That's trash, behind row of vacant Ocean homes. LCI attorney Williams and hearing officer Bernblum: You're fined. A Livable City Initiative (LCI) hearing officer approved more than $130,000 in anti-blight fines for six vacant Ocean Management properties that look like, well, trash.Julie Bernblum signed off on those financial penalties Tuesday morning during the latest proceedings of LCI’s quasi-judicial process for fining landlords whom the city’s anti-blight and housing code enforcement agency finds to be in violation of local law.A landlord and attorney in her own right, Bernblum is one of a half-dozen volunteer municipal hearing officers tapped by the mayor to preside over such hearings. Now that she has approved Tuesday’s LCI-requested fines, affected landlords, including Ocean, have 30 days to appeal — or else the city can place liens on their properties and seek civil judgments in state court. Gerald Giaimo, an attorney representing Ocean, told the Independent on Wednesday that he and his client had no idea Tuesday’s hearing had taken place. He said he had yet to receive any official communication from LCI about the fines.Giaimo confirmed that the Fitch Street properties in question ​“are all unoccupied, boarded up, and have been slated for demolition.” Due to ​“a lengthy permitting process to accomplish this demolition,” he said he could not provide ​“a precise completion date.”He vowed to contest the fines approved by the LCI hearing officer on Tuesday, and questioned the procedures city government followed ​“in its effort to single out and punish this property owner.”"Abandonment & Blight"166, 168, and 170 Fitch: "Are they planning to knock these down?" The six Ocean properties that racked up $21,700 each in anti-blight fines on Tuesday make up a row of dilapidated, vacant single-family homes located at 166, 168, 170, 172, 174, and 176 Fitch St. in Beaver Hills.City land records show that Ocean — a megalandlord-property management-real estate investment firm that is run by Shmuel Aizenberg and that has been selling off its New Haven portfolio in recent years — has owned four of those properties since August 2020, and two since February 2021. The Ocean-affiliated holding company that owns the properties at 168, 172, 174, and 176 is called Fitch Development LLC, a hint that Aizenberg’s company might have initially planned on demolishing these buildings to make way for something new. An excavator that sits in the backyard of 166 Fitch also points towards such a potential redevelopment plan. (Ocean also owns the adjacent 70-unit apartment complex at 311 Blake, which the building’s tenants union is looking to buy. A few blocks away, Ocean has long been in the process of trying to build 129 new market-rate apartments at 500 Blake.)Whatever development plans Ocean might have once had for 166 to 176 Fitch appear to have long since stalled out — based on the vacant, boarded-up homes’ conspicuous states of disrepair. The buildings appear to suffer from collapsed porches, peeling paint, and decayed roofs. The backyard of 172 Fitch is currently piled with old mattresses and broken furniture and trash bags, all of which sit next to a filled-to-capacity dumpster.City land records show that, in late April, LCI sent Ocean civil citations for each of these properties, noting that the landlord had failed to address building maintenance, nuisance, blight, and garbage concerns found during a March inspection by LCI’s Raymond Jackson.“Repair peeling paint and missing and damaged shingles,” reads the inspector’s findings in one part of each of those six citations. ​“Complaints from neighbors about abandonment and blight due to lack of upkeep.”Each civil citation makes clear that the landlord shall be fined up to $100 per day for each day the violations continue. The documents also state that the landlord can contest the LCI findings before a hearing officer. If the landlord does not proactively request such a hearing within 10 days, however, ​“you will be deemed to have admitted liability, and the Hearing Officer may assess the fine without further notice.”Which is exactly what happened on Tuesday."They're Just In Such Bad Condition"At Tuesday's LCI hearing officer proceeding. In the third-floor City Hall office of LCI Executive Director Liam Brennan, city Assistant Corporation Counsel Sinclair Williams presented Bernblum with manila folder after manila folder of documents pertaining to unsightly properties that landlords have refused or failed to keep up in accordance with local law.The final six were for 166, 168, 170, 172, 174, and 176 Fitch.“This whole stack” has the same owner, Williams said, spread across two different LLCs — Fitch Development LLC and SAPRE Holdings LLC. ​“They are all owned by Ocean.”In each case, he told Bernblum that LCI had sent out a notice of violation on March 14. A civil citation for each property was delivered to the landlord’s 101 Whitney offices on May 7.