Ann Arbor Renters Commission 12/21/23

001body welcome to the December 21st 2023 meeting of the anara renters commission the purpose of uh this the renters commission is to advise the city council and the city administrator in matters affecting renters in our city the renters commission is made up of voting members who are appointed by the mayor and approved by city council two non- voting city council Liaisons two non- voting members representing different landlord perspectives and a non voting representative from the University of Michigan Student Legal Services speak during any of the public opportunities you'll be able to speak through the webinar link or by phone uh for phone access please call 877 85352 47 and enter a meeting ID 935 881 941 uh to use uh the web link it is a2gov.org renters commmission meeting with the first letter of each

002word being capitalized uh you will then be called on by City staff using the last three- digigit of your of your phone number or by your username so and you'll have three minutes to speak so moving on to ro roll call here it's item two uh I am here calling from an arbor commissioner Chen I am calling from and NR Michigan and thank you so happy to have you welcome commissioner Kelly here also calling in from an arbor great commissioner dran here in an arbor welcome commissioner Els here also in an arbor welcome commissioner Lowe's commissioner tibits here in an arbor as well nice to see you commissioner Rosen I'm here and an arber hello commissioner Ratcliffe here in an arbor okay nice to see you looks like you're in Mao but looks are deceiving

003commissioner Thomas commissioner uh pittz here from an arbor hello commissioner good here in an arbor uh council member Rina here in an arbor council member Harrison is not able to make it okay let's see we have one two three four five six seven eight nine 10 11 11 oh no okay but not voting members my bad one two okay great wonderful so now we can move on to item three approval of our agenda um is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented still moved move by Julia do we have a second I'll second second by rosanita all right um all those in favor of um approving the agenda say I I I I all those oppos and a okay approved our agenda uh next move on to item four approval of last meeting's

004minutes so here we have the minutes of the November 16th 2023 renters commission meeting um do we have a is there a motion to approve last meeting minutes a motion motion by Patrick thank you second second by Jamie thank you all those in favor uh say I I I I I suppos to name okay approved unanimously right now we move on to our first general public comment period so I'll hand it over to you Kristen than um public comment can be made by phone by calling 877 85352 47 or 888 78899 and entering meeting ID 935 881 941 if you're calling in you can press star um n to raise your hand if you are joining from the web link um you can use the raise hand feature to join by the web link go

005to um a2gov.org rter commission me if there is anyone who would like to address the renters commission for up to 3 minutes go ahead and raise your hand no attendees have indicated thank you Kristen so we can move on to item six uh old business uh 6-a is our first item here which is approval of the 2024 meeting Calendar let me pull it up here all right so um we need to decide what day and time we're going to meet next year um I believe that there was some tentative consensus on the same time and the same day but let's I'd like to open it up does anyone feel that uh this should be changed for next year I'm happy to stick with the with the current schedule good to hear um anybody else is

006this inconvenient for anybody okay going once going twice all right well seems like we have consensus around 7:30 pm on the third Thursday of each month on Zoom great uh thank you Christen for coordinating with CTN on that okay so now we can move on to 6-b uh approval of uh 2024 renters commission work plan which we had begun discussion on last month pull that up as well okay so at our last meeting we went through our old work plan um we crossed off and read the items that we felt that we had finished um highlighted in yellow the things that we are currently engaged uh in or with and uh I think added in blue I believe new items potential new items yeah so is there anything on this work plan that you all

007feel shouldn't be here or that should be added e okay well I'm not seeing any hands seems like you know we had some discussion last time uh doesn't sound like we there's anything else to add that we can think of at the moment I guess uh just a minor point with the um under commissioner education towards the bottom bot of that section we have the stakeholder engagement meetings should that actually go in the section below for stakeholder education since it's it's that's the target audience for who we're trying to engage it's a good question I think it depends on who we consider being educated in that in a meeting if we're it would probably be a little bit of both us educating the public out materials and us being educated by the public but see

008Jamie yeah I just have a clarifying question the one right above that ordinance aimed at slowing gentrification and displacement in other communities um is that referring to communities surrounding an arbor displacement in like other communities outside like spillover do we know I'm I'm not familiar with this point it's a good question I don't remember who proposed this I like it I think I it's interesting but I'm just was like a little unclear on um I would assume it refers to spillover into nearby neighboring cities townships I'd like to add tc1 zoning to this uh that seems to be a big topic of discussion currently and I feel that we haven't really adequately uh address that yet go ahead Chad um I was going to say the uh if you're talking about the advocate for Staffing

009for enforcement and junk fees um those are both things that are actively being worked on and so I think adding them to the work plan is also fine uh so that we can make sure that we're continuing to get updates on them uh as that work is happening great thank you yeah I suppose advocating for Staffing uh for enforcement that would go into rental housing reform um if we maintain these categories here and junk fees would probably go there too dc1 zoning probably commission education to begin with we should just learn about it first okay um resita um see I'm trying to look but it what point is the city gonna this might be more for um as a council member of Adina but when is the city going to start um implementing any of

