Housing Code

A senior Baltimore housing inspector who was punished after allegations that he had worked for and accepted cash from contractors is being suspended today without pay for violating the city's housing code.Leon A. Peters, an electrical inspector since 1974, will remain on suspension for 28 days for a conviction Sept. 11 on eight violations of the city code as a landlord. Peters also is facing contempt charges for failing to pay $820 in fines for the housing violations.Peters has appealed the conviction and said last night that he never accepted cash from contractors and did not deserve to be suspended.

Noting alleged housing code violations and threats to the health and safety of residents, the state has obtained an emergency order taking control of three apartment buildings owned by the financially troubled Baltimore Corporation for Housing Partnerships.Court records show the partnership properties were placed in receivership late last month as a result of a petition filed on behalf of the state Department of Housing and Community Development.Lawyers for the state charged that the partnership had been "derelict" in its duties and failed to correct "serious housing code violations."

Jack Bowen says people sometimes drive through his Middle River neighborhood just to see the ramshackle house that stands out like a sore thumb."It's known all over the area," says Bowen, a 50-year resident of Aero Acres. "It's pretty bad." The interior is crowded floor-to-ceiling with items the owner has collected from the streets, he says.But starting tomorrow, Baltimore County officials will have a new tool to use against homes that are neighborhood eyesores but are owner-occupied and exempt from the housing code.

A bill that would expand Baltimore County's rental-only housing code to cover the exterior of owner-occupied and vacant homes was approved by the County Council last night, but it won't take effect until next year.Proponents see the change as central to their effort at preserving older county neighborhoods increasingly troubled with blight. "Community conservation has to be more than a slogan," Perry Hall Democrat Vincent J. Gardina said. "It has to be real."Amendments delayed the effective date of the bill until Jan. 1 to cut the cost of hiring up to 14 new county inspectors who will be needed to enforce the expanded law. Other changes that clarified -- and perhaps narrowed -- the bill's focus won over one of the two opponents, and the measure passed on a 6-1 vote.

Concerned about the threat of urban blight, the Baltimore County Council appears likely to extend the county's rental housing code to include the exterior of owner-occupied and vacant homes.The bill is expected to be voted on tonight. It represents the latest battle in a decadelong tug-of-war between fighting urban blight and a lingering county sentiment that less government is best. The county enacted its rental-only housing code in 1988, under pressure from a state mandate.Five of the seven councilmen are sponsors of the bill, which sparked a long and sometimes heated debate on practical and philosophical issues at a council work session last week -- including concerns about intrusion, and how the measure would be enforced.

Mary Gardner and her husband are not slum landlords. Their impeccably renovated three-story, red-brick apartment building on Park Avenue helps anchor a neighborhood that could rightly be called one of Baltimore's jewels.But three weeks ago, city inspectors pored over their property at 834 Park Ave. and cited them for 20 violations of Baltimore's housing code -- including a small patch of peeling paint in the hall and a cracked sidewalk in their back yard.The reason they received such intense scrutiny is that Ms. Gardner and her husband, Michael Savino, work for the city Department of Housing and Community Development.

THE REAPPOINTMENT of Housing Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III should not be confirmed until the mayor investigates incidents in which certain housing officials have ignored the very laws the public entrusts them to uphold.Conflicts of interest are bound to arise when city policy allows these officials to own slum dwellings that their own department is supposed to inspect. But when they also ignore or quash citations to repair these properties, this is an abuse of power that demands an outside investigation by Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke.

To city housing inspectors, Arthur D. Gray is a well-known landlord.He is a scofflaw who ignores their orders to fix his property for months at a time. He dodges thousands of dollars in potential fines. And, with a phone call, he can make an inspector's life difficult.But he is more than just a troublesome landlord. He is a top aide to Housing Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III and is paid $51,300 a year by the very agency responsible for controlling blighted properties in Baltimore.He has owned four rental properties in the city that have been cited repeatedly over the past five years for everything from rat infestation and flooding, to a collapsed roof and illegal electrical wiring.

An article in Friday's editions of The Sun had an incorrect date of Baltimore Housing Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III's return to work from vacation. He returned last Monday.The Sun regrets the errors.In the wake of disclosures that Baltimore housing officials own rundown rental properties, Housing Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III has ordered all 671 department employees to report for the first time their real-estate interests.The city also began inspecting properties owned by 20 department employees -- newly identified in an internal investigation ordered by Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke -- to determine whether any pose health hazards to tenants or otherwise violate the city's housing code.