Bill aims to remedy Buffalo's blighted buildings (The Buffalo News)

Two state lawmakers are pushing a bill they say will allow the city of Buffalo to repair and rehabilitate dilapidated and blighted buildings and require neglectful landlords to pay for the work.

The legislation, sponsored by state Sen. Sean Ryan and Assembly Member Jonathan Rivera, both Democrats, would enable a court-ordered receiver to pay for necessary repairs to bring the buildings up to code, then initiate legal actions to require the owners to pay for the work.

While the city’s housing court is authorized to engage in receiverships, no existing procedure exists to remedy code violations. The bill, dubbed the City of Buffalo Historic Preservation Receivership Act, would establish protocols and language to allow the city to move forward on the receiverships, the lawmakers said in a memo for the bill.

The proposed law passed the Senate by a vote of 61-0 on May 24. It was referred to the Assembly’s Cities Committee in early June. State lawmakers, who ended their annual legislation session last month, are not expected back in the state Capitol until the start of their next session in January.

Ryan and Rivera, joined by Buffalo Common Council Member Mitchell Nowakowski, who represents the Fillmore District, detailed their plan at a news conference outside 2 St. Louis Place, a 3,888-square-foot, three-story brick building with five apartments that has been the subject of more than two dozen complaints since 2010.

More than three years ago, Ryan noted, he, Rivera and Nowakowski spoke at a news conference outside other buildings in the Cobblestone District that they requested be placed in a receivership program to bring them up to code. Last month, a fire deemed suspicious scorched the 19th-century buildings at 110 or 118 South Park Ave.

“We don’t want to be back in front of this building after a fire rips through it, or a storm knocks a wall out,” Ryan said.

Rivera said across the state, housing preservation issues have been caused by some local governments but also by landlords who are intentionally indifferent and doing little to nothing with their properties.

“Enough is enough. We have to come up with different tools and we have to be aggressive about it because slumlords and abandoned structures cost the city taxpayers a lot of money,” Nowakowski said.

Nowakowski introduced a resolution at Tuesday’s Common Council meeting asking the city to support the state bills and “consider receivership as a tool and remedy in cases of severely neglected and substandard housing dwellings with existing code violations.

He noted that a squatter emerged from 2 St. Louis Place while he was holding a news conference there, illustrating the danger of the situation.

In 2020, The Buffalo News identified the St. Louis Place property’s landlord as Charles J. Dobucki. At the time, because Dobucki paid his city taxes and fees, the city could not seize his property, Jessie Fisher, executive director of the nonprofit Preservation Buffalo Niagara group said at the time.

Dobucki still owns the property, according to Erie County’s Department of Real Property Tax Services.

On Tuesday, Bernice Radle, the current executive director of Preservation Buffalo Niagara, a certified receiver, said more than $100,000 is already in a bank account to fix repairs to the St. Louis Place building, if authorized by housing court.

“Preservation matters in Buffalo,” she said at the news conference. “It brings in tourism dollars. It brings in tax money. We want to see our taxes not have to be increased over and over and over again.”

Lynn Wilson, who lives near the location, said she has seen a dead body, drug users and a fire at the site.

“I don’t want to live like this anymore,” Wilson said, asking the officials to “fix this problem.”

Michael DeGeorge, a spokesman for Mayor Byron Brown, said the city would review the state bill.