50 Fitch’s Whalley facade before graffiti removal. A 41-year-old Florida-based owner of a deteriorating corner building at Whalley Avenue and Fitch Street continues to avoid a court appearance — and leave his property a dangerous mess — more than four months after the state issued a warran t for his arrest. He also has $259,000 in fines sitting unpaid just as long. On both scores, he’s promising city officials to get to work on seven-year-old unaddressed blight in hopes of making all that go away. A reporter’s inquiry about the warrant led to a phone call that might lead to major work getting underway. In recent weeks the owner has also addressed graffiti on the building’s exterior. The arrest warrant was issued April 7 for 41-year-old Sim Levenhartz for violation of the state building code. The city’s building department asked the state prosecutor’s office to approve the warrant out of frustration over Levenhartz’s failure to make required repairs dating back to when a car crashed into the southeastern side of the commercial building at 781 Whalley/50 Fitch in 2018. Levenhartz’s attorney said his client is in fact getting to work on fixing the building. He also said his understanding was that the city had put the warrant and fines “on hold” — a version at odds with the city’s building official, who initiated the warrant process with the state. Meanwhile, the city’s Livable City Initiative (LCI) in May issued more than $200,000 in anti-blight fines for Levenhartz’s failure to bring the long-vacant and dilapidated building up to code. A holding company controlled by Levenhartz has owned the building since 2019; he won city approval to build a new 245-unit apartment complex there but never followed through, instead seeking to sell the property. The quest to pressure Levenhartz to clean up an eyesore at the gateway to the Westville neighborhood reflects both the power of new tools the city has used to pressure problem landlords as well as the challenge of making scofflaws actually come to court and pay their fines. Still At Large The arrest warrant is a step the building department pursues with problem landlords it considers particularly uncooperative after years of code enforcement fails to work. Levenhartz avoided arrest on the warrant on May 14. He had a hearing scheduled that day before LCI on his anti-blight fines. Downtown’s top cop showed up at the hearing to serve the warrant. According to Levenhartz’s attorney, Ken Rozich, Levenhartz drove to the hearing, learned of the pending warrant, then drove away. Three months later, the warrant still hasn’t been served. That disappoints city Building Official Bob Dillon, who originally requested the warrant. He said Levenhartz did obtain a permit on May 21 to repair the damage from the car crash. But no work has been done since then, Dillon said. The permit is good for 180 days. “If they do nothing, I will delete the permit then,” he said. Having to appear before a judge can help motivate a recalcitrant building owner to finally act on blight, Dillon said. That’s the city’s main leverage in cases like these. “It’s frustrating,” Dillon said of the 781 Whalley delays. “A car went through that building. If you go in that building, there’s a gaping hole in the floor behind that wall. The wall has been compromised. It has some temporary reshoring. I want that work repaired so we can all move on. I was hoping the courts could resolve the matter and bring him before the magistrate.” Levenhartz did not respond to requests for comment. His attorney, Rozich, did. He told a different story from the city’s. Rozich said Levenhartz has gotten the repairs underway with an engineering study. He said a June 18 email from the city corporation counsel’s office left him under the impression that all building issues are “on hold,” which he took to refer to both the arrest warrant and the daily compounding of fines. He declined to share the email, saying it was confidential. He said the email did not specifically refer to fines or the warrant. (More on that email below in this story.) After the Independent contacted Rozich, Dillon said he received a call from a contractor working on the repair work for Levenhartz, whom Dillon trusts. Dillon said the contractor said he plans to start the repair work soon. “You haven’t yet,” Dillon said he responded. “If we get started, will the warrant go away?” Dillon said the contractor asked. “I will not release the summons” unless work actually happens, Dillon said he responded. The key first step: Levenhartz needs to fill out paperwork to the state for permission to block off the sidewalk to pedestrians before work can be