Council enacts new housing code over chorus of landlord protests

The City Council Tuesday night enacted a new housing code, which landlords fought and which neighborhood leaders said was a necessary step to take on bad landlords and bad tenants and to clean up and make neighborhoods more safe.

The council vote was 8-1 to approve the second of two required readings, and 7-2, to push ahead and approve a third and final reading.

The council, on a 9-0 vote, then approved a new schedule of registration and inspection fees for landlords, a schedule that calls for higher fees than today but lower fees than an alternative proposal would have allowed.

Part of the complaint from landlords related to the size in the proposed change in fees.

Council members Pat Shey and Chuck Swore emphasized that the council can make changes to the law as the city gets used to it.

Council member Monica Vernon called it bad policy and voted “no.”

Landlords, some of whom have threatened to sue the city over the new housing code, object to a new $50 landlord license fee, saying it's sufficient for landlords to pay the fees they do on individual pieces of property. The fee will help the city raise as much as $200,000 to purchase computer software to better track landlord registrations and inspections.

Under the new code, landlords will annually have to register their properties rather than once every five years when it's time for the city inspection.

Landlords also wanted a new mandatory crime-free addendum to the lease to be made optional, though neighborhood leaders said bad tenants and landlords won't use it then.

Landlords said again last night that they liked a feature of the housing code in Davenport in which the Police Department does background checks of tenants with the help of citizen voluteers. Davenport also has a crime-free addendum to leases, most landlords use it, but it is not mandatory, Davenport officials have said.