"With respect to rental property, however, government must assume a more active role."

Council representative John Gonder has taken up the code enforcement mantle again in essay form, relaying both the council code enforcement committee's report and related commentary, on his blog:

Providing safe housing for themselves is a basic responsibility of every homeowner. A safe dwelling allows the family to live free from concern for unsafe mechanical systems, pest infestations, or other threats to health and well-being. In such places the costs for heat, water and sewage should be reasonable and predictable. Responsible homeowners routinely take the initiative to ensure that these basics are provided. Government’s role in the regulation of owner-occupied housing is somewhat limited: inform the community of accepted standards, and ensure that life-safety issues are in compliance with existing code provisions.

With respect to rental property, however, government must assume a more active role. The same basic requirement exists: the property must be safe in all respects. But the offering for sale, lease, or lease/rent-to-own of housing units is a business. As such, the conducting of that business places a greater burden and a greater responsibility on landlords because this business affects the entire community. The quality and standard of maintenance of rental properties can dictate the level of commitment neighboring owners and, in fact, other landlords may show to dwelling units. The committee found that some, mostly older, neighborhoods have as many as half of the houses under various rental agreements...

John's continuing dialogue and leadership on the issue are much appreciated and I won't quibble with many of the body's most basic findings. Still, I see the results of the council's rental committee, shared in full for what for me at least was the first time, as somewhat lacking in substance. Essentially, no recommendations beyond what already exists on New Albany's books were made.

Compared to legislative processes associated with smoking and adult cabarets, in which the laws of many communities were researched and variously assembled into proposed legislation that mimicked what was collectively determined to be best practice, the committee's report on code enforcement brings to mind a recitation of the obvious with no suggestions as to how to actually handle the enforcement problems found.

I know that many of those best practices have been provided the council by various citizens who've taken it upon themselves to learn in the hopes that they may share knowledge with others. I also know that the same procedure occurred during deliberations over public smoking and pole dancing. The resulting council actions, however, were very different with the latter material incorporated into law while the former was not so much as mentioned in council documents.

Gonder says that any necessary code adjustments identified by the enforcement process can be quickly addressed. Again, though, other recent legislative processes have sought to proactively identify those potential boondoggles rather than waiting for the guidance of experience, most often doled out in the form of lost legal battles.

Do we want to define what constitutes a "reasonable" heating system in our housing code voluntarily or under court order?

The difference in the processes and council's reaction to them, though, is perhaps best delineated not by how they happened but by who participated. Put simply, the advise of professional lobbyists was heeded and expertise offered by citizens was not.

Perhaps, as the senior editor suggested in the comments of a previous post, that realization provides clues as to how best proceed.