City kicking around rental, vacant registries

FORT MADISON – Fort Madison city officials continue to grapple with the vacant and rental property registry ordinance.
At Tuesday’s regular meeting of the Fort Madison City Council, Mayor Melinda Blind put the item back on the agenda to discuss proposed updates to the registry ordinances.
The city brought in a group of grad students from University of Northern Iowa who were working with communities as part of their curriculum to help clean up ordinances.
As a result of the process, the city is looking at improving the language to make it more fair and easier to understand.
City Building Director Doug Krogmeier said he was open to new language and wanted to make the process simpler and fair, but also it was a life safety issue and needed to be part of city code.
Fort Madison Fire Captain Mike Schneider said the city has seen a marked reduction in fires since the ordinance was first put into place.
Chapters in the code have been rewritten to address appeals, roles, and responsibilities of the parties including the city, the owner, and the tenant, Krogmeier said.
An owner that lives out of town can still be the contact if they work with the city well. The city also added an exception for  immediate families living in the rental. Krogmeier said that still requires some legal opinions as to what type of affidavit would be required.
“We’re going to turn that back to legal before we adopt this and figure out what our policy says as to how we define that.”
He said the rental program had a $300 fine for non-compliance, but the vacant program was $100 a month. Krogmeier said some rental owners were just paying the fine in lieu of compliance, but new language proposes to change that fine to $100 a month, but after two registrations of non-compliance, the owner will be turned over to court.
“You can’t just ride in limbo and add that $300 to their rent and act like you don’t have to play with the program,” Krogmeier said.
“It’s really life safety and some of those that are doing that on purpose, the (properties) are still really, really rough. We still hear from the occupants in those places and, since they're not registered, you gotta go through court essentially. So we’re just going to define  that legally  and take them to court after a year.”
He said another situation is the vacant properties that are for sale will now get 90 days grace instead of 30 days to complete the sale.
However, two city councilors still had issues with the language in the code.

Councilman Matt Emmett said he still considers it an invasion of privacy. He said homeowners don’t have to subject themselves to inspections at will from the city, but tenants do. Emmett suggested language that allows a tenant to request an inspection, but not mandate one as part of the registry.
“I think this needs a major change. I think the inspection should not be mandatory unless the tenant wants it,” Emmett said. “As an owner, if the tenant wants an inspection, I’m fine with it. I’ve had numerous tenants cry, break down why does the government get to come in my house without my permission?
“No homeowner has to deal with that in Fort Madison. There’s a lot of great stuff in here. I think if we just changed it to not mandatory, that would be a good path forward.”
Blind said she was with the city for 29 years and started in the fire department office and gave several examples of property owners not following code to make repairs, including one that used a garden hose for plumbing, and another about an owner who used an extension cord to complete a wiring harness for a porch light.
“This program is helping the people who are low income who don’t have the ability to move because they have a landlord who’s not doing things they are supposed to,” she said.
“I heard from people who were standing upstairs in the bathroom who could look down and see into the room below them because of the holes in the floor.”
Councilman Rick Thele said he still disagrees with the family exemption saying people still take care of extended family and said he would like the city to follow the state definition of family, which includes close extended family.
He also asked for clarifications on the processes that property owners have to go through in making corrections following inspections to include the appeals process.
Thele said as a property owner himself, he doesn’t have as much authority inside the dwelling as people may think. He gave an example of a tenant who had a bed in front of an escape window that, upon inspection, was told needed moved.
Thele said he could, in theory, take the tenant to court over the issue, but they could just move the bed, take a photo of it in the right spot and the case would be dismissed and he’d be out the court cost. He also pointed to access to hallways and such that he has access to but only when he’s in the building and he can’t control what tenants do blocking hallways or stairways when he’s not there.
“Common areas, yes. But when they stack boxes up on landings or covering a back door, shouldn’t there be something there spelled out in the tenant/landlord responsibilities?”
Krogmeier said that was a fair assessment and the tenant should be responsible for some issues.
No action was taken on the issue and Krogmeier said he will continue to work through the language with the committee that was put together to review the ordinances, as well as City Attorney Pat O’Connell.
In an unrelated issue, City Manager Laura Liegois announced the hiring of  Doug Solstad as the city's new Finance Director. Solstad was hired to replace Peggy Steffensmeier who is retiring later this month after 41 years of service to the city.