010its new uh was it green green rental housing um because I think that is something that we kind of would need to learn about yeah I think that might be a topic that might be worth getting um uh as seeing if OSI would like to come give an update as well I know it's something that continues uh to be on their radar and they're working on um I don't have probably a full update that I can provide right now other than I know that um energy commission for example keeps pushing on that as well um and I know that there are still some details that OSI staff are working on and trying to get across the finish line so that we can um bring something back to council um so it's something that I need

011actually need to check in on myself um as to where we are but um I know that it's it's a matter of OSI staff is very uh bullish on this but is trying to get like a few details worked out so that they're confident that all of the pieces are aligned yeah I think that's um a great idea to add that here um um I think that could go under commissioner education anything else okay uh Kristen would you like me to arrange these into categories since it's kind of a explosion all over the paper okay all right last call for anything else any other ideas all right thank you everybody okay well we can move on to six oh no sorry we need uh do we need to motion to to adopt that plan or

012do we just automatically adopt it you can motion to adopt it both sure yeah do we have a motion to adopt the work plan as it stands I'll move to adopt the work plan thank you resita second second by was I think it was Julia oh no excuse me Jamie um okay all those in favor of adopting this work plan say I all those oppos say n okay the work plan is adopted unanimously thank you everybody for putting some work into it okay uh great now we can move on to 6-c which is a discussion of short-term rentals in our city Okay so I um I've been reading up on short CH rentals and some of you may already know all this information uh but uh let me open up the city's website because the

013city the city's website really does explain it pretty well um so um any rental any any rental unit that is um or dwelling that is rented for less than 30 consecutive days is considered a short-term rental and everybody who operates a short-term rental needs to have a license to to do so and they receive the license through an application on stream um and in order to be even be able to apply I believe you need to either live in a certain Zone in the city or you live in your own um you live in the the the D dwelling so if you want to do a short-term rental in your basement for example you could do that even if you weren't in one of the specific zones so let me show you all so here

014are the zones in which short-term rental licenses may be approved um with that exception of uh owner occupied units so if you're in residential and you live in the dwelling you can still apply for a license so it's this is office um C's D's and but not tc1 and I can show you where they these are in the map so we if we take a look here um the se's are this kind of reddish like mauve color uh the se's are it's you're allowed to apply D and uh me see and office okay but all of this the residential you're not now when it comes to PUD I asked Kristen about this and I I think she got an answer which is that it depends is that is that right Kristen it depends on the

015Pud yes um okay the Pud stands for plan unit development and those are kind of like special Case by case and so they'll be kind of different every time and so it may include or it may not I think most likely not um okay thank you Rosita I see your hand up so does this mean that only owner occupied residential units are allowed to have short-term rentals go ahead Travis before I say the wrong thing um yes but um the answer is yes for like if you are in a residential Zone um unless you are it is your primary residence you cannot create a new short-term rental prior to the city's short-term rental ordinance which regulated short-term rentals the city had been approving some short-term rentals and residentials zes as leases because that there was

016nothing on the books as to treat them otherwise uh or as as uh rental properties so any of the short-term rentals that exist in residential zones um that had previously been licensed by the city as rental properties have what is called non-conforming use status um and so essentially they are allowed to continue operating because they had previously been licensed as a non-conforming use by the city and were acknowledged in that way um but if they were I believe it's if they were to cease occupy or uh operating as a short-term rental for I believe the period of a year they would lose that status um and so then they would that property would no longer qualify um but that's kind of the design because essentially because they had been previously licensed by the city there's

017that slight special exemption for any that had previously Ed so a real world example would be like how would it work if you they were in like say pittfield Village which is a condo complex which is residential but still has um but also has the HOA I guess the condo association then are they still if if they if there were people doing short-term rentals before this then there allowed but if they weren't then they're not allowed or is it like how does all yeah it's a little complicated um the so I don't know how the HOA May prohibit them from happening and so that's a that's an issue between the HOA and the the residents um but if they were operating prior to the short-term rental ordinance passing at the city level um then they

018would likely be they would likely qualify as a non-con form in use to continue operating um in that capacity um if they were not they would not be able to establish as a new short-term rental and my other question also I think you'd be the one who could likely answer it is with the short-term rentals the residential ones and um including within the new the the newly approved um um complex they think it's going to go downtown if you're approving a certain number of them as short-term rentals do any of those short-term rentals in a new complex also have to have an accessibility set aside Sor what do you mean as an accessibility C assine well you know is it state law basically like all States a number of in a in a newly built

