Officials and residents have said one of the worst places in Norwich for illegal activity is a building at the corner of North Broad Street and Fair Street. (Photo by Tyler Murphy)

NORWICH – The City of Norwich is looking to combat the rise of homelessness, neglected properties, drug use and prostitution as business leaders and residents cry for help.

Within the last few years the area has seen a surge of criminal activity. Many issues involve vagrants occupying abandoned buildings or becoming illegal tenants at rental properties.

Residents say there are multiple locations in Norwich that are functioning as drug and prostitution houses.

Routinely, people are seen tearing through dumpsters and donation containers with little regard or apparent consequence.

Finding broken needles or seeing sketchy hand-to-hand transactions taking place on a street corner or in front of a run-down building is a sight few residents have not witnessed.

These are things that would have been an out of place outrage a decade ago.

Many blame New York State and local government for not responding to their concerns over the last few years, and the problems are getting worse.

The Norwich Common Council met on Tuesday to consider a new law that could eventually take properties or cite difficult landlords up to a $100 a day if they fail to respond to the city's demands.

Some local landlords expressed concern they would be unfairly punished. Many residents said the city was already not enforcing the laws it had. They also balked at the idea of hiring another person for code enforcement.

The law is still being considered and has not be enacted.

“We want to make sure we get this right and we want community participation, because at the end of the day we don't want to do anything that will have an adverse effect on the community or neighborhoods,” said council member Robert D. Jeffrey.

Landlord and business owner Richard Barnes was one of several to speak at the hearing and he questioned the competency of officials. He shared his own experience with evictions.

“As I stand here right now, I noticed the city lawyer isn't here,” he said.

He also questioned punishing local landlords. “I can not see how things occurring on, around, or near a property can make one of my properties liable,” he said.

“We have codes, I know we have codes. We have code officers and we have a police force. We also have a fire chief. These people need a backbone back to do their job and the city needs to help them.

This common council needs to help them. About five years ago I watched this common council take the backbone out of codes. You need to get behind them and put it back in,” he said.

He recalled being at a meeting with members of the board about four months ago, and asked them how long it takes to conduct an eviction. “How long does it take a landlord to get somebody out? None of you could answer that, or you just didn't want to. None,” he said.

He said it used to take between one and three months, but now it takes three to six months minimum. He said the 15-day deadline in the law was not enough time.

“I had a tenant go around on drugs in this town, throwing stuff out the window, and the police could not do nothing. Did not do nothing,” he said.

He said eventually the Norwich police returned after the woman starting throwing knives out the window and took her to the hospital for evaluation. He blamed drugs.

“Drugs are a problem in this city and it needs to be addressed. I agree 100 percent with that,” said Barnes. “If I had my way I'd take every single drug dealer in Norwich and I'd hang them from a tree right here in city hall. So people can see it. I don't like them and I'll stand up right now to any one of them, but when you go after property owners for what somebody else is doing next door, or a tenant in their building they can not control, that is wrong.”

He said the city did not need a new nuisance officer. “You need codes to do their job,” he said.

“Let the police department hand out the tickets, I don't care. Hand them out! I don't care if it takes them paperwork, that's a part of their job and the city lawyer needs to step up,” he said.

Barnes added, “From what I'm hearing she needs to start showing up in these courts, she needs to start doing her job and helping the people who hired her to clean this city up. If she can't do that she needs to be replaced.”

He said he had asked officials to share information about Ward 4 citations to see if any had resulted in action recently. “Because I am not seeing anything done here in the city,” he said.

He said South Broad Street and Beebe Ave. had some of the worst problems and wondered what the city would do next. He said if the city took the properties they would have to be demolished or renovated. He asked, “How much money do you think that will cost taxpayers?”

Officials and residents have said one of the worst places in Norwich for illegal activity is a building at the corner of North Broad Street and Fair Street. Officials reported removing hundreds of needles from the building and its roof throughout the year. The building also has a non-functional water system and broken pipes, with more than a foot of human sewage in the basement.

They city is preparing to clean it up but still allows people live there. The building is often called the Blue Bird locally, relating to an old business that was once at the site. The Chenango County Department of Health has said the city should find accommodations for all the people staying there before taking action against it.

“I know you are after the Blue Bird. That's good. Everybody knows, I agree 100 percent. Get the druggers out of there, and the homeless,” Barnes said.

He recalled another recent experience where another long-time local landlord asked him to help with a difficult eviction. “After six months - five to six months of being in court, I go with him and meet the sheriffs. He said the Chenango County Sheriff's Office had to recheck everything to make sure everything was correctly done.

“The girl who was being evicted wasn't even there, and both front and back doors are locked. We turned around, had to open up the kitchen window,” he said. “When we got a ladder and started off into the kitchen window a guy came to the window and was wondering what we were doing.”

