02-11-09 Council Workshop Minutes

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MINUTES CITY COUNCIL FEBRUARY 11, 2009 proposed a two year cycle, and property owners felt a four year cycle to be more reasonable. The Administrator reported that Council Member McGraw would like 100% inspection as soon as possible so that the City knows what it is dealing with. Lisa Peilen, Minnesota Multi-Housing Association, noted that apartment owners are not immune from this economy. She pointed out the overall cost these property owners will incur due to the licensing program, i.e., inspection costs and licensing fees. This diverts money from building improvements. She also noted previous discussion by the Council relative to rewarding the well-run complexes. Peilen encouraged the Council to consider a 4-year inspection cycle. Keis stated that his concern is that under a 4-year cycle problems will be found and corrected as a result of the inspections of the first 25% of the units the first year, but the remaining 75% of units will not be addressed in a timely manner. Blesener suggested that if a 4-year inspection cycle is agreed to, a provision could be added to the ordinance speeding up the inspection cycle if there are an inordinate number of violations found. Montour stated that he was not sure he wanted to spread out the inspection cycle over 4 years. Keis felt that a representative sample of violations will be found in the first year. If there are excessive violations, the cycle could be sped up. The City Administrator stated that he would contact South St. Paul to determine how they address this issue. He noted that violations would likely have to be of a serious enough nature to warrant an acceleration of the inspection cycle. Standards will need to be developed to make this determination. The Council discussed this issue further and the consensus was to require inspections of 1 to 4 unit rental properties in the first year and then every two years after that, and inspections of rental properties 5 units and over on a 25% of units each year, achieving 100% inspection in 4 years. The City Administrator noted that the third issue recommended removal of the requirement for background checks on owners/officers/managers given that State Law requires background checks on property managers. Council agreed. The fourth issue was the license period to be used. The consensus was that there was some flexibility with the license period in the first year given the difficulty of getting the licensing program up and running by July 1St. However, once the program is underway, the license period would be defined and based on a one year time period. The fifth issue related the use of Crime Free/Drug Free language. It was the consensus of the Council that Minnesota Multi-Housing Association's 2