019in a complex you have to have a certain number of accessible units for accessible for people who have disabilities right and I know that like say the new complex that's going to get built is going to have a certain number of long-term rental units that are accessible but when approving for short-term rentals within that same building do a number of the short-term rentals within that building building also have to have an accessible number of units or is it that no one who say has a disability is going to be able to rent any of those short term so I believe that all of the new construction would need to be ADA Compliant um so with kind of that so that's what I believe the the requirement would be for all of those units I don't

020know that there's like a separate I I would have to get back to you on if there's any type of separate um requirement Beyond existing Ada and like building code for new constructions but Travis are those are those kinds of buildings getting approved I mean I thought the whole point of the short-term rental thing was that like wouldn't that be under the like third party ownership or are we seeing that we're actually getting short-term rentals approved in some of these new development high-rises think I think what might be getting referred to is the Southtown development which is a PUD um and so that was part of the negotiated agreement so I realized that I live in a PUD and it's not a new building but there's also from what I I believe there's short-term rentals

021going on now in the building um how does that work do you happen to know I mean if if it wasn't negotiated during the beginning of the zoning as a PUD can that can that be changed this goes back to the so if they were operating prior to the short-term rental ordinance and they were getting licensed by the city they are in existing non-conforming use um and so because they because they had been licensed by the City previously um just because we changed the designation didn't mean we could rip out the license from under them um and so um if they were existing prior to that short-term rental ordinance yes they would kind of be included in as an existing non-conforming use um until essentially they no longer operate in that way so if they

022were to ever not operate as a short-term rental for the period of a year um I believe it's that year um then then they could when they reapplied they may not be granted that that exception um but that was largely the unfortunate concession we had to make make because the city had been licensing them prior to any designation as them separate from an ordinary rental makes sense thank you Julia it so my concern is that um you know there's units sitting empty because it's not a football game and you make more money on the football game and it used to be housing and now it's not it's a hotel um and that a lot of these are operating without being licensed so is there some process are there fines is there a way to file

023a complaint is their way to view all the license yeah if if they're operating as an unlicensed short-term rental they're in violation of of local ordinance and could be signed by the city if that gets reported um so yeah absolutely if if you know that there's something new that's operating as an unlicensed shortterm rental you should let the city know and there's is there a way to double check if they have the license like I don't think they do but I don't know for sure right yeah I mean like the the city would be able to try on that obviously before issuing a citation um I don't know if that's a public facing I would have to get back to you on that if there's like a public facing registry they are in stream if

024they're licensed and the first um like the part of the permit number or the license number is Str Str so if you search Str Str you'd be able to see okay thank you thank you Kristen yeah I do see the license for units in in my complex here so it cost $500 for the application per year um and when I was looking through the city's website on it which I think overall is is pretty good um I noticed that there was no Complaint Form there so it wasn't immediately obvious to me how to submit a complaint if I suspected there was illegal short-term rental that's one thing that perhaps City staff could change um I have talked to a number of tenants in town who um are convinced that they were pushed out by an

025illegal short-term rental um I think in some cases they they seem to have evidence of it um so that is concerning and I have I mentioned this last time I I did speak to somebody from a company that sells a pro some program that um supposed to be able to to detect the short-term illegal short-term rentals however I'm realizing now that the number that they would have arrived at probably is not accurate because some of those most likely were res um owner occupied even if they were not in the correct Zone and they would have the program would have no way of knowing that because it wasn't yet the city didn't purchase it it wasn't integrated into the system so I don't know how many illegal short-term rentals there are right now I'll add that

026um I learned today that uh rental Housing Services is working on putting together a complaint form and a like a formal process for that for shortterm rentals and and I do think to some extent that the city is also monitoring if there are properties being added to Airbnb and things like that within the city um so they're also looking at some of those known vendors for short-term rentals it's great to hear Jamie the um process for the getting the short-term rental certified is it similar to like the inspection process that goes the city does for properties or is it just like the purpose being so that the city knows like who's doing it I don't know exactly what the process will be I know that um rental Housing Services is the department that enforces it

027so I think it would be a similar process um and I I think there may be a different type of fact gathering before compared to other types of Parental complaints so not sure exactly what that will look like um it's in the works though it's great to hear um I was going to suggest that we should check in with rental Housing Services just to see what their enforcement strategy was but it sounds like they're already working on that so it would just be nice to hear uh in their next update um about that any other questions concerns rosanita um just thought of curiosity has there been you know like a steady increase or has it been an exponential increase than the number of short-term rental rental units versus the number of pre like the previous

028number of long-term rentals is there a correlation between long-term r is going down and short-term rentals increasing do we know I don't know that off the top of my head we would probably have to check in on how many um license applications we've received um I would be surprised to learn that the number of short-term rentals is increasing at a rate that is quicker or faster than long-term rentals um simply because of some of the requirements that we have and actually I think um the Southtown PUD is I would have to think on it a little bit but I think that might be the first one where we've actually approved as part of AUD zoning where we've actually authorized short-term rentals um as part of that agreement and ultimately part of my consideration in that

