Solon Council's Rental Inspection Discussion Continues Tonight

The Solon City Council will continue its discussion today of the proposed rental inspections ordinance.

That discussion began earlier this month, when City Council met and .

The meeting is set to begin at 5 p.m. today in .

A four-vote majority of city council is leaning toward for the city's rental properties in the ordinance, while three councilmen don't like the idea. The supporters are council members Toni Richmond, Ed Kraus, Nancy Meany and Robert Pelunis. Rick Bell, Bill Russo and Bill Mooney are leaning against it.

That's a change from the council's last round of discussions, when members rejected inspections for rental units because of privacy concerns. Instead, Solon officials watered down the ordinance to one requiring landlords to register their rental properties, but no inspections.

City officials have spent more than a year debating how they should regulate rental properties, which some say are magnets for trouble or are more likely to fall into disrepair and become a neighborhood health hazard and eyesore. 

Some want properties to be inspected, while others see that as going too far, and want to begin regulating rentals by requiring landlords to register their properties so the city can create a database.

But it's unclear whether rental properties are as large a problem as some perceive. On Tuesday, city officials told council that in 2010, only 12.5 percent of the code violations were for rental units. The rest were owner-occupied properties.

The debate has gone back and forth between City Council and the planning commission, which have not been able to come up with a program that goes far enough to curb the perceived problems without going too far. 

These work sessions were organized by Kraus in hopes of finally making a decision on this issue.