SHARON — Some Sharon landlords have banded together to fight a bad rap, tenant troubles and laws that seem stacked against them.

“We work with the city,” said Sharon resident and rental owner Tony Delgros. “A lot of landlords don’t.”

The Sharon Area Landlord Assocation meets monthly and is looking for new members.

“With membership comes responsibility,” said J.K. “Jarrett” Whalen of HomeTown Community Rentals Inc. “We’re not all good landlords, but we’re trying to be better.”

The association serves an educational role for members and also acts as a sort of support group, though members acknowledge that they’re also competitors.

They police themselves and each other and share a list of “individuals of concern” that includes tenants who’ve been evicted or caused trouble in the past, association President Stan Lefes said. Some merchants even give members a discounted rate on items, he said.

About 40 percent of Sharon’s roughly 6,600 residences are not owner-occupied. In the last year or two, city officials have ramped up efforts to combat blight.

“We want you to maintain your investment. We want to see the property values go up in Sharon,” city Code Director Bob Fiscus told about 20 people at last week’s association meeting.

Fiscus talked about the city’s revamped code enforcement and rental inspection program that uses firefighters and Community Development Block Grant money to make sure rental homes are safe for tenants. Major concerns include properties overrun with garbage, broken windows and gutters and structural deficiencies.

“From the city’s perspective, we want you to be profitable,” Fiscus said. “The city greatly appreciates what this organization is doing.”

It can be hard for landlords to get tenants to cooperate with some requirements, and there are things laws say are up to landlords when in reality they’re more likely tenants’ tasks.

“We need to work together. We need to make the tenants accountable for their responsibilities but we need to keep up our end,” said Kelley Coryea of KMC Property Management.

Fiscus estimates about 40 percent of the hundreds of rental units in the city are not licensed for occupancy. When the city figures out a home is out of compliance, they post an orange paper on the door, Fiscus said.

Getting a license requires a $15 fee for up to three units, a passed inspection and that owners are current on taxes and sewer bills.

“I will say your rental inspections are very thorough and you do a good job,” said Coryea, who lives in South Pymatuning Township and manages the most properties in the city, some her own and some for others.

“It really is a balance,” said Lefes, who lives in Hermitage, noting that owners have to weigh spending money on improvements to a house that may not be worth much. “We want our properities to look nice. We want our city to survive.”

Lefes said that the decline of the city’s housing stock – which has great potential in many old houses with “tremendous woodwork” – didn’t happen overnight and won’t spring back that way, either.

But it’ll take folks cooperating with each other and local officials to see a change.

Whalen asked Fiscus what the landlords can do to help out the city, which has finite resources.

“I think this organization is doing it,” Fiscus said.



For more information about the association, come to the next meeting at 7 p.m. Oct. 23 at Billy’s Black and Gold, 514 N. Sharpsville Ave., Sharon, or send a letter to Box 245, Sharon, 16146. Membership dues are $10 a year.