029was the number of long-term rentals far outweighed the number of short-term rentals in what they were proposing um so I I would be surprised if that were the case but I don't know off the top of my head what the numbers are yeah I'm just wondering and because the short terms how do you settle the price I if I'm the owner I could just say hey I want to rent out out for $200 and I I just want to rent it out for $50 any standards to the price to and is there any safety or security standards for those people a check and when they are paying is there any way to show that this is the income that the proes or whatever any policies and any ways to help the things getting better like

030that um unfortunately probably not um um so I think this would likely fall under the similar restrictions that we have around all rent control um where the city can't stipulate what the price is that people are getting charged um and unfortunately I will say that anything that I've seen in terms of movement at the state level on this seems to be about prohibiting the municipal governments from controlling short-term rentals as opposed to more regulations of short-term rentals themselves so I don't think we're going to see any positive movement at the state level in that direction that would that would give us more [Music] power Rosita this should be my last question on This I Promise um besides the application you know and license to have the short-term rental does the city make any income off

031of it like occupancy fee Hotel kind of no no we don't we don't have a similar um like location B like fee that we can charge for like a tourism fee or uh um it's it is something we have considered advocating for in the past at the state level that we would be able to charge kind of like a hotel occupancy tax um for visitors but it is not something that we we can currently charge that really was my last question I'm just going to say that I see I've seen it in other states and other municipalities where at least you know got something out of it that's my last comment on it thank you anything else on this topic okay um let's see seems like we just want to keep oh go ahead John

032hey folks um I was listening on the phone but now I'm here um what you might want to do is invite Chris McFarland from the rental housing to talk about how they inspect them how they apply um the new Complaint Form that they're working on um email them some questions ahead of time um maybe Lea as well but if you if you have a bunch of questions uh send them to Kristen and Kristen can send them to Chris McFarland because Chris Kristen and I were talking with Chris McFarland and kind of peppering him with questions as well earlier about how how you know what kind of complaints are we getting what kind of proofs are there what kind of problems have there been with respected tenants um are the neighbors complaining uh because of loud

033parties or trash or things like that um are are they available to look at at the stream so this is just you guys are just kind of the tip of the iceberg today but if you want a more in-depth we should invite them and email them questions ahead of time that they can kind of respond to either ahead of time or that at that meeting if you want to um talk about short-term rentals whether it's the impact on long-term rentals in the tenants or whether your concern is for um life safety health things aspects of the uh short-term rental tenant themselves thank you John um yeah maybe we can have them in sometime in the spring um or you know maybe February something a little bit earlier give him some time to finish that Complaint

034Form okay we can move on then to uh item seven new business we can begin with 7- a security deposits um Gail I I'll pass it off to you thanks there's like zero segue between what we we were talking about in this but just just bear with me I'll give you a little overview of security deposits and if you have any questions let me know it's fairly straightforward um but I uh attached is the Michigan landlord tenant relationship act which in Michigan governs security deposits so the definition of a security deposit is any amount that's paid by a tenant to the landlord that's held for the lease term over and above the first month's rent as long as it's return able to the tenant if the apartment is not damaged and all the rent and

035utilities have been paid so it doesn't matter what the landlord calls it because sometimes landlords have tried to say it's not really a security deposit if it's above and beyond the first month's rent then it's considered a security deposit in order for a landlord to hold a security deposit they need to make sure that they let a tenant know within 14 days of their taking possession of the rental property where what financial institution is holding the security deposit they usually it's usually it's often noted in the lease so that's not usually a problem but occasionally it's it's come up where landlords forget to let a tenant know where their security deposit is being held um the exemption from um security deposits are cleaning fees so if cleaning fees are included in a lease and they're

036non-refundable like it doesn't matter if your um rental property is like sparkling and Shing at the end of your lease you're still not getting your cleaning fee back if it's non-refundable the Michigan courts have said it's not considered a security deposit so it's separate from a security deposit I I used to see a lot more cleaning a lot more fees being called cleaning fees I haven't seen that quite as much lately there's a lot of fees but I haven't seen them called cleaning fees um in Michigan the limit for a landlord to hold of a security deposit is 1.5 times point and a half the the rental amount uh the monthly rental amount and at the end of the lease the security which the security deposit which is always the property of the tenant um

037can be used to let to reimburse the landlord if if there's any damage to the property if damage above normal wear and tear um or if there's any arear in rent or Utility payments and then there's there's sort of a process to get the security deposit back so the first thing that's required for a tenant to do to get the security deposit back is that within four days of the end of their lease they have to give the landlord a forwarding address um telling them where they want the security deposit sent you know it's I I usually tell people to do it by email and regular mail but I've sort of stop telling people to do it by regular mail because no one seems to know how to mail a letter anymore so I figure

