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ATTACHMENT B MEMO To: Richie Weinman From: John VanLandingham, chair, Housing Policy Board Date: July 13, 2004 Subject: Housing Policy Board Position Regarding Housing Code Enforcement At its June 28, 2004, meeting the Housing Policy Board voted four to two against recommending that the Eugene City Council adopt and enforce a housing code. Before voting, the HPB had a thorough briefing by Marsha Miller, Building and Permit Services manager for the City's Planning and Development Department, including a review of Corvallis' experience with this issue, and a discussion. The four HPB members who voted against housing code enforcement were vice-chair Norton Cabell, Lane County Commissioner Bobby Green, Patricia Hadley, and Bob Doppelt. Voting in favor were me and Roxie Cuellar. Gary Pape abstained, since the issue will come before him as a Councilor. Several of the "no" voters indicated that it was a close question. Here are the reasons given by those who opposed housing code enforcement, recognizing that not all the no voters agreed with all of these arguments: 1. Housing code enforcement would not promote additional affordable housing, which is the HPB's mission. 2. Housing code enforcement would be of little benefit to most tenants. 3. A per-unit tax or fee on landlords would be better used for affordable housing development or homelessness prevention, as recently recommended by the Homelessness Prevention Task Force, instead of funding a housing code enforcement program. Using the landlord tax for housing code enforcement would make it politically difficult to later increase it for homelessness or affordable housing development. 4. Housing code enforcement would cost more than the benefits warrant. 5. A better solution would be to fix the state landlord-tenant law to make it work better at achieving repairs. 6. Housing code enforcement would create an unneeded bureaucracy. Maybe neighborhood groups could handle enforcement. 7. Don't do enforcement; instead do education. 8. Housing code enforcement is likely to lead to rent increases. Maybe impose the per-unit tax on the tenants, not the landlords. 9. It would be unfair to tax all landlords for the failures of a few bad landlords.