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Struthers seeks expertise for landlord registration act
STRUTHERS
Struthers residents attending city council meetings for the past two months have expressed concerns with the state of property rentals in the city — namely, that there are too many and that landlords aren’t doing enough to maintain their properties and screen their tenants.
While the topic of cracking down on landlords has become more audible during recent public meetings, city council has been aware of the problem for much longer, and has been drafting landlord registration legislation for more than a year.
The legislation is based on a similar landlord registration program launched in Boardman in 2014, which was eventually challenged in court in 2017 when a landlord argued the law was effectively a tax.
Though that lawsuit lost in two lower courts and was rejected for consideration by the state Supreme Court, it still casts a shadow over Struthers City Council as it attempts to draw up an ordinance that won’t immediately result in a lawsuit.
Councilman Mike Patrick, D, at-large, has frequently defended the time the council has spent on the bill during council meetings.
“We’re being careful and making sure this ordinance works before we bring it to a vote,” he said. “It doesn’t do us any good if we rush it and then we get sued over it; it’s not going to get us any closer to getting the rental situation under control.”
While city Law Director John Zomoida is working on the legal details of the ordinance, the city council is considering bringing in another expert to help lay down its administrative framework.
Maureen O’Neil is a property specialist for the city of Campbell and the former head of public works for Youngstown. Her implementation of landlord and vacant-lot registrations has made Campbell second only to Youngstown in number of vacant home demolitions, and Struthers council has sought her out to help it do the same.
O’Neil met with the Struthers council during its most recent zoning committee meeting to discuss how she could help with the process.
During that meeting, O’Neil suggested the city also consider a vacant property registration as a partner ordinance to the landlord registration act, arguing that landlords can get around registering their properties if they’re vacant.
She also emphasized the need for the city to implement an efficient administrative system for the new program to keep as many cases out of the courts as possible, and agreed to produce a written plan that the council will consider during a future meeting.
Along with implementing the plan, city council may hire O’Neil in a part-time advisory role until the program is implemented and running smoothly.