Anti-crime housing law on Batavia agenda

Batavia officials are resuming talks about having a crime-free rental housing law, at least for large complexes.

Police Chief Gary Schira, a proponent of the practice, is presenting a draft of the law to the city council’s city services committee today. The committee meets at 7:30 p.m. at the Batavia Government Center, 100 N. Island Ave.

Beliefs that rental housing may account for disproportionate use of city services, including police, prompted the city to investigate options starting last fall. Ideas studied included inspections of the insides and outsides of rental housing, licensing of landlords, and requiring leases to include penalties for tenants who conduct criminal activities there. Such penalties are already included in leases for properties by tenants using federal housing subsidies.

The proposed ordinance starts with large multiunit rental properties — those with 10 or more dwellings or dwelling units. There are seven of those in Batavia. It calls for licensing landlords and requiring them to live or work in Kane County or have an agent in Kane County. Property managers would have to complete the police department’s Crime Free Rental Housing Seminar.

It describes nuisance residential rental property, including renting to a person who allows any of 19 criminal laws, from murder to violating the state Cannabis Control Act. It also considers it a nuisance if the occupants of a unit or dwelling commit four or more ordinance violations in six months, or there is “an unreasonably high number of calls for police services ... when compared to other properties in the City of Batavia.”

The police chief could suspend a rental license but the property owner could appeal the decision to the city administrator, under the proposed law. If the administrator decides the license should be revoked, the case would be sent to the city’s hearing officer. A revocation could be appealed to the city council.