OSWEGO, N.Y. -- The streets of Oswego are littered with code enforcement violations -- more than 300 cited in August alone.
A local landlord calls it terrible.
"There's just things that you can't take care of anymore and people just running rampant, out of town landlords," local landlord Jim Smegelsky said. "It needs to stop."
Mayor Billy Barlow is proposing measures to help. Monday, he pitched an amendment that will strengthen the authority of code enforcement, and also pitched increasing the rental permit fee from $30 to $150 for a three-year period.
"It's well overdue," Smegelsky said. "It may take some teeth into neglecting landlords and out-of-town landlords."
Not all landlords are seeing that side. Some are expressing frustration that they're paying the price for a small minority of negligent landlords.
"We're trying to generate even more money now, and I just don't really understand the purpose if we're not going to enforce the new code or the written code," landlord Debra Engelke said.
She's worried the extra costs won't impact negligent landlords and will force others to take action.
"They're going to have to shift the cost to their tenants," Engelke said. "For some college students who are working their own way through college, that's going to be difficult."
Barlow hopes that residents are ultimately helped with the added enforcement. He said targeting specific properties will benefit its neighbors.
"Slowly but surely that helps us begin to expand our tax base, but also makes it so that the city of Oswego actually has neighborhoods that are appealing to working class families, and trying to attract new families to move here," Barlow said.
Barlow's proposals will move to the city council. Lawmakers will likely set a public hearing, with a final vote expected later next month.