Sean C. Morgan
Sweet Home City Councilors and the city manager told an audience last week that the city has no intention of passing an ordinance allowing the city to enter the homes of renters.
City Manager Ray Towry reiterated the message later in the week following discussions on social media, telling The New Era, “The council is not in favor of any kind of search or intrusion upon private property when it’s being inhabited.”
The discussion stems from the council’s interest in an ordinance passed by Corvallis in 2015. The council first looked at the Corvallis ordinance in 2016 but it took no action at the time. The council revisited the discussion at its regular meeting on Aug. 27.
About seven pages of the ordinance regulates the interior of rental homes, said City Attorney Robert Snyder.
“You would be putting work on the books that we do not have the capacity to tackle,” Towry said during the Aug. 27 meeting. He told the council it would need to pay for additional staffing to enforce the code. Additionally, he told the council that it would meet resistance in the community about the city going into homes.
“We definitely don’t want to be telling people how to live,” said Mayor Greg Mahler, but “we’ve got after the citizens, keep them safe and at the same time take care of eyesores.”
City councilors balked then at the idea of regulating the interior of rentals, but they expressed interest in doing something to improve the exterior portions of buildings and properties in Sweet Home, so the council continued its discussion of the ordinance during its regular meeting on Sept. 10.
Based on the previous council discussion, Snyder said, city staff would address conditions inside rentals by disseminating information to tenants and landlords through the library, Legal Aid and city inserts about landlord-tenant laws and rights.
Snyder said he contacted Legal Aid in Albany and learned the group does presentations for interested groups. The library already has pamphlets and literature available on the newest landlord-tenant laws.
“We hate to put something on the books that doesn’t need to be on the books,” Towry said. Regarding exterior areas, he said, a lot of what’s in the Corvallis ordinance is already in Sweet Home’s nuisance ordinance.
Snyder and Code Enforcement Officer Tommy Mull are reviewing the laws concerning the exterior parts of a structure and property to see if they can incorporate them into Sweet Home’s existing nuisance ordinance, while the council will continue discussion on the ordinance at its Sept. 24 meeting.
Councilor Diane Gerson said she wanted to look at a “certificate of occupancy” concept with rental properties.
The city could certify rentals prior to occupancy, Gerson said. That way renters would know a rental meets requirements.
Towry said he had just received a call from a person who was formerly a planning employee in Bellingham, Wash., which had exactly that kind of program.
“We’re going to have to do some research,” Towry said, adding he would look more into the idea and the information the caller had sent him.
About a half dozen members of the public, including real estate agents and property managers, appeared at the council meeting.
Wendi Melcher of the Heritage Northwest real estate office in Sweet Home said she hoped the council would get more input from people who have rentals and property managers before moving forward.
Kitsey Trewin of Ames Creek Realty told the council Sweet Home already has a shortage of housing, and the recently passed state rental law is pushing landlords to sell.
Over-regulating may exacerbate that, she said, increasing rents with less available housing.
“Honestly, a lot of landlords are scared right now,” she said. Some 85 to 90 percent of them have just one or two homes and are “regular people.”
If the city started imposing fines based on the actions of renters, landlords will have to pull out of the rental business, Trewin said.
No question, Mahler said, Salem is making it tougher for landlords. The council’s goal “not to make it tough for landlords in Sweet Home.”
But the council would like to make Sweet Home housing look better outside, he said.
“It can’t just be the rentals,” Trewin said. A lot of “owned homes” aren’t up to standard.
The council’s focus on exterior issues is for all housing, Mahler said.
“I think council’s aware it’s not just a rental issue,” Towry said.
“The biggest thing for me is the safety and health issues,” said Councilor Dave Trask, a longtime volunteer firefighter, who said he really doesn’t want city officials going into private homes, but there are places where needles are a threat where people, including firefighters and police officers, could fall through the floor.
Trask said he isn’t ready to give up on inspecting rental interiors if the council decides it can afford to hire someone to enforce it, but it’s something that the city could put on the back burner for now.
Councilors also discussed changing the ordinance that allows property owners to use tarps on their roofs. While recognizing it may take time to make a repair, Mahler noted that some become permanent.
Present at the Sept. 10 meeting were councilors Cortney Nash, Lisa Gourley, Mahler, Gerson and Trask. Susan Coleman and James Goble were absent.