Peoria Pundit

The Peoria City Council is scheduled vote Tuesday on ” widespread changes to the city’s landlord ordinance.” Basically, it’s a new stab as rental property registration. There’s an annual $25 fee for every rental property. Failure to register could get landlords fined $500.

And the inspections? Not so much:

In addition, if the council gives approval, landlords and tenants will have to conduct their own life-safety inspections for smoke detectors, utilities, etc., when a tenant moves in. Inspections will then be submitted to the Inspections Department. If not, the landlord can be fined between $200 to $500.

Kunski said that by ordinance, his inspectors are supposed to be inspecting rental properties every three years.

Since a 2003 cut to the department’s personnel, that hasn’t happened. Under the proposed changes, the property will be inspected by a city employee once every seven years. The city will rely on the initial landlord-tenant screening as a more up-to-date assessment of a rental property’s condition.

Meh.

Consider the following:

The government regulates the cable industry. Happy with your Comcast service?

The government regulates the Illinois American Water Company. Think they do a great job?

Folks, when the government starts regulating industry, they say they are just interceding on behalf of the common man, who cannot stand alone against the awesome power of the conglomerates and the corporations. The reality is that conglomerates and corporations quickly learn how to game the regulatory system and before long, the regulators and the regulated are on having expensive lunches and the common man has even fewer options because they are facing a power even greater than an evil corporation: A government that is trying to help.

Thank that doesn’t happen at the local level? Talk to activists in the older Peoria neighborhoods. Many of them have stories of inspectors who seem rendered blind when inspecting the homes of certain landlords. These are the same inspectors who never fail to find a way to ticket anyone who calls in a complaint.

When my parents lived on West Hanssler, they had one neighbor with a garage with a caved in roof. Another had garbage strewn all over their lawn, including a half-full bag of dog food. Three calls to the inspections office, three “warnings” to Mom and Dad for pesky violations. The end result is that my parents live outside city limits.

I am of the opinion that most landlords are good. In fact, you can drive down the streets of Peoria and not be able to tell exactly which homes are rental or not, or which homes are in the Section 8 program or not. I did that once, with a Peoria landlord, and had some Illusions shattered.

These good landlords are NOT going to be made any better by this new stab at landlord registration.  The bad landlords will continue to do everything that they possibly can do to get away with doing and spending as little as possible. They will continue to trade properties back and forth amongst each other to duck responsibility for the long-term shabbiness of their properties.

The real solution: Enforce the regulations that are on the books (and to do that, the council is going to have to give greater priority to anforcement) and to help GOOD landlords keep track of who the bad tenants are.

(press release)

FREE FAIR HOUSING SEMINAR

The third annual Free Housing Seminar will be held on September 25, 2008 from 3:00 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Main Branch of the Peoria Public Library, 107 N.E. Monroe Street. Homeowners, homebuyers, tenants, landlords and property management professionals should attend this event. No advance registration is required.

The first session beginning at 3:00 p.m. will focus on being a smart borrower by protecting yourself from foreclosure and predatory lending practices. The second session beginning at 5:30 p.m. will address the legal rights and responsibilities of tenants and landlords.

This free event is sponsored by the Cities of Peoria and East Peoria along with key supporters like the Illinois Department of Human Rights, Prairie State Legal Services, Peoria and East Peoria Housing Authorities, East Peoria YWCA, Advocates for Access, Debit Management & Credit Education, and Peoria’s Neighborhood Alliance and Fair Employment and Housing Commission.

Refreshments will be served and there will be several prize drawings. For more information, please contact the City of Peoria at 309/494-8530, the City of East Peoria at 309/698-4718 or the YWCA of Pekin at 309/347-2104. To request sign language interpreter services contact the City of Peoria forty-eight (48) hours prior to the event.