Rental Inspection Program

Mayor Tom Barrett signed the city of Milwaukee’s Residential Rental Inspection Program ordinance into law on December 10, 2009.

The ordinance will take effect on January 1, 2010.

The Apartment Association of Southeastern Wisconsin, Inc. (AASEW) continues its attempt to defeat the recently passed ordinance creating a Residential Rental Certificate Program in two areas of the city.  On December 7, 2009, the AASEW issued a Press Release urging the mayor to veto the legislation in order to avoid expensive litigation. 

Additonally, President of the AASEW Tristan Pettit wrote a letter to Mayor Tom Barrett pointing out many of the legal problems with the ordinance.  A similar letter was sent to the members of the Common Council  prior to their vote last week – which went ignored.  The letter specifically delineates 6 of the many structural and legal problems with the ordinance and encourages the mayor to veto the legislation in order to spare the city the time and expense of defending the poorly drafted legislation in court.

The Mayor has until Thursday, December 10, 2009 to sign the legislation or else it would go back to the Common Council for reconsideration.  If the Mayor vetoes the ordinance then the Common Council would have to garner 10 votes (from the 15 members) in order to override the veto.

Earlier today by a vote of 9-5 the city of Milwaukee’s Residential Rental Certificate Program ordinance was passed by the Common Council. 

Voting in favor of the new ordinance were Aldermen Ashanti Hamilton (1st district), Nic Kovac (3rd district), Robert Bauman (4th district), Milele Coggs (6th district), Willie Wade (7th district), Robert Puente (9th district), Michael Murphy (10th district), Terry Witkowski (13 district), and Willie Hines, Jr. (15th district). 

Voting against the ordinance were Aldermen James Bohl, Jr. (5th district), Robert Donovan (8th district), Joe Dudzik (11th district), James Witkowiak (12th district), and Tony Zielinski (14th district).

Alderman Joe Davis, Sr. was not present and did not vote.

There was very little discussion on the proposed ordinance prior to its vote.  Alderman Kovac (the primary sponsor of the ordinance) spoke in favor of the revised ordinance and gave a summary of the revisions that were made.  Alderman Robert Donovan then spoke out against the ordinance and summarized some of the criticism that citizens had with the proposal as expressed at the public hearing earlier.  Alderman Murphy then spoke in favor of the ordinance and emphasized that it is a pilot program that will be reviewed each year.

If you are interested in viewing the video recording of the vote and other related information just click here.

This new ordinance will make it mandatory for all landlords who own rental property in two designated areas of the city (the UWM area on the city’s east side and the Lindsay Heights neighborhood on the city’s north side) to apply for a rental certificate in order to continue renting out their rental properties.  When applying for the certificate the owner will need to pay a $85 per unit fee and allow an inspector from the city’s Department of Neighborhood Services to inspect the interior of the unit.

The Department of Neighborhood Services also put together a Residential Rental Inspection Program Preinspection Checklist which it is assumed will be sent to the owners of rental property in the two designated areas prior to the inspection.  This checklist sets forth the specific types of violations that DNS will be looking for during its inspection. 

This ordinance will become effective January 1, 2010.

The Common Council did not vote on the passing of the city’s proposed Residential Rental Certificate Program earlier today (11/3/09) as was planned.  Instead the Comon Council voted 9-5 to hold the proposed ordinance for 1 cycle (1 month) for further review. 

The proposed ordinance, which would require all rental property owners in the UWM-area and Lindsay Heights neighborhood on the north side of Milwaukee to pay an $85 fee per unit fee and submit to an internal inspection of in order to be able to rent out their property, passed out of the ZND committee last week by a vote of 3-2.  The proposed ordinance was to be voted on by the Common Council earlier today. 

In response to the setback of having the proposed ordinance pass out of committee the AASEW, who represents approximately 680 landlords in Milwaukee and the surrounding areas, retained legal counsel to review the ordinance for procedural and drafting errors.  Errors were found and were communicated to the City Attorney.  The AASEW  wrote to the President of the Commom Council and the various council members and pointed out its many concerns with the ordinance as written.

Prior to a vote being taken as to whether or not the ordinance should be passed, a motion was made by Alderman Donovan to hold the ordinance  for one cycle (1 month) to further review any problems and concerns.  This motion passed by a vote of 9-5.  It is assumed that the ordinance will be revised and then referred back to the ZND committee for an additional public hearing.

Read Tom Daykin, of the Journal Sentinel, blog post about this change of events here.

A hearing on Milwaukee’s proposed Residential Rental Certificate Program will be held before the Zoning and Development Committee on October 27, 2009 at 10 AM in room 301 of Milwaukee’s CIty Hall.

It is at this hearing that people may speak in favor or against the proposed ordinance.  The ZND committee will then decide whether or not the proposed ordinance should be referred to the common council for a vote by the alderpersons.

If you want to be heard.  You need to be present at this hearing.

To determine your alderman and contact information go here.

At this morning’s meeting with the city budget director some more information on Milwaukee’s proposed ordinance requiring the mandatory inspection of rental units was provided.

First, the proposed ordinance is in the final stages of drafting and will be released in the near future.

Second, it will be a 5 year pilot program in the UWM area only.

Third, there will be a fee of $40 per landlord and a $35 per unit inspection fee.

Fourth, the pilot program must be approved by the city’s common council each and every year in order for it to continue.

Fifth, if a rental unit passes its 1st inspection then the unit will receive a 4 year compliance certificate and will not need to be reinspected until the 4 years expires.

The city of Milwaukee is planning on introducing a new ordinance that will require rental property owners in certain parts of the city to license their rental properties and submit to mandatory interior inspections by the Department of Neighborhood Services (DNS).

Many of the AASEW board members have been having regular monthly meetings with the new DNS Commissioner Art Dahlberg.  During a recent meeting Mr. Dahlberg informed us that in the near future he will be pushing for some form of residential rental inspection program (a.k.a “Landlord Licensing”) for portions of the city.  During a meeting with Alderman Bob Donovan it was confirmed that this program was in the works and that the city’s forthcoming budget already has money earmarked for the program.

Under this program DNS would target certain areas of the city which they consider to be “blighted” or which will soon become “blighted” if something is not done.  Other factors that would be considered in determining what areas to target would be the age of the housing stock, the percentage of rental units to owner occupied properties, and the history of complaints in the neighborhood.  Mr. Dahlberg indicated that the area of the city that would most likely be addressed first would be the east side near UWM due to the large number of illegally converted dwelling units and poorly maintained properties.

The goal of the program would allegedly be for the owners and the city building inspectors to work together to better the rental housing stock with the building inspectors becoming a resource for rental property owners.

While the specific details were not provided to me, any proposed program will most certainly contain provisions such as the following:

-  A requirement that all rental property owners in the targeted area pay a fee to the city for each unit that they own. 

-  A requirement that rental property owners allow the city building inspectors to conduct mandatory inspections of the interiors of each of their rental properties that are located within the targeted area.

-  If no code violations are found then the rental property would receive a certificate of code compliance which would allow the owner to rent out the unit for a period of time until the next mandatory interior inspection would be required.

-  If code violations were to be found in the rental property then the owner would be denied a certificate of code compliance (thus preventing the unit from being rented) until the violations were corrected.  Depending on the the number and severity of the violations, the rental property owner would be required to submit to an increased number of interior inspections during the ensuing months until the city would determine that the rental property was safe.

While this new program would only focus on the UWM area initially, other areas of town were also mentioned (the north side of Milwaukee for instance) as being targeted eventually.  It is fairly obvious that the end goal would be to have all rental properties within the city under this program.