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City’s proposed rental inspection program does not include East End
Graham Moomaw has a write-up in today’s Times-Dispatch on a proposed rental property inspection.
The city of Richmond is considering the creation an inspection program for rental properties in old areas of the city, a policy that could have a major impact on the 56 percent of city housing occupied by renters.
The rental inspections would apply in special districts created by the city with a high volume of renters and a risk of blight. As envisioned, the program would focus on student-heavy historic neighborhoods such as the Fan District, Oregon Hill, Jackson Ward and Carver, but the exact districts would be drawn later by city officials.
Pitched as process to fight blight, it is interesting that the proposal sounds like it would not include any of the East End.
The city already doesn’t or can’t enforce the maintenance of existing blighted properties (let alone many parks, schools and secondary streets), and now they’re going to open this can of worms? I guess it all looks good on paper–too bad it doesn’t translate into reality.
I guess my first thought about this was the FDA, who has so many regulations and guidelines but no inspectors to fulfill them. How would this be enforced? As far as the fines, good luck collecting them.
Second, having rented in these old houses I know what type of problems exist, how much the owner can/is willing to put into it/and what my personal responsibilities are. None of my landlords were ‘sumlords’ and I keep everything clean and report problems when they arise.
However if the city ever got down in the basement of the house I lived in on 27th street and saw the floor joists and foundation, I would have been out of a place to live.
I was curious what Petersburg’s criteria are, so I found this link. Most of it is commonsense safety and sanitation. But if the city says the dwelling needs a new roof and the owner doesn’t comply, then what?
http://www.petersburg-va.org/codecompliance/RentalProgramGuide.pdf
Not sure how I feel about this. We own property that’s in fairly rough condition that we bought with renovation in mind – most of which came with tenants in place. These tenants (mostly older folks on fixed incomes) would not be able to afford what we would fairly and necessarily charge for a renovated house. I suspect if this program included the east end and was fairly stringent, there might actually be more vacant property and less housing for people of limited means. Not sure it would be a net positive.
I agree with you Lee @ 3. As a landlord myself, I don’t see this proposal as anything more than a new tax. People should be able to decide for themselves where they choose to live, and what they can afford.
This is a horrid idea that will just allow the local government more authority over private businesses and residences all at the expense of our own tax dollars. Another retarded big-brother pie-in-the-sky idea that can never actually pay for itself. Must be nice to be a politician and live in a magic fairy tale land where economics don’t matter.
How about the city start by doing an inspection of its own holdings and get them all up to code first. In about 50 years once that’s all cleaned up we can talk about them doing something like this.