Item 2A: Approval of Council Minutes

Home Browse Search

paying $30,000 for general City accounting costs and that money did nothing for tenants or landlords. He said the program might have helped a few people but not enough to justify its continuation. Michael Steffen , 3709 Pine Canyon Drive, opposed extending the sunset for the Rental Housing Code for any period of time. He agreed the program was redundant of State law and said if there was to be such a program another approach should be found. He did not City government was the most effective program provider. He agreed that the program was over-collecting revenues and was administrative-heavy. He questioned why the City was spending $33,000 annually on overhead costs. Mr. Steffen estimated the City’s cost for each valid complaint to be $11,600. He also had concerns about transparency as it related to the program, saying it was difficult to get information from staff about how it was spending its time. Marlene Varady , Ward 2, identified herself as a rental property owner and recommended that the council extend the sunset date. She said the program’s excess revenues had been used to help tenants make complaints about landlords who were not taking care of their properties. She considered that a good thing. She suggested the program reserves be used to house homeless youth and proposed the City rent a school for that purpose and allow the Rental Housing Association of Lane County to oversee the use of funds. Dennis Casady , PO Box 5028, asked that the ordinance be sunsetted and unused funds be returned to the landlords. He believed that the Rental Housing Code was duplicative of Oregon Landlord Tenant Law, which addressed all the issues covered by Eugene’s code. He pointed out that if a tenant had a problem he or she could take a landlord to court, stop paying rent, or repair the problem and deduct the cost of the repairs from the rent. He believed the City’s accountability for the program left much to be desired, and pointed out the totals did not match in the complaint report provided to the council. As additional evidence of the lack of accountability, Mr. Casady said that for the past two years he had received bills from the City for two properties that were still under construction and lacked occupancy permits. rd Maureen McCauley , 1755 East 23 Avenue, also asked the council to allow the ordinance to sunset. She did not believe the ordinance was being administered in a fair and equitable manner. She described her experience with the program and said she had to pay a nonrefundable $250 fee for her side of the story to be heard. She had been cited for violating the code’s heating standards but the City had not tested the system and it was misidentified as an oil heating system in the City’s report when it was actually a natural gas system. The system was subsequently professionally tested by Home Comfort and it met all City standards. She had provided a copy of the Home Comfort report and a copy of the appeal filed by an attorney she was forced to hire to fight the City’s order to correct. The City Manager subsequently rescinded the order to correct. She said the experience was a costly emotional ordeal. John VanLandingham , 335 Grand Street, Lane County Legal Aid and Advocacy Center, said he represented low-income tenants in landlord-tenant matters. He supported extending the sunset while the City reviewed the program. He believed that State law was onerous and risky for tenants to use. While State law did not require a tenant to hire a lawyer to sue a landlord, he averred one was necessary and Eugene only had two lawyers who dealt with such lawsuits, which took a long time to be heard. He further averred that tenants risked immediate eviction and ruined credit if they withheld rent as permitted by State law. Mr. VanLandingham also maintained the purpose of the code was to improve the quality of the community’s rental housing stock. He believed a neutral, City-funded program was necessary if the City wanted to be notified that something was wrong with a rental. Scott Sanders , 495 Berrywood, opposed the extension of the Rental Housing Code. He suggested that unless the public believed the council was managing government funds efficiently it would be hard to get support for even the most valuable public services. He said the cost of the Rental Housing Program was MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 21, 2011 Page 5 Public Hearing