Dayton's new civil ordinance will enact penalties on owners who allow their residential or commercial properties to deteriorate into disrepair.
But some fear the wording of the measure will actually penalize people occupying these spaces.
City leaders call this ordinance another tool to hold people accountable for the upkeep of their properties.
"It's a new way to try to make our lives better, to try to make sure that people are responsible for properties," City Commissioner Matt Joseph said.
He believes it will target property owners who have successfully evaded the city’s housing codes.
"One big category is people who list their houses they own or the properties they own in an LLC, a kind of corporation that shields them from some of the penalties we would be able to levy," Joseph said. "We're hoping to be able to use this new civil process to encourage them to fix up their properties and if they don't, to find ways to penalties."
The new ordinance will go into effect this spring.
However, some object to the word "occupant" in the ordinance as the person responsible for repairs.
"Including the word occupant means that a tenant could be held responsible when under state law, the landlord has particular items that they're required to do and they cannot shift over to the tenant," said Sarah Weber, attorney with ABLE, a nonprofit civil law firm.
"They are leaving over $1 million on the table biannually."
According to Weber, the city of Dayton already has a rental registry on the books designed to at least hold rental property owners accountable for keeping their property up to housing codes. She said it could generate money from property owners to cover the cost of implementation.
"This rental registry basically requires anybody that has the ability to rent their property to get a rental certificate." Weber said. "Part of that can be an inspection before the rental certificate is granted. Along with that, the rental certificate has a fee, so everybody that's wanting to rent has to pay a $50 fee to the city of Dayton. They are leaving over $1 million on the table biannually."
But Weber said the city doesn’t enforce this ordinance.
According to Joseph, this is because the city relies on Montgomery County’s rental registry. This listing is also not enforced.
Dayton’s City Manager Shelley Dickstein declined WYSO’s request for an interview about the civil ordinance ordinance. Instead she sent an email stating a press update will be released once "necessary staff work" is completed.
Joseph explained Dickstein and the city’s legal department are still creating the process of how this new ordinance will be implemented, identifying the penalties, as well as how and who will enforce it. Another matter is what recourse is available to people who are cited.
As stated on the city’s website, the housing and inspection division is responsible for monitoring and ensuring residential and commercial properties meet Dayton’s codes.
However, Weber fears renters will be served with the bulk of citations for deteriorating properties they don’t own.
"We can choose who we penalize and who we don't."
"It's such an easy little citation they can slap onto a house or hand over to somebody who answers the door, without really doing any research on who the owner is and who's responsible," Weber said. "Creating more of a burden on tenants and low income homeowners and ignoring the true bad actors, which are the LLCs, the landlords that are out of state."
But Joseph said the commission is directing Dayton’s city manager to create exceptions into the already approved ordinance to protect renters.
"We can choose who we penalize and who we don't. So we've asked the city manager to put measures in place to make sure that folks that aren't really responsible for the problem aren't penalized for it," Joseph said.
And to protect Dayton’s low income homeowners, Joseph said, "We do have quite a few programs now, including some ARPA money that we're putting toward assisting people to fix up their houses. So we would want to funnel them into one of those programs and not penalize them."
