Portland picks former fire chief, inspector to lead new housing safety office

The building which formerly stood at 20-24 Noyes St. was the site of a fire that killed six people. It has since been demolished. (BDN file photo by Troy R. Bennett)

The building which formerly stood at 20-24 Noyes St. was the site of a fire that killed six people. It has since been demolished. (BDN file photo by Troy R. Bennett)

The tremors of a fatal 2014 fire on Noyes Street are still being felt.

The city of Portland announced Monday that it has chosen a top candidate to lead its new Housing Safety Office, created in response to the Nov. 1 blaze that claimed the lives of six people, making it the deadliest Maine fire in four decades.

Art Howe — a former Ipswich (Massachusetts) fire chief, fire safety code inspector in Connecticut and longtime veteran of the National Fire Protection Association — will start in the new job on Sept. 28, according to a Monday news release.

“I’m very excited that Art is coming on board to help us establish the Housing Safety Office,” said City Manager Jon Jennings in a statement. “He has the background and expertise to hit the ground running, and he shares my commitment to public safety through safe housing. The creation of this office has been a priority of mine since becoming city manager, and I look forward to seeing its progress in the coming months.”

The new Housing Safety Office will be something between the fire department and codes enforcement office, with HSO staff being trained in both areas.

Additionally, Monday’s announcement stated, the new HSO will be “charged with implementing a risk-based prioritization process for inspections; conducting inspections; and overseeing and enforcing the revised landlord registration ordinance, which will require landlords to pay $35 to register each unit they own beginning Jan. 1, 2016.”

The fire at the 20-24 Noyes St. structure attracted public scrutiny to the history of the building itself and, ultimately, what turned out to be an inadequate system for ensuring safe housing stock in the city.

Fire inspectors surmised that trash, furniture and other detritus was piled up dangerously on the porch and in front of potential exit ways, fueling the fire and impeding the escape of people therein.

That realization followed the discovery that the Noyes Street property was the subject of 16 neighbor complaints dating back to 2003, including some about the buildup of trash and combustibles there.

The magnitude of the tragedy and track record of complaints motivated then-interim City Manager Sheila Hill-Christian to assemble a task force to look into how the city performs and tracks its fire and codes inspections.

A 2013 consultant’s review of the Portland Fire Department suggested it have 10 full-time inspectors to keep up with regular fire code inspections for buildings across the city.

In the aftermath of the fire, the city acknowledged that Portland’s Inspections Division has “a team of three inspectors that handle land use, building, plumbing and electrical inspections and one inspector that handles citizen complaints.”

The division conducted more than 850 inspections over the previous year in response to complaints, the city announced at the time, but the 2013 department review by the Maryland-based Public Safety Solutions Inc. noted that nearly 4,900 businesses and apartment buildings in the city should be inspected annually.

The creation of a new Housing Safety Office is one of several step the city hopes will help turn that tide, ensuring landlords are held more accountable for their properties and apartments in the city are safer for tenants.

The Nov. 1, 2014, fire at 20-24 Noyes St. claimed the lives of tenants David Bragdon Jr., 27, Ashley Thomas, 29, and Nicole Finlay, 26, as well as apartment visitors Christopher Conlee, 25, of Portland, Rockland resident Steven Summers, 29, and Topsham resident Maelisha Jackson, 26.

Seth Koenig

About Seth Koenig

Seth has nearly a decade of professional journalism experience and writes about the greater Portland region.