The city’s Inspectional Services Department (ISD) is considering a criminal complaint against the owner of a Milton Avenue three-decker that has been illegally operating as a rooming house. Community members brought the issue to officials’ attention during the summer when they discovered that a number of high-level sex offenders were living at that address unbeknownst to neighbors.

A show cause hearing is scheduled for next Monday, Dec. 12, in housing court.

The owner would have the chance to either show that there was no violation or apply to change the property use. A clerk magistrate would then determine if the criminal complaint should be filed, according to ISD.

Dawn Barrett, who is an abutter to the 96 Milton Ave. property, helped form the Dorchester Unified Neighborhood (DUN) Association in response to the revelation about the lodging situation. At ensuing monthly meetings, members expressed concern about the presence of high- and moderate-risk sexual offenders clustered within their neighborhood.

And this week, DUN circulated petitions against the rooming house in person and online with the goal of providing them to ISD on Thursday.

“As community residents and homeowners with children and loved ones to care for,” Barrett wrote online, “my neighbors and I are worried about the number of people currently living in the illegal boarding house and concerned about how a boarding house could affect the character of the neighborhood along with possible safety issues in our residential zone.”

City inspectors attempted unsuccessfully to gain entry to the property to assess code compliance in September. A right of entry violation was filed in mid-September and served at the end of October when inspectors were still unable to assess the property, according to an ISD spokeswoman.

After a resident allowed entry to the building on Oct. 26, inspectors found individual locks on the bedrooms but shared kitchen and bathroom spaces -- clear signs, ISD Commissioner William Christopher told neighbors, that the 12-bedroom three-decker was being used as an illegal lodging house.

The owner of the house, Kelvin Sanders, was given until Nov. 26 to either convert the house into an appropriately zoned three-family or apply for a 20-person lodging house license. In late November, 18 people were occupying the building, according to ISD. With no application on file for a lodging license, inspectional services recommended the case for prosecution in housing court.

Putting the specific kind of occupants aside, Barrett said the community is opposed to a rooming-house of that scale. “I want them to know that we as a community … this is something we do not want,” Barrett told the Reporter in a phone interview Tuesday. “We’ve all expressed the same thing: We don’t want a boarding house, whether illegal or legal.”

Sanders has been largely uncommunicative, neighbors and ISD officials said. Barrett said a woman claiming to speak on behalf of the owner sent emails to DUN leadership and elected officials in mid-November looking to set up a meeting. But given the ongoing city process, Barrett said, DUN members asked officials not to get involved while ISD was litigating the matter out of concern for a needless delay in the proceedings.

No meetings between city officials and property management have taken place.