INC NEWS - Guest column: Why Durham needs a landlord registry (today's Herald-Sun)

[John Schelp]

Guest column: Why Durham needs a landlord registry
by Kelly Jarrett, Herald-Sun, 23 September 2005

Nearly half of Durham residences are rental
properties. Therefore, renters, homeowners, and the
owners and managers of rental property must work
together to promote the vitality and well-being of
Durham neighborhoods. Inspired by a city-sponsored
landlord training workshop, I developed (and the
neighborhood association adopted) criteria for
identifying good property managers in my neighborhood.
Fortunately, there are rental property managers
committed to playing a positive role in our community,
and we'll identify them and our evaluation criteria on
our website so that potential tenants and absentee
landlords will be able to find good property managers.
Other neighborhood associations have expressed
interest in adopting this program-a development that
could direct owners and tenants to those property
managers who make positive contributions to our
communities and pressure others to be more responsive
and responsible to us. Recently, I presented a
resolution asking the city to require property
managers to list their rental properties by address in
a public registry to the Old West Durham Neighborhood
Association. The OWDNA board and the Citywide Partners
Against Crime group have adopted the resolution. It is
also being considered in other neighborhoods and will
soon be put before the Inter-Neighborhood Council.

We need this registry for more than loud party and
overgrown lawn complaints. When there is a drive-by
shooting at a rental property, police are called and
the incident investigated. But because there is
currently no registry for locating property managers,
in order to inform them of such incidents so that they
may take appropriate actions, we must enter the
address into a city website to find contact
information for the owner. This happened last summer
in my neighborhood, and when we contacted the owners,
who lived in Maryland, they were disturbed to learn
about the shooting, knew little about local property
managers, and were grateful for our referral to a
company with a reputation for screening tenants
carefully and maintaining properties well. We're
fortunate that the owner was receptive to our concerns
and suggestions-but only because we contacted the
owner do we now know who manages this rental property.
While things worked out well in our case, many times
those plagued by violence, crime, gang and drug
activity, or disruptive tenants in rental properties
are not so lucky. Renters have a right to live in
safe, well-maintained properties that meet housing
code standards and a responsibility to abide by laws
and ordinances. Landlords have a responsibility to see
that their properties meet code standards and a right
to evict when tenants engage in criminal activity,
violate city ordinances, violate rental agreements, or
don't pay rent. Police and city inspectors can
investigate crimes and code violations, but it is the
responsibility of landlords and property managers to
evict tenants who engage in criminal activity, violate
city ordinances, or otherwise violate their rental
agreements. Too often, this responsibility is ignored,
and law-abiding citizens suffer the consequences of
unresponsive, absentee owners who have no interest in
what happens in their properties as long as they get
their rent checks. A public registry will help Durham
citizens easily identify and contact companies that
manage rental properties to encourage and support them
in evicting tenants whose behavior threatens public
safety and welfare.

Property managers routinely list available properties
on websites and real estate listings. City housing
inspectors keep track of managers of properties
reported for violations. What this resolution asks is
that this information be centralized and made
accessible to the public.

My own neighborhood and neighborhood association, like
many others in Durham, is about evenly split between
renters and homeowners. Apple Realty's Chris McKeel
and I agree that strong relationships between
neighbors are the foundation of healthy neighborhoods.
These relationships happen in neighborhoods across
Durham. Renters and owners are neighbors and friends.
We share tools and recipes, collect each other's mail
and newspapers during vacations, and trade plantings
from our gardens-and we work together to address
shared concerns in our communities. Problems arise
when it is not possible to establish these
relationships, when friendly overtures are met with
indifference or even hostility. And of course,
criminal activity changes the equation. As do
abandoned or empty rental properties. My motivation in
undertaking the Recommended Property Manager
Initiative and proposing the city registry, which I
don't think was captured clearly in the Herald-Sun
article, is to build ongoing relationships with
property managers so that we can address problems
together before they require reports to police or city
inspectors. I believe that positive, proactive,
collaborative relationships between renters, owners,
property managers, and city officials are necessary
for Durham's many diverse neighborhoods to thrive. By
adopting the registry resolution, the City of Durham
will provide us with one tool for working together for
the greater good of our community by addressing
problems that contribute to criminal activity and
neighborhood decline.


Kelly Jarrett is vice president of the Old West Durham
Neighborhood Association.