Landlord who was denied auction property defends his record
Michael Pullinzi says he has a record as a landlord that he will stack up against anybody.
He feels he was treated unfairly by the Batavia City Council on Monday when the council voted 5-4 to deny him a property at 9 Willow St. that he won in a city auction of delinquent tax properties.
"I challenge them to do a fair comparison of all landlords in the city on the same seven-year period, and I guarantee I will be near the bottom of that list," Pullinzi said in a comment left on the site. "I put over $100K into my properties last year alone and have several open contracts for windows, roofs, siding, carpet, already for this year. I have always been very cooperative with code personnel and all issues are resolved promptly."
Pullinzi's comment was removed because The Batavian has a policy of not editing comments, but there was one sentence that ran counter to site standards.
A copy of the memo given to council is thin on details, but lists reported violations that appear to have more to do with tenant conduct than landlord misconduct.
The list violations include failure to remove debris, yard waste and garbage. The memo also cites grass violations in "multiple" years at 4 Swan St.
Other reported violations include "paint" and "interior viol." There was also reportedly an unlicensed auto reported at 44-46 Walnut St. in 2003.
"If they had bothered to contact me, I could have explained the most of the 13 code citations over seven years were tenants putting out an extra bag of trash," Pullinzi said. "Most issues in the notices were resolved before I even received the notice and I never had to received a secondary notice on any matter."
The memo states that all violations were corrected and that none of the property owners who bought property at the auction had any outstanding violations, nor had any of the property owners been billed for corrective actions taken by the city.
Among the violations Pullinzi said he received notice on was for a driveway that needed potholes fixed.
"The problem was that it was not my driveway and instead was a city alleyway along the side of my property," Pullinzi said. "To date, the city has not fixed the potholes they demanded I fix, and it has been years."
While the city memo doesn't specify police calls to properties owned by Pullinzi, he said any concern about such calls is misplaced.
"I rent to a lot of handicapped and special-needs tenants and the majority of the police contacts were for emergency medical care calls," Pullinzi said. "Others were for my finding a tenant in a diabetic coma about a year ago, and another contact was my finding the tenant deceased and contacting police. I guess (City Council President Marianne) Clattenburg and (Councilwoman Kathy) Briggs are saying no one should rent to ARC or special-needs individuals or those with medical concerns."
Pullinzi owns properties at 4 Swan, 44-46 Walnut St., 25 Fisher Park, 203 Ross St. and 511 Ellicott St.