Overview
Rental registries and proactive inspections provide a strong foundation for communities who want to enhance accountability and increase efficiency to strengthen local capacity; this policy category focuses on performance. Cities and towns who have implemented this policy category track inspection outcomes to reward compliance and good landlord behavior, while penalizing failure to comply and irresponsible behavior. So, properties that pass health and safety inspections are inspected less frequently and are assessed lower fees; however, for properties that fail to meet health and safety standards, or fail to remedy problem conditions, inspections are conducted more frequently, and they may be assessed higher fees or subjected to other enforcement mechanisms. By prioritizing inspections of properties with known issues, municipalities can focus their personnel resources on those properties with greater needs.
đź’ˇPro Tip: How often to inspect properties?
Cities should consider the age and physical character of the housing stock, and local economic data. A good rule of thumb is to have inspections on average every three years. But this is where having a performance-based system can be helpful. A property that is consistently in good shape need not be inspected more often than every five, or even seven or eight years. A property that has regular violations ideally should be inspected at least once a year.
Prioritizing Accountability
Ordinance 1: Brooklyn Center, MN
Population Size: 31,688
Rationale for Inclusion
- One of the first performance-based ordinances to be enacted, the ordinance is designed to focus more attention and resources from the city on problem properties and provide incentives for compliance (i.e., fewer inspections and lower fees in a tiered system)
- Rental licensing has been required in Brooklyn Center since 1975; in 2010, the City moved to a performance-based system.
- The City recognized both the need to protect the health and safety of renters as well as preserve affordable housing.
Important Considerations
- Cities and towns will need to think carefully about the criteria for each license type. This example ties performance tiers to their local Crime Free Housing plan, for instance, and while these types of policies can have some benefit, they also have the potential to be used as tools to infringe on the rights of renters. In your local adaptation, you may want to focus on other enforcement measures. Check out this article from the Urban Institute to learn more about Crime Free Housing Ordinances.
- This example also requires the collection of occupancy information which may prompt privacy concerns from local community partners; municipalities should carefully consider what types of information needs to be collected for their local priorities, how that information will be used and shared, and how those decisions are made and communicated.
Incentivizing Performance
Ordinance 2: Boston, MA
Population Size: 653,833
Rationale for Inclusion
- This ordinance provides an excellent community engagement and cross-sector collaboration example, both between City departments and a local grassroots effort (CityHealth).
- The Boston example identifies and defines “problem properties” from multiple sources, including inspections, but also from other departments.
- It also outlines a system of points to assess certain properties as “chronic offenders” that have to pay fines and may be subject to legal action.
- The ordinance allows responsible owners to apply for an alternative compliance process for inspection every five years. The approval process includes factors such as a site visit and review of the property management plan, history, and compliance (as applicable).
- It also provides for a reporting and evaluation mechanism.
Important Considerations
- Residents can deny entry for inspection, but landlords are still accountable for the unit meeting standards. The denial must be documented, and an inspection may still be conducted in accordance with the city’s Sanitary code.
- The Inspection Department must audit no less than 5% of the properties that are granted the 5-year inspection sequence.
- Exemptions from the program include dwellings of 6 or fewer units, of which the owner resides in one unit. Those owners are provided with educational materials regarding the requirements on a regular basis (assuming vested, self-interest of the owner to maintain the property).
“The purpose of this Section is to implement a proactive rental inspection program that maximizes the effectiveness of city resources in rental property code enforcement. It identifies all rental units in the city and their owners on a continuous and recurring basis to accommodate the transient nature of the rental market. It prioritizes notorious problem properties to economically target city resources toward chronic and priority offenders. It also provides an alternative compliance plan process available to responsible owners who consistently comply with city and commonwealth code to expedite them through an inspection process aimed at maintaining a uniform minimum standard for conditions exhibited by rental properties in Boston in the interests of public health and safety.”
– Boston Municipal Code
Implementation Tools & Resources
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