Committee hears landlords’ problems with rental inspections

Although the council agenda was uncommonly light this week, city elected officials were able to give an update on the discussions surrounding the rental housing and commercial property inspection programs, which have been temporarily suspended until Feb. 1, 2023.

Council members who serve on an ad hoc committee — which is in charge of reviewing the rental inspection programs — reported on Jan. 3 that the group has so far had one meeting with landlords and commercial property owners. The group entertained questions and concerns regarding the inspections.

The ad hoc committee consists of council members Randy Ervin, Evelyn George and Craig Trotter. George said the purpose of the inspections is to make sure residents have safe housing and that income-producing homes are maintained. Newton is required by state law to conduct regular inspections.

Newton City Council implemented the program, George said, “because of the issues we were having with the dangerous and dilapidated properties where we had some income-producing properties where the owners were taking the income and never investing it back into the property, and then abandoning it.”

The committee also received a list of concerns landlords had about the rental inspection program.

Some of grievances include storage of a disassembled bed, boxes of clothes and cardboard boxes stored in a garage, a screw missing from a doorknob, a missing kitchen cabinet door, broken tree limbs and other tree removal, the heights of bedroom ceilings and outside peeling paint.

“We did get some specific information, but it’s also important that they also brought up that there’s really a lack of a report that tells them how they did on the inspection and really being able to have that documentation for any of the inspections that are done there,” George said.

Consistency with inspections and a well-defined review appeal process were also issues landlords wanted addressed. George said those requests have yet to be followed up on. She also sympathized with those struggling to understand the regulation language landlords are expected to follow.

“Wow. I think you really need to be in the building and trade industry to understand those,” she said. “Those are way beyond. You can’t just dabble in this and understand it. I think, you know, relying on the expertise of our building/trades board would be really good to have them review that inspection list.”

In addition to fine tuning the review process, Trotter said the city is in its third year implementing the inspection programs and he pondered whether the city should take a step back, specifically noting the “long list of codes.” The council member questioned what the city really wants its property owners to do.

“Do we need to send out a kind of basic safety, here are the codes that cover safety? And then the rest are maybe not written up but you have to do something in the future?” Trotter said of the potential guidelines the city could give property owners that would not shut them down or require another inspection.

“I think the city needs to step back and say, ‘What do we really want? And what makes sense both for the city and the property owners?’”

Ervin believed it was a good initial meeting with the rental property owners. They brought “a lot of things to the table” that the council had not thought of. It opened the committee members’ eyes to things the city can do better, and Ervin expects people will learn more about that in the future.

“Eventually we will bring that to the city council for your discussion and hopefully implementation,” Ervin said.

In December, the city council voted to temporarily suspend its rental housing and commercial property inspection programs after several landlords and property owners complained. Landlords said the costs are high to bring older homes up to code and allege the contracted inspector is even incentivized to fail inspections.

Contact Christopher Braunschweig at 641-792-3121 ext 560 or cbraunschweig@newtondailynews.com