038email must be sufficient at this at this point um if the landlord once the landlord gets the forwarding address and it doesn't matter if the landlord has has the tenants address it's in the lease it doesn't matter they've got to tell them where the security deposit should be sent the second step is that 30 days after the end of the the teny or after the tenant vacates the landlord's supposed to send the tenants um an itemized list of any damages to the security deposit including the estimated cost of repairing it so it should be fairly detailed and then return the balance that's due on the security deposit if if there are damages to the security deposit that a tenant disputes then the tenant has seven days to respond to the landlord's letter in writing and

039again that one I usually say regular mail and email but in writing um saying why they're disputing the security deposit charges so often it's because you know there's been a miscalculation on some money owed because the damages that the landlord is claiming um predated their tency because you know it's normal wear and tear because the cost being charged is excessive so things things like that um and the landlord can only charge as I said for damage they can't charge to clean the apartment or the rental unit with the exception of that cleaning fee that they often take um so if if all those steps are taken and there and the tenants and the landlord can't resolve the security deposit dispute then the landlord is obligated within 45 if there's still dispute about the security deposit

040dispersement then the landlord's obligated to file in court within 45 days from the end of the the lease to basically ask the Court's permission to continue to hold the deposit I mean the money is still the tenants so the the landlord needs the approval of the court to retain the money that they believe is is is owed to them if a landlord fails to file in small in small claims court it's usually small claims court within 45 days and there's still a dispute over the over the the deposit and all these other steps have been taken like the for day the you know forwarding address notice was timely given unless there was no notice that they had to give a forwarding address in the lease if the landlord if the tenant responded within seven days

041to the um charges if um yeah no that's it um if if they get to that point and the landlord hasn't um and the landlord hasn't Sue then and the tenant has to sue in small claims court to get the money back then they might the tenant might be entitled to double the amount of the security deposit that the landlords held so it's a pretty um there's a little bit of a a a carrot there I guess for for landlords to make sure that they don't forget to do that um so I mean what I what I tell students that I work with is you know at the start of their lease they're given in terms of how to best protect their security deposit at the start of the lease the landlord um gives to

042the tenant an inventory checklist and the Tenant is you know the tenant needs to fill that out it's really like not a lot of room to fill out detail but I tell the tenant to just attach a separate page because the more detail you can give on the inventory checklist saying you know the condition of the property when you move in that's what the landlord's going to look at at the end of your lease to see you know what the conditions were when you moved in so I you know suggest that tenants take photos of the you know take photos of the unit take video of the unit fill out that form as detailed as possible keep a copy for their records and give a copy of the landlord within seven days and then at

043the end of the lease when the T tenants getting ready to leave you know same thing they're same thing in that they're going to want to take pictures um videos whatever they can to show the condition that they're leaving the apartment or the rental unit in um make sure they take out the garbage leave the unit Brom clean and um either get a receipt for their keys or take a picture if they're leaving keys because for whatever reason that seems to be a big issue where where people are charged one time I had a group of tenants who they they made a PowerPoint after they got their security deposit back and money was taken out they had pictures from when they moved in and pictures from when they moved out and they were able to

044show a comparison for each item that the landlord charg them and that was it was perfect they needed to have that documentation to get their money back Dan Dan I'm sorry yeah actually your last part and answered my questions because sometimes the landlord could be like false give you the false in expectations make it look so good everything's so perfect and when you really move in you will feel disappointed and your L card just some tenants yes yeah yeah yeah thank you yeah so that's kind of the quick overview a little bit confusing in terms of the the timelines but otherwise it's it's pretty straightforward I mean even even if a tenant has to sue for double damage the landlord's not doesn't really lose their right to sue the tenant for any damage that they

045may have done they just um they they just can't collect it under this I mean they can't retain it under the security deposit Act Zachariah um so my first question is about a situation that I heard about recently which was where there there was um a tenant had an automatically renewing lease for one year and un if the tenant failed to notify the landlord that they did not want to renew they would have to pay a fee that was equal I think to one month's rent and then then they could get out of the next next year's lease that they had automatically renewed and that was being taken out of the security deposit so but it was very clearly a fee so can you take a fee like that out of a security deposit well

046yes and NOC I I have a problem with those with those Provisions they're like notice to vacate provisions and I don't know how it's going to be impacted by the right to renew but essentially the lease says you know you have to give us notice 30 days be like you have a lease that ends on January 1st but you're also required to give us 30 days notice prior to the end of the lease that you're actually leaving on the end of your lease and if you don't right and then if you don't you're going to become a month-to-month tenant so they're so the landlord would argue this is now rent that you owe us even though they might call it like an insufficient notice fee or something like that um I yeah I find th

