The Jordan Area Community Council led the campaign to get a rental property licensing ordinance passed in Minneapolis in 1991
We wanted rental property licensing because we found that too many problem landlords, when cited for serious code violations, would choose to pay the fine rather than make the repairs. Rental property licensing put real teeth in the inspections department's bark, because inspections could pull the license, denying thousands of dollars in rental income. With the extra bite, the inspectors could more effectively force problem landlords to comply with citations. But we never intended to simply leave the books on the table. We wanted to use block meetings to identify the houses that were the most delapidated and dangerous, and have block volunteers work with the inspections department and elected officials to use rental property licensing to get these properties cleaned up. I think that neighborhood organizations and neighbors need to be actively involved for rental property licensing to be used effectively. By the way, I also think that rental property licensing can be an effective tool for fighting drug dealing. Drug dealers usually are not practising Martha Steward Living. The places they live in often have serious code violations. Send the inspectors in, and the housing code violations can be used to get the drug dealers evicted and the property cleaned up. We never had the chance to do block organizing with rental property licensing because about the same time RPL was passed we were picked in the NRP lottery and we were off to the races. Jay Clark Cooper REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