He said a group of people were inside ignoring them. They were escorted out by police.

Barnes said, “You should have seen the pig pen that was in that apartment. The drugs, the needles, just garbage thrown around. So here you have a good landlord, been in the business over 40 years, and had to deal with this. And you guys think we can clean it up in 15 days? And get these people out?”

He said the next day he again accompanied the landlord and police to conduct a second eviction at the apartment building. “He went through the courts for months to get the guy out,” he said. Barnes said the apartment was a mess, with the sink filled with dirty dishes that had been there for a period of time and food on the stove was spoiled with mold on it.

“If that person has that kind of respect for that apartment, and the fact he was being evicted, I do not care about his stuff. People do not have respect,” he said. “I don't want to have to worry about who is living next door. I don't want to have to worry about walking down the street. I know we have that problem, every city has it, but let’s start cleaning it up here.”

Another property owner, Jen Westervelt, also spoke. She and her husband own three properties in Norwich.

“I wish that there was a way to promote local landlord ownership of properties. I wish there was a way for us to really consider incentive programs for landlords who are putting effort into keep their properties quality,” she said.

“The reality is some of these properties are unsafe at best, for people to be living in,” she said. “If a quality landlord is to come in there and rehabilitate an entire property, there needs to be some sort of financial program.”

Westervelt said some landlords may benefit by more carefully screening thier tenants.

She said, “We've been blessed. We've been able to vet our tenants and, by and large, end up with solid tenants. There have been a couple exceptions to that, and I would echo the statements: it is very difficult to try and evict someone.”

“I think there is a better way than allowing our city to be taken over by absentee landlords that don't live here and don't have the investment in the community. They're not raising their children here. They are not working here. They may not care as much as those of us who do. Sorry if that is an untrue statement for some, but it seems to be the majority,” she said.

She added, “It's not just a quick turnover, lipstick on a pig, let's get the next tenant in. It's actually, let's really rework the property, make it quality. ”

Another resident, John, said he lives next door to a difficult property. He said, “It is horrible. Now if you lived next door to that I think you would find a way to take action.”

He turned and signaled to all the landlords who showed up at the meeting to share concerns. He said they were the good local landlords and weren't part of the problem.

“I got a lot of respect for police; they have been very polite and helpful, but generally nothing is getting done. So this is your attempt to make it better for all of us, it's not meant to hurt anybody,” he said.

“It seems to me there's a long time before you become a nuisance,” said John. “So when you get to that last point there should be a real meat to the penalty, up to $100 a day penalty, $100 minimum. Right?

He added, “Do whatever it is you have to do. We are just trying to make it a better place for all of us.”

Norwich resident and a manager at a local business Jeanie Barnes also spoke and said filing a complaint that no one took action over puts community members at risk of retaliation.

She said the city already had a number of ordinances that were not being enforced and shared her personal experience.

“There is a big issue and the issue is, the issues are not being addressed,” she said.

She said they had called about garbage being pilled up and torn apart in an alley near the movie theater.

“The police response has been, we will record it, we will put it in the books. Nobody comes out to take statements anymore, nobody comes out to pull our video any more, which we were doing on a weekly basis at one point. Now we are 'OK, we are aware. Good luck. We are trying to fix it,'” she said.

She said she had tried talking to the tenants and the building's landlord, but to no avail.

She said tenants are not disposing of the garbage correctly and speculated that people stealing and ripping open the bags were searching for things to sell, including people's personal information for maligned purposes.

“We've done these attempts but what we notice with the issues at the theater and around the theater is that the code enforcement officer, the fire chief, the police, are not able to respond to these appropriately, and I think a lot of this has to do with how this is being run through the court,” she said.

She recalled interactions with officials, saying, “They (police) are saying, 'Why are we arresting these people? Nothing gets done. They get back on the street and they then pose a risk to the people who filed the complaint.'”

She added, “We've had instances of people saying, 'You know, maybe you don't want to file a complaint against this person because we have had violent outbursts in the past.'” She noted how bail reform laws had made the issue difficult. “I notice we have a lot of repeat offenders who are continually released without bail. We also have offenders who are a danger to the public being released,” she said.

She said there was an open drug house on Division Street run by a person who was well-known to law enforcement and was often charged with one thing or another, but was never held in custody.

“There continues to be an area on Division Street where if you want to buy drugs, you go to that house. If you want to find a prostitute or someone who will pimp out a woman for you, you go to that house. And it's known in Norwich,” she said. She also noted the building on North Broad Street as being the same.

“I drive past the Blue Bird several times a day and I can drive by and watch a drug deal go on. I can go to Byrne Dairy and watch a drug deal go on. We know where these things are being done, but nothing is being done because when it comes to court, our court, the people who represent the City of Norwich are deciding this is not worth our time.”