Firefighters battle the flames Thursday afternoon at a house fire on Western Avenue in Albany.

The Albany building where two people died in a fire last week is not hidden on a dead-end street or tucked away in some relatively unseen part of the city. It's on Western Avenue, not far from the state University at Albany's downtown campus.

Given the location's visibility, it is all the more remarkable that, as the Times Union's Patrick Tine reported, the inhabited building lacked a residential occupancy permit and had gone years without an inspection by the city's codes department. Or, in another sense, it's not remarkable at all: The building at 241 Western Ave. is just the latest example of how the city has failed to ensure that all of its residents live in safe and adequate housing.

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Richard LaJoy, director of the city's Department of Buildings and Regulatory Compliance, says that the building's owner was cited in 2021 for not having a permit and that the landlord was........

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