Residents, landlords and city officials engaged in heated exchanges Thursday in their discussion of the Syracuse University off-campus area.

At the Southeast University Neighborhood Association annual meeting, several residents questioned officials about what constituted a city code violation in terms of a large number of students living together in the same apartment in the university area. Jim Blakeman, director of code enforcement in Syracuse, said at most, five non-related people can live in the same unit of the apartment. If there is one unit on the ground floor and another unit on the second floor then there can be five non-related people in each unit, he added.

Blakeman said it is difficult monitoring the number of people in an apartment because often people are just visiting, but officers make an attempt to find out by taking such steps as looking at how many names are on mailboxes. Laura Martin, a board member for SEUNA, gave an example of such a situation where a landlord on Ackerman Avenue tried converting his third-floor attic into more apartment units that lacked a fire escape. The landlord has been seeking permission to do this, and although initially denied, he has continued the court battle through three lawyers, she said.

“We are unable to say how many students were living in that apartment,” Martin said.

Joseph Tupper, a landlord in the university area and a representative from the Syracuse Property Owners Association, said the association represents about 85 percent of all student rentals in the area and are responsible landlords.

“The group of us have 3000 tenants and none of us have had a code violation or a health violation at all,” he said.

Blakeman said he did not know if all the members of SPOA had never had a violation but did know that a majority of the properties owned by SPOA comply with all code laws.

Pat Tinto, a person living in the university area and an SU professor in the School of Education, said SPOA needs to monitor itself and the students who rent from them better. Tinto said she loves the neighborhood for its diversity but think improvements can be made.

Another problem many of the residents had was the number of cars that students bring to the university area each year.

One of the problems with the number of cars near campus is that when they are ticketed they often have out-of-state license plates that are difficult for the police to track down, said Harry Lewis, president of SEUNA. He suggested that students register cars with the university to make it easier for police to enforce the tickets that are given out.

Laura Madelone, director of Off-Campus Student Services, said she does not know how feasible the plan would be because the program would have to be on the honor system and students would be under no obligation to disclose the personal information about their car.

It would not be a good idea to begin restricting students who register cars because of the economic impact it would have on the entire city, said Tupper.

“The students are the ones who feed the economy, to kick out these students would be disastrous to the economy,” he said. “This is predominantly a student neighborhood.”

Madelone said it is important for students to know more about violations so that they can know if their landlord is up to code.

“It is important for students to realize they are a part of this community,” she said.

Published on February 6, 2003 at 12:00 pm