With the deadline three days past, the Athens Code Enforcement Office has received only about 600 completed landlord-tenant agreements for the city's estimated 4,700 rental properties.
Now a city councilwoman said she is frustrated that Code Enforcement Director Steve Pierson forced major apartment complexes to comply with the ordinance that created the agreements, adding that Athens City Council probably will modify the legislation so that those complexes are exempt.
The dispute between Pierson and Councilwoman Nancy Bain, D-3rd Ward, originated from a December ordinance requiring tenants and landlords to read and sign a list of basic housing codes, including where cars should be parked and where trash cans should be stored. The ordinance required landlords to return the signed agreements to the Code Enforcement Office by Sept. 30.
Landlords objected to the ordinance, especially a provision that stated they could be charged with a minor misdemeanor if they failed to return the agreements to the office. Some distributed a letter of objection to the ordinance at a Sept. 11 council meeting and said publicly they would not comply.
The code office will send letters to non-compliant landlords advising them they have been granted a 30-day extension, Pierson said. After that, they likely will be given an additional 15 days to return the completed agreements before facing criminal prosecution, he said.
Among those forced to comply are landlords who own large, managed apartment complexes. But Bain said the purpose of the ordinance was to educate residents living in neighborhoods around the city, not those living in complexes, she said.
We never included big apartment buildings; we always said it was for the houses in the neighborhoods
Bain said. It was (Pierson's) interpretation that included (apartment complexes).
Pierson said the ordinance legally exempts only rental dwellings or rooming houses with 10 or more people, and because large complexes are divided into many rental dwellings or units, they are not exempt. If the ordinance had exempted buildings with 10 or more people, tenants in large complexes would not have to complete the agreements, he said.
I'm just reading it Pierson said. I don't see anything in there that specifically says apartment complexes are exempt.
For that reason, Bain said council probably will change the original legislation.
All of this sort of side tracking and word gaming does not get information flowing to the people she said.
17
Archives
Matt Zapotosky
