CLEVELAND — The city of Cleveland is cracking down on negligent landlords and blighted properties.
On Monday night, Cleveland City Council approved a sweeping overhaul of building and housing codes. The goal is to improve housing quality, protect tenants and make it easier for the city to track down and punish bad actors.
The legislation revamps the city’s existing rental registry. It creates a registration process for vacant buildings. And it requires out-of-town landlords to pick a local agent – a person, such as a property manager, that the city can reach and hold responsible for any problems.
“We care about Cleveland neighborhoods. We are putting residents first. And this is a big step in the right direction,” Sally Martin O’Toole, the city’s building and housing director, said on Tuesday afternoon. “Building and housing’s efficiency is going to improve dramatically.”
The complicated legislation is nearly 50 pages long and touches roughly two dozen areas of the city’s code. The proposal provoked lengthy debate among council members and pushback from some real estate industry groups, including the Akron Cleveland Association of Realtors.
The most controversial element was a pre-sale inspection requirement for vacant homes – a softer version of the point-of-sale inspection programs in some Northeast Ohio suburbs.
Starting this summer, owners of vacant, one-to-three-family properties in Cleveland will need to get an exterior inspection before selling those homes. City inspectors will look for things like broken steps, crumbling porches, peeling paint, trash and overgrown landscaping.
Council decided not to require interior inspections, though. Some members worried that indoor inspections – and the cost of making repairs – would hamper sales and burden cash-strapped buyers.
“I’m just thinking of my own street and my own neighborhood, how many empty houses I have because people are just walking away … If we put too many constraints in place, will we just start creating a market where people just walk away?” council president Blaine Griffin asked during a Monday afternoon committee meeting.
Councilman Kevin Conwell, who represents parts of Glenville and University Circle on the East Side, echoed that concern.
“I’m afraid of that huge sucking sound,” he said.
Council delayed the start date of the pre-sale inspection requirement by six months, to mid-summer.
The rest of the changes take effect right away, though. Many of the reforms are aimed at landlords who are difficult to reach or who don’t show up for Cleveland Housing Court hearings.
“We know that there are people in the City of Cleveland right now attracting out-of-state and out-of-country investors to buy properties in our neighborhoods,” said Kris Harsh, a councilman who represents parts of the Old Brooklyn and Stockyards neighborhoods on the West Side, during Monday’s committee hearing.
“And they don’t care about the quality of the property,” he added. “They don’t care about the quality of the tenants. They don’t care about the quality of the neighborhood.”
The legislation, called “Residents First,” does a few key things:
- It expands the rental registry to capture every residential property that is not owner-occupied. There are about 63,000 properties on the registry now, O'Toole said. But officials believe there should be as many as 100,000. Rental registration filings are due in March.
- It requires owners of those properties to identify a local agent in charge. That person must be a Cuyahoga County resident if the property owner does not live in Cuyahoga County or a neighboring county.
- It gives the city the ability to withhold or rescind rental certificates for landlords who aren’t following local laws, such as Cleveland's lead-safe certification requirement.
- It creates a separate registration process for all vacant properties. Owners of empty commercial and industrial buildings in poor condition will have to post a cash bond. That’s money the city can use to pay for nuisance abatement and other repairs. The bond requirement does not apply to buildings that are being renovated, and there are exceptions for land banks and government entities that own vacant properties.
- It introduces the pre-sale inspection requirement for vacant, one-to-three-family homes. Sellers must have an exterior city inspection within a year before a sale. The buyer must fix all code violations within six months, unless the city agrees to an extension. This part of the program will end in two years unless council opts to renew it.
- It allows the building department to issue civil tickets for nuisances like trash, graffiti, rats and bugs. Property owners could face daily fines of $200. If they don’t pay, those fines will get attached to their property tax bills. Previously, the building department only issued criminal tickets that required a court process.
- It requires parking garage owners to pay for private inspections every five years and to submit a report to the city.
- It streamlines the city’s process for cutting tall grass and weeds on private property. The city bills owners for that maintenance.
Several council members questioned whether the chronically understaffed building department would be able to enforce the new rules.
O’Toole acknowledged their skepticism, but she’s not worried.
“I have no concerns that I’m going to be able to adequately staff this,” she said during Monday’s committee meeting. “I have zero concerns.”
The department needs five to seven additional inspectors for vacant properties, according to a presentation submitted to the council.
“Where there’s vacancy and blight, everybody pays,” O'Toole said. “Responsible property owners lose value and equity. Home buyers look elsewhere for a home. Crime increases."
And residents, she added, “expect us to do something.”
