I had the honor of serving sixteen years on BG City Council. I remember well the difficulties involved with trying to reach decisions that addressed the divergent and often conflicting interests of stakeholders. Serving on Council is a hard job and I can appreciate the difficult decisions that face our Council members as they revise our Zoning Code.
There are multiple stakeholders in decisions that address our housing stock. The three most significant are homeowners, landlords and tenants. It has long been my opinion that the direction set by the Administration and largely adhered to by our elected officials favor the interests of landlords. The philosophy appears to be that market forces will weed out bad rental properties and with time good rentals will flourish. This is a debatable approach in general and, certainly one that seems destined to fail given the transient nature of our rental population. Our older neighborhoods are in decline and at least one consultant (Charles Buki, leader of the CAP team) cautioned that this decline will accelerate if not addressed.
During my time on Council, there were debates and legislation that had the potential to address this decline. There has been much talk of the CAP and Land Use Plans during the recent meetings about the Zoning Code. There was also a Housing Plan in 2009 that addressed similar issues. That plan included recommendations for developing a system of inspections for our rental properties. (It is important to recall at this point that BG is the only college town in Ohio that does not have some degree of rental unit inspection.) Unfortunately this aspect of the plan, which became known as Section O, was voted out of the plan. These inspections would have greatly benefited tenants and would have helped maintain our neighborhoods.
The second noteworthy piece of legislation regarding our neighborhoods was the ordinance passed in 2021 that requires that all rentals register with the City and will permit landlords to self inspect their properties. The impact of this legislation remains to be seen. There are proper concerns about the validity of self inspection.
We are once again faced with impending legislation that will address our neighborhoods. I don’t know where I would fall on many decisions facing our current Council members but I strongly feel that allowing structures that were intended to be single family homes to be converted to duplexes will, once again, serve just the interests of the landlords. Allowing more duplex creation, in the absence of design standards, will not address the lack of affordable housing in town and will accelerate neighborhood decline. I hope we use this opportunity to set a new direction in BG and that our Council elects to err on the side of homeowners and renters as it amends/implements the new Zoning Code.
John Zanfardino
