By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Over the decades, rental housing has inched its way up to an estimated 62% of Bowling Green’s housing.
For nearly 50 years, Bowling Green city leaders have tried to level the playing field for the three stakeholder groups in rental housing – the tenants, adjacent homeowners, and landlords.
The effort began again in earnest last year, with five public hearings held to gather input on a proposed rental housing registration, licensing and inspection plan. Tenants told of landlords not providing safe living conditions, and landlords defended their properties and resisted any type of inspections.
Then COVID hit and opportunities for more public input were put on hold.
But Monday evening, City Council’s Community Improvement Committee – which includes council members Jeff Dennis, Bill Herald and John Zanfardino – met to resurrect the plans to regulate rental housing in the city.
Many communities in Ohio – especially college towns with large rental populations – already have registration, licensing and inspection programs in place.
Last November, City Council agreed to split the process and take the least controversial step first for rental registrations.
New council member Jeff Dennis said his preference would be to work on all parts of the ordinance at once – not just the registration.
But the decision to split the issues had already been made.
“We recognized this is an issue that interested a lot of stakeholders in town,” Zanfardino said. And the easiest “low-hanging” fruit would be to create a rental registry.
Zanfardino said he recognized the increased difficulties for all parties involved due to COVID.
“Renters are having difficulties. Landlords are having difficulties. We’re having difficulties getting public comment,” he said.
“In my perfect world,” Zanfardino said, the registration, licensing and inspections would be handled simultaneously. But he suggested the “prudent” approach would be to adopt a registration process first, then tackle the licensing and inspections.
“I understand the times we’re in,” Zanfardino said.
The registration ordinance would require landlords to register each rental unit with the city within nine months. It would require landlords who live more than 35 miles from Bowling Green to have a manager for the rental units within 35 miles of the city.
If there is a change in ownership, landlords would be required to re-register the property.
Someone renting out a room in their home would not have to register.
Herald asked that the ordinance include definitions for “landlord” and for what qualifies as a bedroom. He also suggested that it might be nice to have layouts for the rental units for the registration.
While he doesn’t want the process to be onerous for landlords, Herald said the layouts would be informative for people looking to rent a location.
Herald agreed with the slower approach, and noted that taking a few extra weeks to get wording correct would be worth it in the long run. Afterall, any rental housing measures have been four or five decades in the making, he said.
“We will get there,” Herald said.
“We have renters who are trying to make ends meet, and we have landlords trying to make it through this very tough time,” he said.
The next meeting of the Community Improvement Committee to continue working on the rental registration wording will be April 5, at 6 p.m.
