St. Charles puts landlord crack down on hiatus

An effort to crackdown on bad landlords in St. Charles will take a six-month hiatus as persistent questions and concerns surrounding the program stalled a vote by aldermen Monday night.

To help address the problem in the interim, aldermen moved to add two more behaviors that city code enforcement officers can cite a property owner. Excessive rubbish and garbage as well as ill-kept plants and weeds at a property will be considered in determining if a “chronic nuisance property” condition exists. Such a determination provides the city with additional methods for forcing the property owner to clean up the property.

Those changes are minor compared to what aldermen are considering in a new landlord licensing program. The plan would force landlords to receive training on being a good property manager, institute annual inspections to the exterior of rental properties and create a new method to help landlords evict tenants if there is substantial evidence that the tenant committed a serious crime.

Landlords have had mostly positive comments about the idea but have dug their heels in on several issues.

Key among those issues is the annual license fee landlords would pay in the new program. Batavia has a similar licensing program but does not charge a fee. Several aldermen said they could not support such a fee in St. Charles, at least at the amounts city staff proposed. The fees range from $42 per single-family home a landlord owns to $1,200 per year for a landlord who owns a multifamily residence with more than 250 units.

Local realtors also balked at an aspect of the plan that would require a landlord or property manager to live within 50 miles of the rental property. Realtors don’t like how that may impact empty-nesters who move to other states and rent their homes, or have been otherwise unable to sell the property in the current economy.

Some local renters and residents have also spoken against the plan as a violation of their Constitutional rights. They argue the plan holds renters and rental property to a different standard than owner-occupied property.

Resident David Amundson said the proposal is “lawsuit waiting to happen,” especially in terms of evicting renters police believe are guilty of crimes even if they haven’t been convicted.

“The landlord really has no vested interest in whether or not his tenant steals a pair of jeans at Wal-Mart,” Amundson said. “Is that comparable to throwing a tenant out of their residence? I think this puts a chilling aspect on being a tenant in St. Charles. Personally, I would leave town if I was forced to sign this thing. I have three boys. What if when they are 16 they make one dumb mistake? Petty theft and we’re out of our house?”

Aldermen agreed the plan still needs some work. They asked staff to consider the public concerns and come back with some revisions in six months.