Cedar Rapids nuisance property law under siege

CEDAR RAPIDS — Cities legislate, too, and the most significant local law passed here in recent years — aiming to crack down on nuisance properties — is under siege in the Iowa Legislature.

The charge is being led, in part, by a few Cedar Rapids landlords and comes in the form of a proposed 'Right to Assistance' bill, which is designed to kill a key provision of the city's nuisance abatement law.

The landlords contend that city law, which assesses points against property owners for some police calls to their properties, dissuades tenants from calling police out of fear of losing their leases. And in an odd pairing with landlords, the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa agrees.

'The bottom line is, people shouldn't have to worry if they dial 911 that they might get evicted,' Veronica Fowler, ACLU of Iowa's communications director, said Monday.

The Iowa House is scheduled Tuesday to take up debate on the Right to Assistance bill.

Cedar Rapids city officials say the bill is based on untruths and fiction, and includes provisions that would prevent the city from holding landlords accountable even if neighbors call in complaints or if police themselves see illegal behavior.

'The sum of the proposed language contained in the bill is not factual, is not true,' Cedar Rapids Police Chief Wayne Jerman said Monday.

Amanda Grieder, coordinator of the city's SAFE-CR nuisance abatement effort, said the program is being miscast by critics and by the authors of the proposed state legislation.

Grieder said Cedar Rapids' ordinance specifically states that residents who call police for help for a problem at their home don't subsequently see the owner of the property assessed points for the call.

On the other hand, neighbors who report noisy, late-night partying or shots fired out of a house might call about a property, and those police calls to the house with the problem likely would be scored against the owner, she said.

But Sheryl Jahnel, a Cedar Rapids Realtor and landlord, and Mari Davis, a Cedar Rapids property manager and landlord, said Monday they interpret the city's program differently. They have taken their concerns to the Legislature in a bill that has made its way through a subcommittee and a committee in the Iowa House.

'Everybody should report crime,' Jahnel said. 'But if it means the difference of where they're going to live or if they are going to have a place to live, they aren't going to report. And that's dangerous.'

Davis said domestic assault cases are of particular concern if the attacks might be allowed to escalate because a victim is afraid to call the police for fear of losing a place to live.

'And we don't want to see that happen,' Davis said.

The ACLU's Fowler said domestic violence can be complicated and hard to define even as Cedar Rapids argues it has an exception to its point-assessment criteria in such incidents.

The city's Grieder said Cedar Rapids' law says no points will be assessed against a property owner in any domestic violence call even if police, for instance, find drugs inside the residence.

To suggest otherwise is '100 percent false and not true,' Grieder said.

Chief Jerman said SAFE-CR has worked to eliminate the ability of landlord to say that a tenant's behavior is not a landlord's responsibility.

The SAFE-CR program quickly contacts a landlord once points are assessed for problems at a property so the landlord knows and can help remedy problems with a tenant or with other nuisance issues associated with the property.

Enough police calls or calls for other issues can have a property labeled a nuisance, which can result in fines to the owner and even prompt the city to close the property.

Grieder said the intent is to remedy problems, not punish owners.

To date, 270 properties have been labeled as nuisances, but only 31 of those have not fixed problems in the 18-month life of the program. Registrations have been suspended for owners of 10 nuisance rental properties, she said.

City Manager Jeff Pomeranz said Monday that the city has been lobbying at the Legislature in an effort to keep Cedar Rapids' nuisance law in place as is.

'This legislation as proposed would, in essence, destroy the critical pieces of the SAFE-CR program,' Pomeranz said. 'For us, this is about protecting and building neighborhoods and our community.'

Jerman said the city's neighborhood leaders have lined up behind the SAFE-CR program. He called it the 'single most effective program' put in place since his arrival as chief in 2012.

Cedar Rapids officials had been trying to clean up rundown properties for years, stretching back to the Enhance Our Neighborhoods effort in 2006. In 2010, the City Council passed a nuisance property law that attempted to require landlords to attach a 'crime-free addendum' to leases. Landlords succeeded in Linn County District Court in 2011 to have the measure tossed.

Then in 2013, the City Council unanimously approved the current ordinance, which also requires police background checks of tenants and required landlords to complete a one-time training course. Some 2,500 did.

Davis went to Linn County District Court in 2014 to block the ordinance, but failed.