The Durham City Council is expected to vote on a provision intended to protect tenants living in unsafe conditions at its Monday night meeting.
At its October 9 work session, the council discussed a revision to the city’s housing code that would prevent landlords from collecting rent on properties with “imminently dangerous” conditions, like unsafe wiring and severe pest infestations.
Right now, Durham tenants can sue for rent abatement in small claims court if their landlords do not keep properties livable. Charlotte and Pittsboro have similar provisions prohibiting landlords from collecting rent for unsafe units, but members of the Durham City Council and the city attorney have raised concerns about whether the proposed provision would be preempted by state law and open the city up to legal risk.
Council member Chelsea Cook brought the proposal to the council at the urging of Riverside High School students and other advocates.
Milo Graber started the Riverside High School Affordable Housing Club after he researched slumlords for an AP government project. Graber came across Charlotte’s tenant protection ordinance and decided that Durham needed one too.
“The people who that policy is going to effect are mostly young people,” Graber told the INDY. “And so having young people advocate, I think, is a lot more powerful as a message, because it’s saying, even if we are not currently the ones in power advocating, we still care about this.”
Graber and other Riverside students wrote a report to the city council and spoke at a previous work session meeting in collaboration with Cook. Cook works as an eviction defense lawyer and as an assistant professor of law at Duke. They said they regularly see clients struggling with unsafe living conditions.
If the ordinance revision passes, Cook would like to pursue adding inoperable air conditioning and lack of airflow to the list of conditions, because health risks during periods of high temperature are increasing in the South. Cook does not intend for the ordinance to remove people from the properties, as homelessness is also a severe health risk. It would only prevent landlords from collecting rent on the homes until the conditions are safer.
“These habitability issues are really, really impactful to people’s lives, and not only because it puts them into housing instability,” Cook says. “It can also come with health concerns as well. So what this ordinance would allow is for an extra tool in the toolbox for renters and for tenant advocates.”
The City Attorney’s Office sent out a memorandum in September raising concerns about the legality and enforcement of the rent prohibition provision, because the topic may be preempted by state law. The state prohibits cities from regulating rent prices.
The City Attorney’s Office instead recommended that the city pass an ordinance listing conditions that make a property unsafe for human habitation and produce a campaign to educate renters on their preexisting right to rent abatement for unsafe conditions. If the council chooses to move forward with a rent prohibition clause, the City Attorney’s Office recommends adopting the list of unsafe conditions and adding language prohibiting occupancy of units found to meet those conditions.
The North Carolina Tenants Union submitted a memorandum supporting the revised ordinance. General counsel Italo Medelius argued that the city government does have the authority to enforce this ordinance and that “the General Assembly has expressly delegated to cities the power to regulate housing conditions.”
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