After a slew of controversial commentary and testimony regarding a rental-showing ordinance designed to push back the amount of time before a landlord can show an apartment, a city committee concluded the long-standing controversial proposed ordinance needed further discussion.
Ald. Bridget Maniaci, District 2, has several times gone before the city’s Housing Committee to propose an ordinance that would limit landlords’ ability to give residence tours to the second half of leases.
Currently, landlords are allowed to show properties after one-fourth of the lease has expired.
Maniaci’s ordinance was met with an immense amount of controversy among leasing officials who felt limiting tours would cramp landlords’ business and add stress to students’ search for housing.
Since the January committee meeting when the committee last discussed the proposal, it has been revised multiple times; it is now in its seventh version. The current version differs immensely from the original, focusing on lease renewals.
The ordinance language passed by the committee Wednesday says a landlord may not offer a lease renewal to a current tenant until one-fourth of the lease period has passed. The tenant would then have thirty days to accept or reject the offer, during which time the landlord could not lease the property to another prospective tenant.
Housing Committee member Ald. Scott Resnick, District 8, said the Council neither accepted nor rejected the proposal but sent it back to the Housing Committee to work on the issues and continue discussion.
“I honestly think we need to provide students more time to take a look at their lease and their renting situation,” Resnick said.
In February, the Student Tenant Education and Mediation program was instituted – partly in response to concerns about Maniaci’s ordinance – to serve as an informational program to better inform students about the renting process, both before and during their rental.
Bill White, one of STEM’s legal instructors, said he believed the problem at hand is localized and creating legislation in response to it would have citywide implications.
“Feelings run strongly on both sides of this,” White said. “Students have as much right to live in quality housing as everyone else in the city.”
Scott McGowan, a University of Wisconsin law student, also opposed the current ordinance. Similarly to Govin, McGowan said he felt the problem is isolated and is better off being solved via programs like STEM.
“Council should weigh the benefits and see if it really makes sense to implement legislation,” McGowan said.
Still, Maniaci said the current version of the ordinance is completely reasonable, pointing out that renewal offers after one-quarter of the lease period has passed is not different from current legislation.
“I believe there is a really good reason to be doing this,” Maniaci said. “I want to create an equitable market for landlords and renters.”
Resnick said the only time legislation such as the ordinance at hand should be brought forth is when there is a body that cannot voice the issue themselves, such as students renting in the campus area.
With opposition present, the committee motioned to move discussion of the ordinance to the first meeting in July and send it back to the Landlord and Tenant Issues Subcommittee.