“I tried contacting [Ocean], and they won’t contact me back. They won’t pick up the phone,” LCI inspector Raymond Jackson told the LCI attorney and the volunteer hearing officer on Tuesday. ​“The conditions are the same” at these properties as when he first issued these violation notices many months ago.“I go by every day,” he added, during the brief hearing on 174 Fitch. ​“It’s the same. They haven’t done nothing.”Bernblum could barely restrain her surprise as she looked at printed-out pictures of these rundown buildings. ​“Does someone live here?” she asked about 174 Fitch.“No, just a couple of raccoons, cats, and dog,” Jackson replied.“Are they planning to knock these down?” Bernblum asked, looking at a picture of 172 Fitch. ​“They’re just in such bad condition.”The word was that ​“they had some plan to do” that,” Brennan replied. But, at least as of now, those demolition plans appear to be on hold.Brennan pointed out that the dumpster, or ​“transfer station,” currently located behind one of these properties, has only made things ​“wore.” “They’re dumping trash behind the house, [and] using it as their own private dumpyard.”Whoever invented the term ​“transfer station” was a marketing genius, Williams mused. This is just a pile of trash.The "transfer station" behind 172 Fitch. The row of rotting Fitch St. homes. Excavator, not excavating, behind 166 Fitch. “This one looks like it’s gonna come down,” Bernblum said as she picked up a picture of 166 Fitch.The porch on this property did in fact collapse, Jackson said. And, not too long ago, ​“people was actually living in there.” They had electricity and everything, he said, even as the building stood in such disrepair.Do you ever hear from the landlord about these properties? Bernblum asked Jackson. No, the inspector repeated, but he does occasionally hear from the properties’ previous owner, who has expressed disbelief about what condition Ocean has let these buildings deteriorate to.Is there a mortgage on these properties? Bernblum asked. It’s hard to imagine that whatever entity has issued a mortgage isn’t concerned about these properties’ current condition. (The answer appears to be no. City land records show that, in September, the Branford-based Sachem Capital Corp. released and discharged a $445,000 mortgage that it had issued in August 2020 to Ocean’s Fitch Development LLC for 168, 172, 174, and 176 Fitch.)After that back and forth, for each of Ocean’s six uncontested cases on Tuesday, Williams requested that Bernblum find the landlord to be in default and approve a $21,700 fine. In each case, Bernblum agreed.LCI: No Fines Paid Yet; "We Fully Intend" To Seek Civil JudgmentsLCI Executive Director Liam Brennan conferring with agency deputy Frank D'Amore. Tuesday isn’t the first time in recent weeks that an LCI hearing officer has approved some hefty fines for landlords in violation of local law. Have any of those fines been paid? Are these hearings just a show, or does LCI actually follow up with trying to enforce these penalties?Brennan has stressed to the Independent after each recent hearing officer proceeding that LCI’s goals here are compliance with local law, as opposed to collecting big checks from landlords.This reporter asked about the latest with an $18,000 fine issued to Bethany-based landlord Jianchao Xu in October as well as with a total of $27,000 in fines for 27 different landlords issued in November. Those fines were all related to landlords not complying with the city’s residential rental licensing program.It’s been more than 30 days since those fines were approved. Have any been paid? Has LCI gone to state court to try to collect?“While no payments have been received to date, LCI is committed to pursuing full enforcement,” Brennan told the Independent. ​“Dr. Xu and his representative have been in communication with our office, and we have clearly outlined next steps in the legal process, including appeal options, under state statute.“To this end, we are actively preparing both the civil judgment filings and property liens as our next enforcement steps. We have not yet filed civil judgments in Superior Court or placed liens on the properties. However, under Connecticut General Statutes, we have up to 12 months from the date of assessment to file these civil judgments, and we fully intend to do so.”Brennan also noted that Xu ​“has made payments on other outstanding obligations to LCI, which shows that our enforcement processes do lead to collection of assessed fines. The residential licensing program remains a crucial tool for ensuring safe, properly maintained rental properties in New Haven, and we are committed to using all available legal remedies available to us to ensure properties are in compliance with our housing code.”Ocean's Shmuel Aizenberg and attorney Gerald Giaimo in state court earlier this year.