047I find those Provisions pretty frustrating be like because like I said I mean you have a date to end your lease I don't understand why you should have to also like confirm it and and some I I had a student who was who the landlord tried to charge it was like up to $110,000 for this uh insufficient notice fee it was like three months rent plus double your rent because you've now you know you've now not given us sufficient notice even even if they leave at the end of the lease so it's kind of a yes and no I don't like those charges I think a landlord will argue that that it's rent and therefore they can uh they can take it from the security deposit and then ultimately it's going to be up to

048a court but I but I haven't had we've been able to work a lot of those out I haven't had a court make a decision on that Jordan interesting um yeah two things I just kind of you know was reading through this to refresh myself too um one thing as you were talking and I think it's important as all of us are doing like advocacy in the Community is also when we're dealing with our student populations to remind them about having sub tenants do this right like so many of our students are going to actually have a subtenant that moves in prior to them taking possession themselves so say your lease starts in May or July and you have a subtenant for two or four months um making sure that your subtenant is documenting the

049condition at move in is something that can be really tricky when these students are out of town so for those of us that are working in the student spaces I just want to reiterate the importance of making sure that we're telling students to have their sub tenants do that and get them the record so that they have an accurate record both in terms of the subtenant moving out but to protect themselves Jordan my go Jordan is to prevent students from turning over the keys to their house before they collect any money or have a lease sign so little more basic right there but then we can get to the the other stuff yeah yeah um one other thing that I thought I looked now tell me if I'm wrong because maybe I just didn't notice

050it because I was just doing it quick before the meeting after we got this email but the whole section about the the um ability to get out of your lease due to Danger domestic violence those kind of things I didn't see that in rights and duties is it not in there am I missing it it seems like that would be a really piece to have in there when we're doing I don't know if we're keeping a running log of um what changes we want to make when we do get the power to make them but those were the two things that came up to me um as I was reviewing this and listening to Gail yeah I don't know if it's in there or not I'd have to check rosanita sorry oh that's okay I

051was I was learning um if say you know you're you're renting it's a house and then the owners sell the house and the new owner is going to then live in it how does the security deposit work with something the return of a security deposit work with something like that the same with say like your apartment complex gets um is about to get remodeled and you're going to be you're not going to be able to live you know it's going to take like months and months so your lease is going to be effectively terminated right in a situation like that is that something that's typically written into a lease if if there's going to be extenuating circumstances like that for like the automatic return of a security deposit because if they're knocking the building down

052anyway then well for the sale of the property usually the new owner takes the property subject to the lease agreement so you know the the the seller and the owner would have to work out how they're you know who's giving back the security deposit but the tendency would continue until the end of the lease and so the security deposit at that point would be given back in its usual manner it just depends on the parties to work out who has the money who's holding the security deposit um you know it kind of sort of same thing with the the landlord decides to remodel because the landlord can't just kick you out of their out of the rental property during your lease so if a landlord decides hey I want to remodel I'll make an agreement

053to let you out of the lease early then that's certainly something a tenant could ask for is like hey if you're going to terminate my lease early I want my security deposit back you know right away and usually they would if they're eager to to to get in there and and make changes they would I mean at least in the cases I've seen they they usually would agree to return the security deposit without any charged does that make sense it does it does I was just thinking about the um is it there's a complex over is it around Plymouth that wants to where the owner wants to Red re I don't know redevelop the complex is the right term where it's they're going they want to build UPG yeah they want to build a number

054of new units and so it means that they're going to tear down um you know tear down and rebuild and so yeah I was just wondering H how that would work for the tenants who would have to leave at that time when it came to their security deposits yeah yeah I mean I'm not familiar with that but us if there's a leas in effect they're going to have have to work something out with the tenant to to get them to leave before the end of their lease unless anybody has any other thoughts on that um Julia um there's this is a like Financial question on holding the money so they have to tell the tenant what bank gets in are there any other kind of roles and I'm specifically thinking about the early leasing that

055you know when those security deposit law was first made the thought was you're only holding a security deposit on one tenant but with landlords now asking you to sign a lease so many months in advance there's actually good chunk of the year they're holding two security deposits on the same unit but not from the same person though you mean for the same person but it is like you know Unit A there's for the tenant and there's for the new tenant they're holding and instead of it just being an overlaps of maybe 15 days it's now an overlaps of months right um yeah I don't know I mean I don't I'm not aware of anything that prohibits them from having another security deposit like sort of paid in advance but but I don't know I haven't

056I haven't come across that you know from other from students but I'd have to look a little more closely to see if there's anything that prohibits it I mean I will say that that the amount of time that we have had two deposits on hand has decreased significantly with the early leasing ordinance right like when people were signing we didn't do it but you could sign you know when you had the old ordinance and you could essentially sign in like July for a May lease essentially that landlord was having this security deposit for the may people that moved in and then in July when they signed a new lease for that whole time now in theory if they're following the early leasing ordinance that time is 5 months or less in theory um though we

