I'm all for taking steps to stop "slumlords" from endangering the health and safety of renters. I was involved in a legal case where renters across the street from us had no smoke detectors, the landlord refused to say when the chimney had last been cleaned, and the dryer didn't exhaust to the outside. So I know some rentals have issues, but have no idea how widespread they are. I would rephrase the question in the previous comment as, "What is the problem for which the City hopes this will be a solution?" Have renters been complaining that rental housing is dangerous? The City’s renter survey didn’t ask any questions about this.
If a third-party contractor is going to perform even cursory health and safety inspections, I can't imagine it will cost the city less than say $100-200 per unit including travel time, reporting, and meetings. The City's tentative plan is to charge landlords $5-10 per unit, except "mom and pop" rental with 1-2 units will pay nothing. They estimate about 12,000-14,000 units in the city. Assuming: 30% of 13,000 units are smaller mom-and-pop style, $150 cost and $7.50 fee, the total contractor cost will be $1.365 million and the fees will bring in $68.250. Add to the costs all the staff time currently being used to investigate registrations in other jurisdictions, internal meetings, public meetings, and it seems the total net cost to the city would be about $1.5 million. I can think of a number of great uses for an extra $1.5M in City programs.
I suggest that instead of this program, the City reach out to renters to raise awareness of potential health and safety issues such as lack of smoke detectors, black mold, etc. and ask them to report any to the City. Then the City can send out staff or contractor to perform an inspection. And do whatever possible to protect renters from being evicted because they reported a health and safety issue. With the scarcity of available rentals, I can see how this could be a concern.
Finally, if the City does move forward with a city-wide mandatory registration process, I suggest they have a cap on annual increases in landlord registration fees, addressing the concern of a previous comment on this article.
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