Detroit landlords say a plan to overhaul the city’s rental ordinance is a step in the right direction, but stressed property owners need more resources to make repairs.
City officials joined with some landlords on Monday to tout benefits of the new proposal to ramp up the quality of housing in Detroit, where just 10% of rentals are in compliance.
The proposed ordinance, sponsored by City Council Member At-Large Mary Waters, seeks to streamline the landlord compliance process, reduce inspection fees, crack down on negligent landlords and revamp a program that allows tenants to put their rent payments into an escrow account if their home isn’t safe.
“Most of us are small business owners and we do not make a huge profit,” property owner Dr. Lanying Brown-Washington said during a Monday news conference.
“They’re not necessarily bad landlords that want to be bad landlords, they may need additional resources to become compliant,” Brown-Washington said. “I would ask that the city of Detroit look at some additional resources for small landlord businesses.”
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said the city’s goal is to “dramatically simplify” the compliance process.
“We had the most complicated, burdensome, compliance program in the country and landlords were simply ignoring it, because it was so cumbersome,” he said.
Detroit Future City estimates that there are more than 82,000 rental properties. As of the end of last year, 8,731 properties had a certificate of compliance, meaning they are registered and have passed a city inspection process.
The current cost to bring a property into compliance can be expensive for “mom-and-pop” landlords — owners with one or two properties, who account for the vast majority of Detroit landlords. The cost to bring a single family rental into compliance can range from $942 to $1,267 and can take up to a year, according to the Center for Community Progress.
The city aims to ramp up certificates of compliance by 30% within the next two years, under the proposed ordinance. That would mean another 25,000 houses fully up to code in the city, Duggan added.
Waters said all Detroiters deserve access to quality affordable housing.
“This ordinance is a positive step towards ensuring housing is a human right,” she said.
Other Detroit landlords also stressed the importance of reducing the cost to bring properties up to code and getting more information about the compliance process into the hands of investors when they buy properties.
“It will help the landlord, help the tenant. Then you won’t have to pass down these costs to all the tenants,” said Evelyn Harris, a landlord with less than 10 properties in Detroit, about the plan, at the news conference.
Investors are not always aware of processes and procedures and only find out after they get a blight violation, said Theodore McNeal, a Detroit and metro Detroit real estate developer, development consultant and the owner of Building More With Theodore.
“I’m glad that they’re coming down with their fees. But also, I just want there to be a greater push with making sure that the information is accessible,” McNeal told BridgeDetroit.
cv ksa: This post is both informative and enjoyable—well done!
The process is a mess. The quoted cost of bringing a rental into compliance is extremely under estimated. Lead inspections alone will be between $600 – $700 per unit. Mom and pop have 3 2 families they are shelling out minimum $3600 JUST for lead inspections. That’s ridiculous.
The city thinks they can impose these guidelines because THEY WANT TO. The city needs to EARN these measures from the landlords. All this money they slosh around and waste…. if you want the landlords to be compliant you need to make the lead inspections free and return the eviction process to pre-covid timeframes – then you may get some participation.