Board of Aldermen Page 9
June 14, 2016
only ten days to get things done and they don’t have the money then they are going to have fine after
fine. Our grant programs that we have had over the years do take care of some of the necessary, you
know if somebody needs a roof and they don’t need the money or other things. All | am saying to you as
a Board is to have more than ten days. It takes five to seven days to get a permit if we are supposed to
do everything the right way which like water tanks you have to a permit on now. Even code enforcement
for Section 8 gives thirty days to fix things. I’m not saying all issues should be thirty days but to be
reasonable it should be in the writing to give some landlord’s thirty days to fix small items because if you
add $50.00 for every item, it adds up. | understand the Board wanting to make Nashua great again or on
People Magazine but the reality is that we just came out of a really bad recession and tenants cannot
afford extra rent. I’ve had Aldermen come to me and say people can’t afford the rents that they are
paying now which $600 - $800 per month. These kinds of fees will increase because the owners can’t
do it between the taxes, the water bill, sewer bill and insurance and mortgages. | mean some of you
maybe own your house and you don’t have a mortgage but there are mortgages out there for these
people to cover and | am not saying that we should give a handout to landlord’s but they are also
taxpayers in this city. They deserve some rights and | think it would be better to table this Bill and go
back to the committee and let’s work on it together. None of us landlord’s; we are all against this not
because we are bad landlord’s but we are wanting to have it in writing. We need warnings and a longer
time table to fix things; ten days is not acceptable. Even if you call a plumber right now, they are three
weeks out to even come and look at something. All | am saying is that you are basically giving fees to us
that we; | mean we are going to have fines because we can’t get plumbers or electricians there. If it’s in
the books and it says you have ten days and you can’t do it, what do you do, you are going to get a fine.
All | am saying is we need to have a more reasonable time period; thirty days is not unreasonable. It
doesn’t have to be a Board that says this landlord and this code enforcement person is not evenly
workable, even if they had one person, one Alderman and one code enforcement person working
together to say let’s give them a little more time, that’s all we are asking for. We want the respect and we
deserve the respect. These people pay their taxes and take care of their buildings for some of them for
thirty or forty years. All | am saying is if you are going to vote on something send it back and ask it to be
talked to in a discussion with the landlord’s too. None of us are bad landlords and most of the rents are
under $1,000. If we are having fees and everything else they are not going to be able to afford it, they
are going to raise the rents. The city wants better housing for these tenants but we have to work
together, this isn’t a one check all answer to this situation. The rooming house is a whole different
ballgame. That’s a whole thing with health and the Fire Marshall. That’s not code really because they
don’t deal with code. All | am saying is talk between each other and give us more time and let us talk,
and have a warning period in writing. We are asking for four things that are not unreasonable and | am
asking you to really consider our needs right now. Not just the needs of the tenants because the tenants
do deserve a clean place to live and I’m not taking that away from them. Most of the landlord’s | know;
89% to 95% are really good landlord’s. You might have a 5% margin. Maybe you have taken ten
landlords to court and you are inflicting all of these fines against good landlords because you feel that it’s
necessary, necessary against whom, us or the bad landlords that are going to be bad landlords
anyways? If you do these fines | think what you are going to find is these landlords are going to see their
buildings and you are going to have new Massachusetts landlords or wherever they are coming from;
Portsmouth that don’t have the same effort in keeping their buildings good. Most of these landlords live
here or they live in Hudson or Merrimack. They are not from out of state, they are local and they care
about their properties just like all of you Aldermen care about your properties. All they are asking for is to
be respected and considered in this ordinance. Please send it back and let’s work together. Thank you.
Mr. Bob Dione, 447 Main Dunstable Road
| am not going to repeat except for three key items. Mayor, | am happy to hear that you are going to go
after the bad landlords with all your gusto because that’s what is really needed. You need to make sure
that the tenants have a safe and healthy environment. How do you do that? | think there is a lot of merit
to what Peter, our spokesperson, the attorney, had brought up. It was taken in at the sub-committee
meeting and | believe it was presented to city council and then the ordinance came back virtually the
