Rental agreement

City Council’s General Services Committee received the green light from the Lansing city attorney to license landlords.

“Yes. Residential landlord licensing would fall within the City’s authority and is not preempted by the state,” a memo from City Attorney Janene McIntyre states.

Meanwhile Senate Bill 313, which would eliminate the requirement for municipalities to inspect rental properties, is headed to the House for a vote by Thursday in the lame-duck session.

The bill, which passed overwhelmingly in the House Local Government committee Dec. 4, is expected to pass despite opposition from healthy home and child safety advocates.

General Services Committee Chairwoman Jessica Yorko said there’s no danger of eliminating inspections in Lansing.

“I think there’s enough concern about safe and healthy housing; it’s hard to fathom we wouldn’t do rental inspections,” she said.

Yorko said the General Services Committee has been researching landlord licensing this year as a way of improving the safety of rental properties for tenants and providing accountability. City officials had thought a state law prohibited cities the size of Lansing from creating licensing of landlords.

Yorko said the committee will present a report at Monday’s City Council meeting on what the review and discussions have been this year and the findings and recommendations. She said the committee would look into cost analyses and administration of the program next year.

“We spent time reviewing best practices in our community and other communities,” she said. “We also looked at other possible changes; lead clearance compliance is one.”

She said the committee also “found some deficiencies” in how the code compliance office tracks its progress in rental inspections.

She said the city tracks by building and not by number of units.

The Rental Property Owners Association of Mid-Michigan, which has over 200 members, opposes landlord licensing.

“The purpose of the licensing is to have more control over landlords,” said association spokesman Gary Calkins. “I´m not sure what they want to do is necessary or needed.”

Calkins said landlords want to maintain their properties and investments.

“I don´t know if the majority of council is supportive of that or not,” Calkins said. “We´ll find out when they look at it next year.”

The Senate bill would eliminate the requirement for local government to maintain a registry of owners and property. DangIt would also allow the period between inspections to be 10 years rather than the six years in current law.

Jason Demmon, a North Sycamore Street resident, is against the Senate bill.

“My issue is that I’ve been fighting a big monster on our street,” he said of suspected drug activity. “I don’t really feel the inspections are being carried out thoroughly as it is. I don’t feel that getting rid of inspections altogether is a step in the right direction. Taking inspections away from other cities will add to the problems in our cities.”

Paul Haan, director of the Healthy Homes Coalition of West Michigan, who attended the House committee meeting.

“We thought it would be overlooked for more important matters during this lameduck session,” he said. “We’re hoping that the house recognizes the opposition to the bill, the broad-based opposition.”

Regarding the state rental inspections, Calkins said inspections would still be allowed “if there´s a complaint from an individual tenant,” Calkins said.

If the bill passes, the state would be sending the wrong message, Yorko said.

“It’s sad that state law could change to the extent that the state law would not longer require a city of our size to have a rental inspection and registration program,” she said. “It’s sad what it says about Michigan and our commitment to safe and healthy housing.”