Buffalo Common Council imposed in 2020 when it passed a proactive rental inspection law requiring inspections to be carried out of all one-to two-family non-owner occupied rental properties in the city of Buffalo,” said Matthew Parham, director of litigation and advocacy for the Western New York Law Center, which is suing the City of Buffalo. 

As of March 2024, when the last commissioner report was filed, only around 4,800 of the 36,000 rental properties had been inspected.

That report issued by the commissioner recommended the Department of Permit and Inspection Services, along with the Common Council and the Corporation Counsel, revise the ordinances that make up the PRI Program.

“Ultimately, the court should order the city to comply with the law,” Parham said. “So there would have to be some resources put into actually carrying out the inspections.” 

The city’s attorney declined to comment on the case.