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Safe Neighborhood vs. Affordable Housing


OldeEast

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^ and the city approved it yesterday by a 5-3 vote, with Baldwin, West, and Isley voting no.

A landlord enters the PROP program if he or she accumulates a certain number of housing code violations at a property. Each landlord in the program is required to get a permit, pay $500 a year for two years and attend rental management classes. Since the ordinance was adopted in 2005, 20 properties have received enough violations to qualify.

The council also approved two other changes to the PROP ordinance Tuesday. Police will now be able to issue $100 civil penalties for noise and nuisance violations instead of charging the tenant with a misdemeanor, and crimes such as prostitution, possession of stolen goods and disorderly conduct will now be considered violations of the ordinance.

This doesn't seem terribly onorous fee to me. It's being labeled by the opponents as a rental fee, but it's needed to establish a program that will be able to track derelict properties, and hopefully eliminate some of the problems we have been talking about in this topic, particularly in SE Raleigh. The fee is only $10 per unit. How is that considered an "abomination?" This is primarily intended for the slumlords, who refuse to improve their properties and keep a rotating door policy of sketchy tenants, many of whom cause some of the worst crime problems in these neighborhoods. If you rent to lawful tenants, then there should be no problems. The mayor said they will review the fee structure and the ordinance to see how it is functioning. If this has a chance at reducing crime in some of these areas, then I'm all for it.

Thoughts?

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i think the "abomination" part of the fees are the fines on the landlords if criminal activity occurs on the property. i see many situations in which this could be misused or abused by property owners who don't like thier renting neighbors as another way to force them out of the neighborhood. i really don't like these changes, and i emailed the 3 dissenting votes today thanking them for their vote. i think it unfairly targets and burdens renters in the city who already have to face neighbors who stereotype them just because they rent. i rent because i have no other choice and i dont want the city to charge my landlord to babysit me.

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I have been meaning to reply to the posts on this thread, but there is just so much I would like to say, and just not enough time.

For now, about the rentals: I don't think that $30/year per property (the $10 is for additional units within the same dwelling) is excessive at all. If the landlord really needs to recoup this amount, they can prorate on rent over the course of a year and it will be literally just a few dollars more per month per unit.

What bothers me about this is the following:

Police will now be able to issue $100 civil penalties for noise and nuisance violations instead of charging the tenant with a misdemeanor, and crimes such as prostitution, possession of stolen goods and disorderly conduct will now be considered violations of the ordinance.
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The only problem I see is how do you define a rental property? HOA's are up against this all the time and its not as easy as you think. Must there be a lease? How does the City even become aware of a rental property existing? What if your brother is living in your extra house for free? If the deed is to Mr Jones LLC, but it is in fact your primary residence, would the City attempt to collect the fee? Is this just rental companies (LLC's etc.) or individuals who say rent out a place for a few months until the real estate market improves? Oh, the details of implementation. I get the feeling our City staff need a course in writing legislation, as this is all way too general from what I can see. It is a legal hot seat to leave too much of this up to staff's discretion, so you have to nail down these specifics.

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I am happy to see this pass. Sometimes the only way to get someone's attention is to hit them in the pocketbook. If the slum lords are being killed in fines because of their tenents behavior or lack of maintenance to the property, then maybe they will start caring more about their property and won't just lease it out to whoever pays. As long as it is the tenant getting fined, the slum lords could care less, as it is only the tenant's problem. Make it the slum lord's problem too and the tune should change really quick.

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I agree with Gard; I'm glad to see this pass, and I'm a landlord!

In many neighborhoods, the homeowners have been powerless against the slumlords. The homeowners, for the most part, care for their properties and want a nice decent place to live. The slumlords care only about making money, and their renters care only about a place to live and "do their thing." On the west side, many are students and "their thing" is loud parties. Since the drinking age was raised to 21, they can't go to bars, they have to drink and carouse at their houses. In the southeast, some are just criminals and "their thing" is drugs and prostitution. In either case, it's mighty hard on the old folks next door.

Now the old folks next door will be able to call and report criminal activity or disorderly conduct and it will actually mean something. Perhaps nobody will go to prison, but the slumlord will feel the pain in his wallet. He might find it is in his interest not to let life become hell for the old folks next door.

The new law will be no hardship on good landlords who have good tenants. In fact, it is to our advantage to level the playing field between us and the slumlords.

And if slumlords have to hold their tenants to certain standards, the tenants will have to be more respectful of their neighbors, or they will not find a place to live in Raleigh.

But I also agree with Jones that the devil is in the details. Who is going to examine every property to see whether it is rental?

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Renting property is a business, yet it hasn't been treated as such in Raleigh except for larger apartment complexes.

