Bristol, CT Building Safety: Lead Paint (2026)

Sec. 12-41, titled 'Toxic substances,' carries the city's only direct lead-paint rule inside the Housing and Property Maintenance Code: subsection (a) requires every owner to keep a premises free from health hazards from toxic substances as the Director of Health determines, and subsection (b) flatly bars any owner or occupant from applying lead-based paint to any surface of a dwelling or dwelling unit. The code reinforces the ban elsewhere: Sec. 12-33 requires accessory structures to be weatherproofed with lead-free paint, and Sec. 12-46(b) requires exterior wood surfaces to be protected with paint that is not lead-based.

The hazard shows up again in the enforcement chapter: Sec. 12-137(a)(1) lets the Director of Health declare a premises unfit for human habitation when it contains hazardous levels of lead-based paint, which triggers placarding the unit and ordering it vacated within a window of not less than twenty-four hours nor more than ten days under Sec. 12-137(b). A property cannot go back into use until the Director of Health inspects it, confirms the hazard is gone, and removes the placard under Sec. 12-137(f) and (g).

Because Chapter 12 is designated for citation enforcement under Sec. 23-2, a violation of the Sec. 12-41(b) application ban also exposes the owner to the Sec. 12-135 fine schedule of fifteen to ninety dollars per offense, capped at six hundred dollars a day and nine thousand dollars total.