Drafted rental inspection ordinance panned by landlords
About 25 owners of rental properties in Butler critiqued a draft of an ordinance regarding the inspection of their rental units after tenants move out during a meeting Thursday at Butler SUCCEED on Main Street.
Butler City Councilman Don Shearer spurred the ordinance. He said the high number of renters in the city, combined with slower growth in property value compared to the rest of Butler County are two points an ordinance could address. Additionally, protection for tenants could be addressed through an ordinance.
“We have an obligation as city council and as a city for the health and well-being of residents,” Shearer said. “This can be the best way to ensure ... we’re not looking at dilapidated properties; that when somebody moves into a property in the city we can count on their health and well-being.”
The announcement of the ordinance was met with push back from some landlords. Several attended a city council meeting to speak against it.
Shearer brought a draft of the ordinance to the meeting Thursday, and after some conversation, asked the landlords to write their opinions on specific points of the ordinance. In 12 sections, the ordinance lays out a procedure that would require landlords to report when a tenant moves out of their property, which then would trigger an inspection by a city employee. Shearer said the ordinance includes language that would help the city collect overdue taxes from landlords and residents.
Under the ordinance, the cost for an inspection would be $30 per unit and $25 for each re-inspection. Shearer said the final ordinance may include leeway for landlords who have frequent tenant turnaround. Additionally, the draft said landlords who violate the ordinance could face a fine of up to $600 and 90 days in jail, but Shearer said those numbers would likely change in an actual proposal of the ordinance. Every landlord in the city would be grandfathered in, so they wouldn’t have to have an inspection completed until a tenant moves out.
After hearing more push back from landlords Thursday, Shearer vowed he wouldn’t bring a proposal to council in 2023.
Some landlords said the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951 already addresses the points Shearer wants to address through an ordinance. Others said the ordinance would cost the landlords more money because of time spent waiting for an inspector to look at their properties.
John Kramer, a licensed Real Estate agent and landlord in Butler, said Shearer may have good intentions with the ordinance, but the execution of it could lead to more legal problems between tenants, landlords and municipal government. He suggested the city incentivize good landlord practices instead of giving every landlord in the city more hoops to jump through.
“If you worked with me or some real estate professionals who know what’s going on and how the market works and so on and know how to do rentals, we could have had a much calmer meeting,” Kramer said.
Sheri Readie, a landlord in Butler, said she brought up a similar way to address rental properties in poor condition while she was on Butler City Council several years ago. The problem, she said, always comes down to enforcing rules set by the city.
“The fire department goes in, police department goes in for calls, whatever needs to happen,” Readie said. “They’re allowed to report … When I was on council I said, ‘Why don’t we have where they report?’ It was never enforced.”
Shearer said he has heard from three tenants who had issues with their landlords that could not be addressed without legal action. He also said because land for development is limited in the city, a rental inspection ordinance meant to keep properties up to a certain standard could increase property values.
“Every single study said the best way to do that is new development. The trouble is, we can’t do that in the city,” Shearer said. “The second option they said was to start looking at how can we raise rental property values. That triggers property values going up across the board.”
Shearer said about 10% of landlords in Butler are causing problems for their tenants, and those are the people the ordinance is meant to address. He also said he called the meeting with landlords to gather their input on the ordinance and may call another one after reviewing their input from Thursday.
“I want your input, I want your say, I want to hear what you guys have,” he said. “If we were collecting everything we’re supposed to be, we could probably look at lowering property taxes because now we’re making sure everyone is paying their fair share of income tax.”
