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Attachment A Rental Housing Code Staff Report – April 18, 2012 STAFF REPORT The City’s Rental Housing Code provides a local mechanism to resolve rental housing health and safety concerns outside of the court system. This service is not available through the state or county although State law does provide regulations that can be used within the legal system with the cost borne by the complainant. The City’s Housing Code forces resolution with a degree of staff mediation that does not require attorneys or involve significant risk to either party. All but three of the complaints submitted to the program were resolved quickly and without the need for enforcement tools like financial penalties. RENTAL HOUSING CODE BACKGROUND Prior to 1983 the City had a Housing Code that was managed together with the Community Development Block Grant program. The program applied to all buildings that were used for human habitation. The Code regulated unsafe conditions such as structural integrity and sanitation as well as ventilation, heating, plumbing, weatherproofing, and general maintenance. Due to budget reductions the code was eliminated in 1983. In 1994, Council requested a report on general housing conditions. Based on the findings of that report a recommendation was made to increase funding to existing rehabilitation programs and work with neighborhoods to encourage maintenance of the existing housing stock. In 1995, Council directed staff to establish a department advisory committee to develop a local rental housing code. The proposed code was never adopted. In 2004 the West University Neighborhood Task Force renewed community interest in housing standards. Following Council review and public hearings the current rental housing code was adopted and became effective in 2005. Eugene’s Rental Housing Code sets minimum habitability criteria to safeguard the health, property and public wellbeing of owners, occupants and users of rental housing. The Code initially covered structural integrity, plumbing, heating, weatherproofing. A sunset provision was adopted with the Code that would automatically expire the ordinance without further Council action in December 2008. As part of the review in advance of the 2008 sunset, Council added security and smoke detectors to the code. The sunset provision was left in place but extended until December 2011. Mold was discussed without action and referred for further work to a newly created Department Advisory Committee (DAC). Their resulting work was added to the code through Council action in 2009. While mold was not specifically regulated, language was added to address the source of mold as a symptom of water intrusion caused by faulty weatherproofing, plumbing or structural integrity. After the work of the DAC focused on mold was complete, a new DAC was formed to provide more general advice for staff. It was comprised of representatives from both tenants and owners, however, continued representation of tenants was challenging at best and not existent at worst. Staff scheduled the last meeting of this DAC in August 2011 as tenant turnover left only owner representatives with the exception of the co-chair, Hugh Massingill who expected to resign his 1 | Page