done. “Since June they haven’t done” even that initial paperwork, Dillon said. “I said the warrant still stands. They said they will fill out the paperwork. I’ll believe it when I see it. I trust him to do the job. I know it’s not him.” (The contractor could not be reached for comment.) With thousands of warrants on file, the police department lacks the people power to send officers after everyone avoiding arrest. It prioritizes cases that involve dangers to the public, like domestic violence or homicides (such as this case, in which marshals picked up a suspect in Alabama), according to department spokesperson Officer Christian Bruckhart. A person wanted for violating the building code “is not necessarily a danger to the public,” he noted. Scofflaw Dilemma Meanwhile, Levenhartz’s scofflaw bill for anti-blight fines poses a test for LCI. The agency succeeded in getting a law passed to enable it to fine landlords more than in the past, and to add a $2,500 daily compounding fine for failure to pay, in order to crack down on blight. As of Monday, Levenhartz’s bill would have jumped to $779,000 if those compounding fines had been applied, according to LCI Executive Director Liam Brennan. However, on June 5 the city did indeed put Levenhartz’s mounting bill “on hold” at $259,000, Brennan said. That’s because Levenhartz did obtain a permit to fix the problems at the building. Brennan confirmed that Levenhartz did also perform short-term work to shore up the premises. But if Levenhartz does not complete the major work he promised within 180 days of June 5, the bill for his unpaid fines will immediately jump to the $779,000 and counting, Brennan said. In either case, Levenhartz does still owe the $259,000, according to Brennan. That amount is not “on hold.” Brennan confirmed that the Rozich did receive the June 18 email, from LCI’s dedicated assistant corporation counsel, Sinclair Williams. That email did say additional daily fines were now “on hold” pending Levenhartz’s follow-through on his work permit, Brennan said. That doesn’t change the fact that Levenhartz remains in arrears for his fines and the subject of an arrest warrant. “These fines have not been wiped out,” Brennan said. “He has not paid it. It’s a sword hanging over their head.” Technically, based on the unpaid $259,000 fines, LCI can put a lien on the property and foreclose on it for unpaid fines. But the city’s first priority is to pressure property owners to do the repair work. (Brennan said that it’s “not unheard of” for fined property owners who come through on repairs to negotiate down their fine balance.) Even if Levenhartz owed the full $779,000 in fines on the property, the city still wouldn’t be able to take control of it. That’s because the fines amount to less than the property’s $3.37 million appraised value. So if the city were to foreclose, it would have to put the property up for a public sale. That means a new problem owner can end up buying the property, which has had a string of owners who failed to fix it up. Brennan said the city doesn’t want to take that risk of “pushing it out randomly to the market.” He noted community concern over who will control the property. “We’re hoping in the meantime we can convince him to fix it,” Brennan said. The fines did have some effect, because Levenhartz cleaned up graffiti on the building’s front, cleaned up more graffiti that reappeared, then hired artists to spray-paint a mural on the wall. (Read about that here.) Brennan cited that work along with the short-term shoring up of the site as evidence that the city’s stepped-up efforts to hold landlords accountable can indeed lead to results. Another possible example: Levenhartz has stopped allowing illegal activity to take place on a vacant lot on the property, hidden behind a Citgo gas station. He had sublet the lot to someone who was charging people to “store broken-down wrecks,” as Dillon put it.   Dillon’s department issued a cease-and-desist order to Levenhartz about the lot for operating an automative-related business without a state license in violation of the city’s zoning ordinance. LCI also issued an anti-blight violation notice. The cars are gone. Dillon credited the lessee. He said the lessee claimed not to have known the operation was illegal and subsequently cleared out. Building Official Bob Dillon and blight-focused Assistant Corporation Counsel Sinclair Williams. Dereen Shirnekhi file photo Levenhartz-commissioned mural that replaced unauthorized graffiti at 781 Whalley. Credit: Thomas Breen File Photo The post Wanted Landlord Ducks Warrant, Fines appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less