Eight years after they ended a similar program, Elkhart Mayor Rod Roberson is asking common council members to bring back a rental housing inspection program.
The program would require landlords to annually register their rental units with the city, giving city code enforcement staff local contact information for landlords when problems arise. Rental units would be required to undergo inspections every three years to make sure they’re safe and meet standards.
The ordinance sets a $5 registration fee per unit and a $60 inspection fee, and it sets penalties for landlords who don’t comply. Rental properties with five or more units can be exempt from city staff inspections if they show documentation verifying they’ve been inspected by someone else who is qualified.
The council will consider first reading of the ordinance Monday night. It also will hear an ordinance that earmarks $95,000 to start the program.
Council member Aaron Mishler says he welcomes the idea. Mishler, who took office in 2020, said people sometimes ask him why the city isn’t enforcing rental inspection requirements and he has to tell them that the council repealed the inspections ordinance in 2017.
"We worked closely with property owners, both large and small, to figure out a way to make this work," Mishler said. "I think that's kind of what separates it from the last ordinance. We've been much more hand-in-hand with some landlords to make sure this is written in a fair way to support both property owners and tenants."
The Elkhart Truth in 2017 reported that some council members thought the program was unfair to landlords who were complying with it because the city had not been enforcing penalties against landlords who weren’t complying.