057know everybody's not following it so just to kind of as a data point not arguing with you as to whether or not that is um should be but just kind of as how that has changed with the legislation that was part of the rationale was you know asking tenants to have this money out for 10 months in advance for a student who's economically challenged is significant and so that amount of time has reduced just as the data point yeah part of it you know I mentioned because I never understand why a landlord wants to get that lease so early and I'm wondering if some of it is because they're making money off holding the security deposits from two people at the same time um and if you're doing that for 600 people it can start

058to add up um and if maybe that is one way to disincentivize landlords from wanting to have leases signed so early is maybe to pass another ordinance that has some restrictions on how long you can hold two deposits for the same unit right I mean there's always going to be an overlap though sure I mean yeah maybe it gets shorter yeah that's interesting I hadn't really thought about that Zechariah does a landlord have to disclose the which financial institution the deposit is yes okay they put it in the it's it's often in the lease itself but some I see forget and do they need to provide evidence that the money is still there during the the tency no because I was looking up and I saw that there's some there is some way uh to

059for the landlord to take it out and use it but only if they they receive uh what to deposit with the Secretary of State a cash Bond or something like that but and I I'm just wondering if okay yeah I doubt that's that's frequently used um but if there's no way to ensure the money's there then I wonder um how frequent you know what's the incentive for the landlord to keep it there if they could just invest it I don't know other than it being a violation of the law I don't know yeah I mean it's not their money so but that's all I got any other questions I will say Julia I mean I I think you're right if you're talking people who have thousands of units maybe they're making some interest but I

060mean we're talking pennies like we we so for somebody like us that's kind of mid-range I mean that that has nothing to do with our um timeline to sign in or anything just just for our experience but maybe for McKinley maybe they are making but I can't imagine that it's tremendous because interest rates just aren't high on on the kind of business accounts that we're using I I don't think but could be right it's one of those things I was just trying to grab at because I don't really understand the advantage of signing a lease eight months in advance or now five months in advance yeah I mean for for us just a brief I won't take over the top I mean for us we're talking when we're especially when we're talking student populations like

061there's not a lot of other option if and then this was gone through a lot with our when talked about the early leasing ordinance in in general these students leave and so to not you know to wait until like July or August so many of our students are international so many of our students live in different parts of the country so from that perspective when we're talking about student housing which is a large majority of the percentage here um the timeline for early is is partially out of that timing that summer is like a very hard time to try to leas during when people are in group units of eight and there are three out of the country and you know so that just to give the perspective on like why why do you sign

062at the day that you can essentially that's a lot of our um our motivation as a landlord too is because the students are here and they can do it so the only question I have with that is that this is a new new as in 30 years landlord invention that September 1 has to be the day of the lease um you know in the 80s and early 90s May 15th was the common date for students and October 15 was the common date for non- students um so how everybody is suddenly September 1 I I don't know but that it could change yeah we're we're not our so our group units are all on May um because we find that the group units want that early move in and then our our smaller units which end

063up being young professional regular folks in the community those are generally on fall so and it falls all over I mean I would say you're right that the majority of people are on fall but there definitely still are people that are July and may um in the in the rotations go ahead John even though this Q&A is not for me I do have a question as well Gail if you if I may and that is with respect to the uh security deposit of one and a half months rent what percent are they all at that are any under that what factors go into how much the security deposit is from a market Sy well the landlords could answer that better than I could but what do you see though so I see in a lot

064of the high rises they take a very small or no like $100 $500 some of them zero and then they don't deal with the security deposit ordinance statute at all they just send it to collections if a student doesn't pay um but the regular landlords I suspect Jordan you guys take a month and a half and most most to the other do yeah in general what I see for for non-h highrises I agree with your experience I would say highrises from what I see talking with but again this is kind of biased toward student population is 400 for the high rises um but again you know I mean I saw an ad the other day that um they were advertising at gosh The Foundry somewhere uh two bedrooms for four people and they're paying 5,300

065a month for a two-bedroom so when you talk about like the landlord Shar bedom Shar bedroom so four people two-bedroom 5300 was the rental rate so that landlord's getting so much money that often times they're like willing to let some things slide so that can be why you why you see the difference right like why the corporate highrises are charging 400 and under because they're getting so much rent that they're willing to accept a couple scratched up wall like they have a higher threshold and they have corporate lawyers to take you to court afterwards whereas for smaller landlords if a unit truly is trashed we might easily go through it's rare that we do it we don't charge a ton but the you know that you may go through especially if you have like a

066one-bedroom apartment and you have to replace the whole carpet because they you know whatever the tenant Behavior has resulted in that but again rare so I think that's why you see the big divide between the corporate heisers but go ahead Bob see if you can share your kind of perspective um yeah we charge a a one month rent but there's a new building that's going up uh right right next to us uh 911 South Main and it looks like security deposit monthly rent will be in the 8,000 per month and security deposits are over 10 10,000 so moving into one of those apartments is going to be a pretty hefty uh Financial uh chunk for six it's six six bedroom was was what I was looking at but we charge one month simply just for

