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The
alternate proposal was prepared by the Department of Land Use in
order to "give us (the department) the ability to administer it
efficiently and enforce it effectively," general manager Charles
Baker told a meeting of umbrella civic association officers who
meet monthly with County Executive Tom Gordon.
Its more immediate
effect could well be igniting a major political squabble among
members of Council and between Council and the executive branch
at the beginning of an election year.
The department’s
proposed ordinance not only would require registration of the
estimated 35,000 rental units -- both apartments and houses --
but also that owners acquire a license, valid for five years,
for each unit. As Delaforum previously reported, Coons's
proposed ordinance would require only registration, for which
there would be no charge. The amount of the fee to obtain a
license is not specified in the draft of the administration's
proposed ordinance distributed at the meeting on Dec. 4.
Under
that
proposal, the department would be empowered to inspect living
units using a "systematic managed system" rather than a random
system that would be required by Coons's version. In both versions,
code enforcement officers would continue the present practice of
responding to complaints from tenants and other sources.
The
combination of licensing and inspection would be backed up in
both versions by a variety of civil and criminal actions in
justice-of-the-peace court, but the department version also
contains a provision giving it authority to revoke
or suspend a license and thereby put a landlord at least partly out of business
until violations are corrected.
The
department's version does not contain a so-called 'sunset'
clause. Coons's does. 'Sunset' is legislative jargon for a
requirement that a law be renewed after being in effect for a
stated period of time or else allowed to expire. Coons's
proposed 'sunset' time is two years.
Both
versions contain the text of a printed guide informing tenants
of their rights and avenues for redress of complaints along with
a requirement that landlords distribute it to all present
tenants and give it to new tenants at the time they sign a
lease or enter into another form of rental agreement. The
department's draft claims, however, that including the guide in
a law is not necessary.
Both
versions provide for penalties for failure to register
properties or to distribute the tenants' guide.
Gordon
said the key difference between the two versions is that the
department's "is the one that has some teeth in it." For the
most part, that version addresses the concerns which Gordon
raised in an interview with Delaforum when Coons first made
public his version at a Council executive committee
meeting.
Coons,
who did not attend the civic leaders meeting, later told
Delaforum that he intends to follow through with plans to
introduce his version into Council on Dec. 16. Theoretically, at
least, Council could enact the measure by mid-January.
He said
he is open to considering compromise, but is not willing to
negotiate without participation by several members of the
taskforce. He said he is all but certain that there cannot be
any compromise on the registration-permitting issue nor on
random-vs.-universal inspection.
"I am
willing to talk, but I resent their coming in at the 11th hour
after we've been talking and working on this for 18 months." he
said. He noted that the land use department has been represented
at taskforce meetings for that entire time.
"I am disappointed that their proposal still differs from the
consensus product of the broadly-representative working group on
more than a dozen points," he said. He characterized the
department's version as "largely the version they presented [to
the taskforce] back in May."
Coons
said he recognizes there is a good possibility that there will
be competing ordinances before Council. "I'd like to see us come
together as close as possible, but this is something that may
have to be fought out on the floor of Council.
He
declined to speculate on his ability to garner support from
three other Council members to enact his ordinance. Even more
difficult would be rounding up the four other votes necessary to
override Gordon's likely veto of the legislation
"I don't
like to count my votes in advance. All I can say at this point
is that I am confident that Council members, when they hear the
testimony, will decide the issue on its merits." he said.
Baker has
given copies of the department's proposed ordinance to Coons and
the other members of Council and said that further
discussions with the law makers are planned. Several
participants at the civic leaders meeting suggested reconvening
the taskforce to review the land use department's proposal.
If the
intensity of the discussion at the civic leaders meeting
is any indication, the rental code is looming as a major public
issue with the turning of the year.
William Dunn, of the Milltown-Limestone Civic Association,
argued in favor of passing Coons's version as a viable
starting point toward enactment of a strong code. "Nobody thinks [it] is perfect, but it's a step in the right direction,"
he said. Dunn participated in some of the taskforce's meetings.
