By Dan King
A Queensbury man, who owns multiple properties in Whitehall, says he has been working on getting all of them into compliance.
John Daly, Jr., owns 17 properties in the Village of Whitehall and last week it was reported that nine of those 17 properties had been cited by Washington County for code violations. However, Daly says he is working with tenants to get these properties into compliance.
“Some of the complaints are over garbage, yard debris and broken windows,” he said in a letter to the Whitehall Times. “It’s a continuous battle with tenants to keep up on this, but most of the complaints have been fixed. Some tenants are good, some are bad.”
He said he spent $208,900 to purchase the 17 buildings and that he has currently put in about $161,000 of work on these properties. Daly said that does not include the $25,000 he pays per year on taxes, water and sewer.
Daly also said that he feels the label of “absentee landlord” has a negative connotation that doesn’t apply to him.
“I am absentee in that I live in Queensbury,” he said, during a phone conversation. “However, I spend more time in Whitehall than I do in Queensbury.”
Despite living in Queensbury he says he spends multiple days in Whitehall, working at his properties.
“I have no problems repairing my buildings in a timely manner,” he said. “I am far from an absentee landlord and none of my tenants would say I am lazy and don’t fix things.”
Daly’s sentiment was reiterated by some of his tenants, who said via Facebook that he is a “good landlord.”
One tenant said he is “in Whitehall day in and day out, making sure his tenants are taken care of.”
The county documents that were cited in last week’s story had Daly’s last name spelt incorrectly, he attributed that to a miscommunication between Mayor Peter Telisky and Washington County Code Officer John Ward. He also said that in some cases the documents didn’t match the violation for the particular building.
Daly said he plans to move to Whitehall upon retirement and hopes to open a business as well.
Washington County Code Enforcement did not return a call seeking comment on this story.