Rental Licensing vs. registration: a review

The following observations are based on the research provided to the Housing Sub-Committee of the Planning & Development Committee by City of Evanston staff, as well as on the discussions the committee has had on the topic of rental registration versus licensing. When we refer to “other municipalities” below, we are referring to those municipalities researched by City staff.
 
Two Main Issues to Be Addressed:
 

• How to make sure we’re aware of landlords who aren’t complying with the rules so we can work with them to resolve the issues

 

• What to do about landlords that we have tried to work with but still won’t comply with the rules

Issue 1: Monitoring landlords
 
Success in monitoring landlords depends on two resources:
 

• A system that is effective for collecting and tracking landlord information, including contact information, inspection results, actions towards compliance, etc.

 

• Sufficient staffing to manage registration or licensing, do inspections, and follow up on compliance

 
The City lacks both of these. Neither registration nor licensing provisions can be enforced without these resources in place.
 
Issue 2: Enforcing compliance with rules & regulations
 
The tools we currently have for enforcing compliance from property owners who are in violation are fees.
 

• Fees are probably effective with most landlords (assuming we have the staffing and systems to support the fee program) but have not proven to be with some of the problem landlords.

 

• Implementing a licensing program that relies just on fees will, therefore, probably not make a difference.

 
The other remedies listed for “problem landlords” in the research that staff presented included:
 

• Forcing non-compliant landlords to vacate: Most municipalities in the research have not exercised this remedy. Its huge problem is that is displaces tenants.

 
 

• Increasing fees & financial penalties: Some municipalities found this to be effective. However, it has the same problem as above—some landlords just aren’t going to comply.

 

• Requiring the landlord to return rent (rent abatement): This is a cool idea but again difficult to make sure it happens.

 
Other issues we’ve noticed in Sub-Committee discussions:
 

• Violations of code are handled by Inspections staff, while violations of the nuisance ordinance are handled by the Police. It is not clear what coordination happens between the two bodies. As the zoning and nuisance issues are often related, maybe this is an area to look into.

 

• One of the municipalities requires there to be a responsible person living within 25 miles of a rental property if the owner does not live at least that close. Could this requirement help with some of the absentee landlord issues we experience in Evanston?

 

• It would be good to get a clear definition of what the City is trying to accomplish with its rental registration/licensing program. The research that staff provided showed a wide variety of goals among the municipalities profiled.

 
Steps that could point to a decision:
 
Joining Forces feels that the following steps could be of value to the Housing Sub-Committee:
 

• Defining the problems to be solved and the functions to be performed through a Registration and/or Licensing system (including resolving issues with bad landlords, decreasing flipping of single-family homes, preventing student housing, increasing revenue, identifying problem properties, etc.)

 

• Examining the research to see what solutions have come closest to addressing the problems the City is trying to solve as defined in the point above

 

• Identifying the number of “bad actor” landlords that are not complying with requests for corrective action and analyzing whether their infractions show any patterns that could be addressed with focused solutions

 
Identifying what needs to be in place in order to address those problems and perform those functions (prerequisites)--like systems and staffing—and determining whether it is possible and worthwhile to put those in place before changing policy