"Everybody wants to see something. Something is better than
nothing," said Ken Murphy of the Greater Hockessin Area
Development Association.
George
Lossé, of the Claymont Community Coalition, who was a member of
the taskforce, said he does not agree with some of the elements
of Coons's proposal, but added that he is "more concerned with improving
conditions of some of our rental housing."
"We've
worked out and nailed down certain things [but] we're deadlocked
on others. ... The taskforce got about as far as they were going
to go," Dunn said. "Let's move forward at this time and get
something on the books."
Sherry
Freebery, the county's chief administrative officer, challenged
that line of thinking. "That is not the way to get good
legislation," she said. "The differences [between the versions]
are not as great as you make them sound. We've come this far;
let's keep working until we get something that is right."
She
specifically advocated going beyond simple registration of
rental units. "Registration is nice, but it is hollow unless
there is a permit issued," she said.
She came
down even more strongly in opposition to random inspection of
rental units. "Courts hate random and will overturn it every
time," she said. "There is no body of law [providing for] random
inspection of people's homes. We'd end up fighting this all the
way to the Supreme Court."
Baker
said that 40% of the apartments the department now inspects are
not up to standard. But, to a large extent, code enforcers are
stymied by difficulty in imposing penalties with deterrent
qualities. Fines actually collected from all types of code
enforcement during 2002 totaled only $277, he said. On the other
hand, having the authority to administratively "yank a permit"
is a potentially potent weapon.
Contending that inquiries around the nation were unable to
locate any jurisdiction with a rental code dependent upon random
property inspection, Baker proposed a system that would radiate
out from complaint-initiated inspections and announced
inspections of apartment complexes. That, he said, would result
in some 7,000 inspections a year and 35,000 in five years.
Coons's proposal calls for an attempt to conduct random
inspection of at least 5% of all units each year. Baker said
that approach would force the department to employ resources
against properties which are code-complaint to the detriment of
being able to go after those likely not to be.
Assistant
general manager George Haggerty later said such a targeted
approach would be effective. He noted that 57 complexes
averaging 313 units account for half of the total rental housing
in the county. Moreover, he added, professional code enforcers
know where to look for problems that need remedying. "You don't
need a statistical journey to find out there are problems in
housing that is 20 and 30 years old," he said.
Baker
said a random inspection system would cost more and result in
fewer inspections, but he was not specific about the difference
nor did he indicate how great an expansion of the code
enforcement force would be required. In a different context, he
did refer to Coons's proposed two-year 'sunset' provision as not
providing stuffiest time to recruit and train inspectors.
Throughout the discussion, there was considerable effort by the
administration officials not to disparage the work of the
taskforce. Scattered among several comments favorable to its
work and accomplishment, however, they offered some barbed
criticism.
Gordon,
for instance, said the taskforce was "stacked" and attributed
active support for a rental code by the Delaware Apartment
Association as a thinly veiled attempt to get a weak law
enacted. Otherwise, he said, that trade association would not
have assessed its members a total of more than $100,000 to hire
Shipley Associates to further its effort. Larry Nagengast, a
Shipley vice president, has been the spokesman for the
group at some civic association presentations.
Responding in a statement to that comment at Delaforum's
request, Fred Quercetti, president of the association, said it
assessed members $6 per rental unit to finance all its activity
in connection with the rental code. He described the assessment
as "a mere pittance compared with an annual registration fee of
$30 or more that the Gordon administration wants to impose on
responsible landlords to pay for a burdensome inspection program
whose need the administration has not been able to justify."
Coons
said he resents "an implication by the county executive that any
one group dominated the taskforce when a very wide range of
groups very broadly representative of varied interests made
significant investments of time, money and effort to participate
in 18 months of deliberation to come up with a result that is
fair and balanced."
Baker at
one point referred to Coons's draft as favoring "a screwed-up
random [inspection] process I can't implement." Haggerty said
that when he presented the department's position opposing random
inspection at a taskforce meeting "all we got was an
intellectual discussion about how you can do random sampling to
determine if you have a problem."
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