Could a rental inspection program be in Springfield's future? Here's what to know

Dealing with nuisance properties has been on the city's to-do list for years. Now, recommendations from two committees suggest some first steps to address the issue and prevent buildings across the city from becoming blighted.

In August, Springfield City Council passed a resolution directing city staff to gather and track data on nuisance violations, consider solutions from other cities and utilize established city programs for pre-enforcement resolutions. The Finance and Administration Committee was tasked with assessing escalating fees and fines for chronic nuisance properties and reporting recommendations based on the findings. Council's Community Involvement Committee, meanwhile, was asked to consider the feasibility of the recommendations from the Feb. 23, 2023, Nuisance Property Work Group Final Report. On Monday night, these recommendations were presented to the full council.

What do the recommendations include?

Building Development Services Director Brock Rowe presented eight recommendations that ranged from repealing the current rental registration program to exploring a new rental inspection program to becoming a hub for neighborhood resources.

Six of the eight recommendations, Rowe said are possible to achieve with current staff. These would take at most nine months to execute. They include:

• Repealing the current rental registration program. Rowe said the program has been inactive since 2019 and BDS has other ways of finding interested parties' addresses;

• Multiple Green Clean Vouchers. These would give residents several opportunities to take care of bulk trash items that are often left on curbs. Rowe said this is often due to people's inability to move the bulk items to dispose of them properly. These vouchers would help them do that;

• Lobby to change state statute to make mail notices timelier and more efficient. Currently, Rowe said the department needs to wait up to 45 days for certified mail delivery confirmation twice during the enforcement process. City Manager Jason Gage said this has been an item the city has lobbied for the past couple of years;

• Council a approving a shift in BDS efforts from citizen complaint-based enforcement to more strategic enforcement while still addressing citizen complaints. While council members said this was already something that they had acknowledged in previous discussions, this may come forth in a more formal declaration. Rowe said the team has already started using geographic trend data where nuisance violations and blighted buildings are more common so inspectors can focus on those areas strategically to make enforcement more effective. He said the department cited 150 violations in a week, a number that far exceeds violations that result from citizen complaints;

• Making BDS the primary clearing house for community-based resources for neighborhoods to connect residents with programs and services in the community to prevent problems from snowballing;

• Adding to the definitions and fines for chronic nuisance and substantial completion within city code. The proposal would add a $1,000 fine, or $2,000 fine if the violator does not reside at the property, for those who allow chronic nuisance properties to exist. This violation would result from a person either receiving two or more final orders for the same property, meaning the property has been declared a dangerous building at the end of the entire hearing process, or two or more properties receiving this designation under the same ownership.

All of these except for two are also possible with the current budget the department receives, per Rowe's presentation. The clean green vouchers and turning the department into a central hub of resources would require extra funds of up to $25,000 each.

Councilwoman Heather Hardinger, who chairs council's Community Involvement Committee, said the recommendations would start to make a change in the way the city addresses nuisance properties.

"I think there are some low-hanging fruit opportunities that we can kind of take in," she said. "I think it's just a really exciting start to really start transforming kind of the way that we do this kind of work within the city ... We want to create a more proactive approach to what BDS is already doing."

The remaining two recommendations would require more substantial investment. One of these is facilitating a Property Care Team initiated by the neighborhoods. The team would head off issues before BDS is involved by addressing maintenance issues in a timely manner, empowering residents to take ownership of their neighborhood. This would require two new staff code investigator positions to work as liaisons between the city and the neighborhoods. These positions are the only ones from the recommendations that Rowe said he has included as part of the upcoming budget requests.

Rental inspection possible in Springfield's future

One of the largest undertakings coming out of the recommendations, but also one that has been a focus for the local tenants union Springfield Tenants Unite (STUN), is consideration of a rental inspection program to ensure quality and safety of rental housing. Rowe said the work would have to begin with investigating other cities' approaches to this kind of program and considering what would be the most effective for Springfield.

"There's absolutely no reason why in 2024 a city of our size with 60% renter-ship doesn't yet have a working rental unit licensing and inspection program," Sarah Barnts, member of STUN, said during public forum at a February council meeting.

Springfield has never had a program of this kind, meaning it would have to be built from the ground up. In his presentation, Rowe noted that the effort could take more than two years to execute and implement, cost $25,000-$100,000 and require three to 25 new staff positions to be added.

"It would be an undertaking," he said. "We wanna make sure that if we are going to do it, that it's effective. There's no reason to do something if it's not going to work."

He said that investigation of best practices and how other models could be applied to Springfield are possible with current staffing and budget in a shorter timeframe. The costs of the actual program would also vary depending on the financial support model Springfield chooses — whether that would be supported by the city or those participating in the program.

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Springfield's housing study also included recommendations for a rental inspection program, using Kansas City's model as an example. The Kansas City program, known as Healthy Homes, is headed by the health department, which completes annual inspections for $20 a rental unit.

Councilman Craig Hosmer said the program should get underway as soon as possible to establish a self-regulating system and ensure that renters are not endangered as a result of non-compliance.

"If they understand that they're going to be inspected, and that there are consequences for not having life safety issues taken care of ... Right now we're letting good landlords compete with bad landlords, and that is just fundamentally unfair," he said.

Marta Mieze covers local government at the News-Leader. Have feedback, tips or story ideas? Contact her at mmieze@news-leader.com.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Rental inspection plan could reduce Springfield's nuisance properties