Cedar Rapids tweaks nuisance property law

CEDAR RAPIDS - The city is making modifications to its 2-year-old nuisance property ordinance to try to ensure it doesn't penalize crime victims - including victims of domestic violence - who are seeking emergency help.

The City Council unanimously approved the ordinance in its current form in 2013, and some council members made it clear this week they will support the modifications.

Council member Monica Vernon, a chief proponent of the ordinance, recounted how the city had worked for five or six years to devise a measure that would make homeowners and landlords take care of their properties.

Among its provisions, the ordinance holds landlords and property owners accountable for the bad behavior of tenants and residents and penalizes them for other nuisance issues such as a property's poor upkeep or junk in the yard.

Vernon said the modified ordinance might not be perfect, but she said the city has concluded 'the risk of doing nothing is so much greater than doing something.”

During a public hearing this week, a few landlords voiced long-standing concerns about the ordinance - that the city should not punish landlords for tenant behavior that attracts police.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and a few Cedar Rapids landlords were among those who tried to fight the city earlier this year at the Statehouse over the ordinance. This week, Pete McRoberts of the ACLU and landlords Sheryl Jahnel and Mari Davis were among those who spoke at the City Council's public hearing.

Jahnel and Davis said they didn't think the modifications go far enough.

But the ACLU's McRoberts applauded the city for making the modifications. He said it now seems in line with language in a statewide Right to Assistance proposal the ACLU is working to pass in the Legislature. Both protect crime victims, he said.

'I think we have a meeting of the minds,” McRoberts said Wednesday. 'It reflects well on the City Council.”

It is not clear whether the city will have to fight again in the Legislature to block one sentence in the proposed Right to Assistance Act that the city says will undermine its local nuisance ordinance.

Angie Charipar, assistant to the city manager, and McRoberts both said Wednesday that more work might be needed on language in the ordinance or the proposed state law.

The City Council will vote on the ordinance modifications in January.

The city created a special focus group this year to look at the ordinance and suggest revisions. Some members of the focus group, including representatives of the Affordable Housing Network, the Willis Dady Emergency Shelter, Linn County Continuum of Care and Landlords of Linn County told the council they like the law's modifications.

Dick Rehman, interim president of the landlord group, said everybody in the focus group didn't get all they wanted but he said most of the group agreed with the changes.

Amanda Grieder, the city's nuisance property abatement program manager, said the city has sent out 2,501 letters in two years to owners of 1,799 properties for 'founded” nuisance calls.

Eighty percent fixed the problem without being designated a nuisance property, she said. Of 356 properties that received the nuisance designation, 174 came back into compliance. Eighty-five percent of the nuisance properties have not had additional nuisance activity since the designation.

About 3,000 landlords and property managers have attended mandatory training session since the nuisance program, called SAFE-CR, started two years ago.

In October, the city estimated it had 54,500 households, 18,411 registered rental units, 5,935 rental properties and 3,040 landlords.