Changes in Rochester NY's Lead Paint Clearance Reimbursment.

This is a communication from Gary Kirkmire, City of Rochester Director of Inspection & Compliance Services, sent to the NYS Coalition of Property & Business owners. This applies to owners of rental properties concerned with Lead Paint clearance.

The lead clearance reimbursement will be discontinued.

In 2006 council initially set aside $104,000 to be used for this purpose. The intent was to provide some relief to small property owners who may only own one or two properties and as a result may not have been as involved as others may have been in the two years leading up to the ordinance and in which case they did not have an opportunity to be fully informed and prepared. It was a proper device to use in the early period of the ordinance when our primary focus was on education. As you know, we expanded on that initial intent and have been providing the reimbursement to any owner who has not already received three. After three and a half years of the ordinance the original allocation of money has been spent and there are few owners who are unfamiliar with the expectations of a properly maintained dwelling environment.

Expanding the opportunity for a second wipe test.

As you know, currently we will conduct a second wipe tests when the first one fails only if it does not exceed to following thresholds; no more than 50% of the wipes are positive, or no one sample is twice the EPA standard. In an effort to provide some additional relief and offset some of the situations where private clearance is required, we are changing this policy to simply say if no more than 50% come back positive we will conduct a second test.

Changing the applicable time frame for passed wipe tests from two years to three.

As you know, currently once you have either passed one of our proactive wipe tests or received private clearance, that unit will not have to be tested again for two years, unless we find interior deteriorated paint. We are changing that applicable time frame from two years to three. This will allow us to be more in line with our C of O renewal schedule of three and six years.