By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
With seniors citizens picketing City Hall this morning, the stage is set for a showdown tonight on the proposed rental property inspection ordinance. Dowagiac officials want it enacted June 1 as the culmination of a five-year plan to address community housing issues and neighborhood revitalization.
Three landlords, Roger and Tanya Leach and Carolyn Moore, president of the Cass County Rental Association, came to the Daily News Friday to buttress criticism at the April 14 City Council meeting by Vineyard Place Manager Paulette Perkins, William Lorenz and Richard Sifford that the ordinance amounts to bureaucratic "overkill," an expensive additional layer of government tenants will bear and an intrusion on privacy with authorization of search warrants if necessary to gain compliance. "I don't think inspections are a bad thing," Leach said, but he and his wife believe external inspections are enough.
When city officials met with landlords, "It was never, 'What do you guys think?' It was, 'This is what we're going to do,' " they said. "It's a 15-page ordinance. It didn't seem like it was going to be this intrusive. Realistically for an inspection, you make sure there are handrails, sufficient lighting so people aren't falling down steps. You make sure there aren't water leaks, plumbing leaks or sewage problems and that's it's a clean, safe, habitable place to live."
The Leaches own a duplex and three single-family houses -- five units -- in Dowagiac. Moore owns eight units.
The Rental Association mailed out 318 newsletters, but she thinks many landlords still "don't have a clue of what the city is doing about this. I had to go to my first council meeting on my anniversary."
Leach questions why, with blight ordinances enforced by exterior inspections, "Why do they need to hire another inspection person at $37,400 to do the same thing and then do internals, which aren't going to make a bit of difference in beautifying the city? All it does is increase costs. Any tenant right now who feels there are any safety or health issues with their house can call the inspector and the landlord has to take care of any problems."
Roger remembers a city official commenting at an intergovernmental forum that the City of Dowagiac "is actively and aggressively trying to get rid of rental properties in the city."
Moore said seniors at Cedar Sands "don't like the fact they're going to have to show their apartments. They feel it's an invasion of privacy." Requirements to conspicuously post proof of inspection attach a stigma to renters, in the landlords' opinion. "It's nothing you make a homeowner do," Leach said.
Leach said, "For the mayor to say, 'What's $5? At $10 a month it's still a bargain,' it isn't a big deal for him, but for several of my tenants, 10 more buck a month is a big deal. That cost is going to be passed on to tenants, then state agencies that help subsidize are going to pay ultimately."