08-08-07 Council Workshop Minutes

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MINUTES CITY COUNCIL AUGUST 8, 2007 situation. He also noted that the City cannot force its way into a rental unit, and in some cases the City may need a warrant to get into a unit to do an inspection. Keis suggested that lease agreements provide management with the right to inspect rental units. With regard to implementation of this ordinance, the City Administrator suggested that it may be necessary to either increase the Deputy Fire Marshal's hours or hire a part-time inspector. He noted that the Code Enforcement Officer would need additional training to qualify her for these types of inspections, and also noted that code enforcement demands alone could easily turn her position into afull-time commitment versus her current split of code enforcement and utility billing. Allan suggested that license fees and fines should be sufficient to generate enough money to pay for this position. Grove reported that in Burnsville the focus was on getting the owners ofmulti-family complexes to fix the problem and not to immediately implement fines. Keis noted that the problems at the multiples are already costing the City a lot of money. The City Administrator indicated that the issue is to not implement a license fee schedule that will cost the owners of the well-run complexes a lot of money. The Administrator suggested that perhaps a nominal license fee on the front end works, with that fee increasing if there are problems at the complex. Blesener suggested a per unit license fee of $5 to $10. Grove reported that the license fees being charge in other cities run the gamut. The Administrator suggested that perhaps a business licensing program was the best approach, with all businesses in the City paying something towards fire inspections given the time already expended in this area. Allan felt that it best to start off with some per unit license fee, even if that fee is nominal, than to start off with no fee at all. Blesener asked how many apartment units there were in the City. The Administrator replied that there are 1,488 apartment units. The Administrator indicated that, at this point, the City does not know how much time it will take to implement and administer a rental housing licensing program. There will be the need for initial inspections as well as a tracking system for ordinance violations, similar to false alarm tracking. Allan and Blesener agreed that the per unit license fee should be $10 to start with. Grove pointed out that the larger complexes will say that this is $4,000 that will not go into building maintenance.