PIQUA — The City of Piqua is looking to put a new rental inspection program in place.
The program would require owners of rental properties to get a license and inspection from the city before renting it out.
News Center 7′s Taylor Robertson spoke to landlords and residents who live and own properties in the city and they said they feel like the new program not only violates their privacy but is selective in which houses they want to go after.
“It violates our rights, has taken over our property controls, is excessive enforcement, and is not helping our tenants’ rights to privacy,” Chuck Starrett, a landlord, said.
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Street has been a landlord in Piqua for many years and said he’s voting against putting this proposal in place.
According to the draft of the proposal that was published on the city’s website, the rental application would cost $65 a year and the property would need to be inspected by the city before a tenant could move in. On the application, landlords would need to include the property owner’s name, the tenant’s name, and a copy of the lease.
“The tenant has a right to privacy,” Starrett said. “We don’t have a right to give that information out.”
When it comes to the inspection, the city would look at the inside and outside of the home. The city would also be able to provide a registry of rental properties that meet the criteria.
“These are things like carports, these are minute things,” Eva Silvers said.
The drafted proposal said if a property owner doesn’t give consent to the inspection, the code official could request a search warrant. If they don’t pass the inspection, they can be fined.
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Silvers said she wants the city to take accountability for Piqua being in the spot that it is in.
“We’ve had codes and we’ve had a code enforcement for 30 years. For 30 years, obviously, somebody wrote payroll checks and the houses continued to get dilapidated, so nobody did their job then leading us to this point,” she said. “And part of that accountability is on the city.”
She said she hopes city commissioners work with the citizen in the community and enforce codes without putting renters at risk.
News Center 7 reached out to the city but was unable to get in touch with anyone.
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