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Just under half of Syracuse’s properties are occupied by their owner, according to data from Open Data Syracuse. Homeownership can be a crucial part of economic stability, according to Syracuse University geography professor Timur Hammond.

Throughout the city, Syracuse’s median property value in owner-occupied properties is 13% higher than in rental properties, according to data analyzed by The Daily Orange.

Hammond added that the differences between rental and owner-occupied housing within the university neighborhood includes different levels of maintenance and quality of the housing.

The balance between rent and upkeep costs is a tension landlords face, Hammond said. An improving rental market may lead a landlord to invest more in property upkeep, he said. Rental properties may also require more work than their owner-occupied counterparts.

Hammond said that unplowed driveways and icicles are often ignored but are signs of a lack of upkeep for a property. These signs are especially present within the university neighborhood, he said.

“It’s one thing if landlords live in the city and they have a vested interest in the city of which they’re a part (of), but it becomes really easy for landlords who live outside of Syracuse to see these properties as only kind of dollars and cents, financial calculations,” Hammond said.

When landlords are not around the city on an everyday basis, they may not see the impact of their lack of investment, Hammond said, which makes it easier to justify the bare minimum instead of taking on maintenance as part of the shared responsibility of living in Syracuse.

Hammond added that the location of a landlord does not entirely indicate “good” or “bad,” but does play a role in how their decisions are made.

Mary Traynor, an organizer with the Syracuse Tenants Union and a staff attorney at Legal Services of Central New York, sees things differently.

“I don’t really see a difference (between out-of-town landlords and local landlords),” she said. “It’s easy to blame so-called out of towners, but that lets our local, well-known slumlords off the hook.”

Traynor also said many of the poorly maintained low-income housing complexes in Syracuse tend to serve majority Black communities. She said the lack of investment in properties such as these indicates landlords are being motivated by profits.

“You have low-income Black people renting from white men who are just making money hand over fist and not putting in any money,” Traynor said. “They don’t give a damn about Syracuse.”

According to data analyzed by The D.O., the average amount of unpaid taxes is 51% higher in rental properties than owner-occupied properties in Syracuse.

A bill introduced to the New York State Legislature in 2019 looking to protect renters would prevent eviction “without good cause.” The law would set a limit on how much rent can be raised per year in non-rent stabilized properties.

Rachel May, who represents Syracuse in the State Senate, co-sponsored the bill.

“We’re trying to get Good Cause Eviction protection because when tenants call code enforcement, which is the super legal way to do things, landlords evict them,” Traynor said. “So tenants won’t call code enforcement because they don’t want to be evicted.”

Traynor added that frequently repairs or upkeep do not result from a citation, regardless of whether a tenant is evicted or not.

Hammond also said tenants have limited options when dealing with landlords who fail to adequately upkeep properties. Residents can call code enforcement or work with organizing groups like the Syracuse Tenants Union to advocate for themselves, both of which are contingent on tenants having the time or energy to do so, he said.

Alternatively, Traynor sees community ownership of housing, via methods such as community land trusts or co-ops, as a solution to ensure more people have the opportunity to have a stake in their housing and create environments with improved living conditions.

Traynor said she believes housing is a public good — if community land trusts were deployed at a large scale in the city, people would have “clean, safe places to live with dignity,” she said.

“People do need to control their own housing, own their own housing,” Traynor said. “It can’t be left up to developers who need to make profit on it.”

Published on March 10, 2022 at 12:50 am

Contact Kyle: [email protected] | @Kyle_Chouinard