Chautauqua County Public Health Director Lacey Wilson and Director of Environmental Health Jessica Wuerstle speak to Jamestown City Council (March 18, 2024)
New York State is working on implementing a lead paint rental registry for high risk areas.
Jamestown is ranked seventh in the state for lead poisoning, with 60 children in the 14701 zip code being affected by lead poisoning a year.
Chautauqua County Public Health Director Lacey Wilson said the registry is not meant to hurt property owners, but help them, “It’s actually meant to support local property owners. There’s a lot of funding opportunities and things that will flow down to us. But this is more so a way to reign in what we informally talk about as predatory property ownership and predatory rental property ownership.”
County Environmental Health Director Jessica Wuerstle said the registry is a preventative approach to dealing with lead, “So, the idea is that every structure in the 14701 zip code that has two or more rental units will be subjected to this inspection process on a three-year cycle. So, the statistics that we have gotten from New York State estimate that’s approximately 5,062 apartments/rental units.”
Wuerstle said the state is still rolling out what funding may be available as well as what the software platform will be, “Essentially, the software platform is going to have multiple different users. It’s going to be open to landlords so they can register their own properties. It’s going to be open to me and our team at the health department. It will be potentially open to code enforcement officers. In each of those different sort of levels of access we’ll be able to see a different part of the registry.”
Wuerstle said the County Health Department is responsible for implementing the program and will likely being handling the inspections in the 14701 zip code. She said they will partner with Jamestown’s Housing Code Enforcement officers as well as code enforcement from other towns and villages inside the 14701 zip code.
Wuerstle said rental properties that are rehabilitated will reserve some form of a “Lead Safe” certificate.
She anticipates the inspections will start in Fall 2025.
Leave a Reply