That's because self-serving bullshit and semantics aside, rental property ownership plainly is a business, and one that is in the civic interest to regulate.
Will the city council grow some spine for this one? The body's law abiding, responsible members cravenly allowed the last effort to languish in committee at the behest of Jethro's mice roaring. Let's call the rental lobby's bluff, queue up some Progressive Pints, and see what happens this time.
TRIBUNE EDITORIAL: Rental registry will help — if enforced
... However, our concern with another ordinance is having enough bodies, and funds, to enforce and chase down violators. The city has made progress in recent years tearing down a number of condemned properties. But there is only one city attorney, one building commissioner and two code enforcement officers. There is no way, without more code enforcement employees, that a rental property ordinance could be enforced. There is no sense in passing feel-good ordinances if they are not properly funded.
It's not the council who needs to grow a spine in this case. Likewise, it's not the city attorney's office that's struggling to keep up with code enforcement cases. There are no enforcement cases. They're not being generated. The lack of a rental registry has nothing to do with it and creating one will make little difference under current circumstances.
ReplyDeleteEven though both legal and code enforcement staff time has doubled, the England administration is not using the tools they have now to anywhere near full capacity.
What's been missing so far is the political will do to so. This isn't mayor's office versus council or even mayor's office versus landlords. It's mayor's office versus mayor's office and nobody is winning.
Mandatory inspections, precisely like what other businesses experience, would be great but given the administration's approach thus far, it's difficult to believe they'd make much difference, either. Currently, if a house has busted windows, a hole in the roof, and tall grass, only the tall grass is generally addressed.
Both the Tribune and the council could help by calling for more accountability rather than more laws or more money. Both may eventually be justified but we're a long way from that.
The paperwork that created the concentrated code enforcement position calls for the officer to provide quarterly reports to the council. They should demand them, with names and much more detail attached than is now included in what currently passes for such a document. The Tribune could report the results. The documents themselves could be made public with a couple mouse clicks.
As I called for years ago, code enforcement inspections and citations should be accompanied by digital photos, a process that would only take a few extra minutes per building and an investment of a couple hundred dollars or less.
At least one of the serial downtown parking offenders stood in front of city officials and flatly told them he would not pay any of his many, many tickets. The question is why should any of us when he remains untroubled?
The same is true of landlords. Pat Harrison stood in front of the building commission and deputy mayor and said they were welcome to inspect any of her properties. Given that she is referred to by an administrative staff person as "the queen of the slumlords" behind her back, how many of those properties have been inspected?
None of this is technically difficult. It's just been made unnecessarily political difficult.
Does anyone know if teh house demolition on Hickoryvale was a city ordered demo?
ReplyDeleteIf so, I find it interesting that once again, a contract was awarded to CCE, inc. who the city is supposed to be "aggressively" pursuing for code violations.