There have been a lot of "bad houses" but no "better business bureau" to address the concerns of customers (renters) or neighbors' complaints against bad businesses.

No one discriminates aginst their neighbors due to their renter status. Heck in my neighborhood, I feel "discriminated" against because I own my house. Citizens -- renter or home owner -- are discriminated against when the property they live in is not kept to a minimum standard and they conduct themeselves as normal functioning members of society. When a house becomes a brothel or a liquor house, then all bets are off. There have been too many cases where a liquor house gets shut down, only to give way to another house of ill repute while the owner claims ignorance. This will get property owners to make sure their tenants aren't a menace to their neighbors or suffer the concequences.

The $30/year is nothing. The $100/violation doesn't kick in until the second or third offesnse. The $500/year for two years is in place if a property shows no sign of improving. The city's threat of penalties for not registering will get property owners to comply and give the city teeth to charge more for slumlords trying to sidestep the system. As a landlord, I'm more than happy to pay the fee, and won't pass it on to my tenant if I can afford it. I will adjust my lease to *pass on* fees incurred by tenants. Since the fees come *through* me, I will be made aware of them and deal with my tenant accordingly.

I hope this results in a "bad tenant list" to help landlords know who not to rent to as well.

PROP was originally set up to make sure houses in neighborhoods don't get a "reputation" for parties like the Brent Road Bash. But without any source of income other than fines (after the second or third incident), it was impossible to track which properties had how many incidents, or who even owned the property. In the Wake County Deeds database, there are a lot of houses that list the owner as living at the house even though the windows are boarded up and no one has lived there for years.

The message sent by members of the council against the strengthened ordinance -- we refuse to hold landlords responsible for the impact their property has on the surrounding neighborhood -- is not good. The irresponsibliity has continued to the landlord/tenant relationship, and hopefully this will change. It will hopefully level the playing field, as opposed to the current system of punishing good landlords for keeping their property up and tenants in line vs. slumlords who can charge less and profit more by doing the bare minimum to meet housing code, if that.

I'm sure Isley, West, and Baldwin live in neighborhoods/buildings where this isn't a problem, and it might not be a problem in Isley's NW Raleigh District E. But it *is* a problem in other parts of the city, including West's District C. I don't know why he thinks he is helping low income renters with his no vote. Is saving them $3/month in rent enough of a reason to continue to ignore the bad rental propeties plaguing large sections of SE Raleigh?

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i can only speak from my experience of being a renter in raleigh for 6 years, and being as active as i can in the city. i've experienced over and over that property owners are quick to dismiss renters because they have this misconception that renters don't care about the safety and wellbeing of the community as much as they do. this is just wrong. i want my neighborhood to be safe too.

i also dont want to be punished or unfairly burdened with fines and fees just because i rent. in my mind, this is what these fees do. its the city taxing me (bc ultimately no landlord will be paying these out of their own pockets) for renting. and then, fining me if my neighbor doesnt like what im doing.

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What other fees are "unfairly" passed on to renters by their landlords?

Property taxes? It's not your property, yet your landlord keeps "unfairly" passing those taxes on to you. It isn't fair to charge the landlord either, since he or she does not live there.

Insurance? That gets passed on too, and renters don't get a dime if somethign happens unless they have their own renter's policy. Renters should be exempt.

Water/Sewer/Garbage/Recyclilng? Charging more for the same service? Unfair! Heck, you could move out of state in the next year, so why should you pay anything to maintain or expand the current system? As a renter, you benefit from those services, but that doesn't mean you should have to pay.

I doubt the fees will be enough to cover the cost of the program, so yes, everyone else is paying via general funds. And people will pay it because it benefits the city as a whole.

There is a world of difference between fining you "if my neighbor doesnt like what im doing" and fining you because you are breaking the law, including underage drinking and the noise/decibel level ordinance.

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^^^

Well said, ncwebguy. I know I have seen my share of careless renters and landlords who will not act against them as long as the money keeps rolling in. Unfortunately the actions of a few lead to consequences for the many. The city can't levy the fees against just one group because they (the city) would be targeted and accused of discrimation against a category of renters, so they put the fee across the board.

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Property taxes? It's not your property, yet your landlord keeps "unfairly" passing those taxes on to you. It isn't fair to charge the landlord either, since he or she does not live there.

Insurance? That gets passed on too, and renters don't get a dime if somethign happens unless they have their own renter's policy. Renters should be exempt.

Water/Sewer/Garbage/Recyclilng? Charging more for the same service? Unfair! Heck, you could move out of state in the next year, so why should you pay anything to maintain or expand the current system? As a renter, you benefit from those services, but that doesn't mean you should have to pay.

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