067logistical ease I mean you know as as you said Jordan you're not g to you don't we don't really find our our tenants are are too hard on on what on the properties yeah I mean for for what I see it varies I I see I see some patterns in in with landlords that I often deal with in the um student population who I almost always know they're going to charge the tenant because the carpet is damag they're going to charge the tenant for not returning Keys they're going to I mean there's just certain patterns p s that that they have which is a little you know what yeah anyway so so I see that happen a lot and and then actually you know when they go when when there's a smaller deposit and then

068the landlords go straight to collections it's much harder for the students I mean they're just stuck in that in that process of you know I mean not for $100 deposit no one's going to really like try to get it back but I mean they might but um but it just becomes a lot harder and a lot more impactful for students when it's you know it's in that process so anyway and more potential to like have long-term impact on someone's credit report like we as smaller landlords aren't and I know there's an argument for like it would be nice if all landlords were reporting to credit agencies for building credit purposes that's a separate discussion but um you know we're if you're talking that situation where tenants are getting in with collections because they're not charging

069security deposits that's a longer term impact on often just young blasing adults too in in the population oh totally totally so anyway back to you Zachariah thank you very much uh any other questions for Gail about security deposits okay thank you so much Gail thank you for the good questions um Everybody uh we can move on now to see 7-b um it's our last piece of business here a discussion of updates regarding chapter 105 so so I will hand this over to Kristen and to John all right you should have uh in front of you this document right here if I share my screen so um based on dissatisfaction complaints uh issues with respect to the early leasing ordinance and right to renew ordinance the early leasing ELO is 8 uh colon 530 and the

070right to renew is um your input input from Council Members emails from uh disgruntled tenants tenants who have gotten corresponden from their landlords pressures things like that um City attorney staff kind of went through our ordinance line by line and kind of came up with some things that we think might close the gaps um these are some proposed edits uh it's not going to go to City Council I'll leave that up to a council member Rina until the runers commission has had the opportunity to digest this share their concerns their comments to uh council members Rina and Harrison uh who will let them uh and they'll get those with us so so uh this is not an action item for you tonight but this is just what we're proposing um like for instance when you

071look at the 1C a landlord shall not require a tenant to accept a successive lease period at any time before 150 days before the end of the current lease period um so we we've made some edits that we think will strengthen it we'll make enforcement uh easier clearer and uh we're interested in the input that the renters commission has uh share that with your council members who will share it with us um I think you you've got a month to look at these think them over if you have any questions off the top of your head I know you haven't had a lot of time with these and I appreciate that but if you have specific questions uh feel free to ask them remember sounds good the problem one of the main problems is is

072that Michigan is prohibited from regulating the price of rent or rent control so so so we're not going to be able to to touch that we're also limited uh a little bit as to what we can do by way of communications can a landlord reach out to a tenant uh encourage them to renew while falling short of including the terms the parties uh the amount uh all in the deadline but uh I will say we're taking a look at the complaints that we've gotten we revised the form I think you had that at last your last meeting is that correct and some people have sent us in that form and you know of course we have to apply the the unedited un un uh unamended version of the ordinance to the the complaints that we're

073getting but we're taking a look at those that we're getting and they have been helpful with respect to providing copies of the lease providing copies of the correspondents and there are actually some that have deadlines set in that correspondant I see a lot of hands so I'll be quiet and yield to uh you know Gail Jordan Travis or whomever else you want to call on Z that sounds like a great order oh I'm not even muted yet okay um so so my two questions John which you probably know um one I guess the the bigger question is you know we had talked about dealing trying to find a way to deal with what what I believe you call the early bird specials where the landlords are writing to tenants and saying you know you don't

074have to make a decision now but hey if you do decide now you'll get you know we'll only charge you I don't know $50 more in your rent or whatever it is and it's going to be much much much much much higher if you wait until um the 150 days before the end of your lease so I thought we were trying to tackle that but I'm not I don't believe that we have is one question and then the second question which you which you also know is you know the the part um it's 85303 not three four B where it says the current lease period is less than eight months in in entirety so I told I I've shared with John that I had a situation where a landlord you know a tenant said I

075want a group of tenants said I want to rent for a year and the landlord said okay but hey you're going to have to do two six-month consecutive leases like you know one ends at 1159 and the next one starts at midnight and I feel like that that could be cleared up a little bit like if there were two leases that were running like exactly simultaneously that are more than eight months that that that should be covered by the right to renew ordinance so those are my two my two big uh issues and questions I guess for what we do about that thank you running it down that would be call somebody oh okay I wasn't sure if you were running the show running it down okay all right go ahead Jordan and then dra

076it okay I had gailes too but I also have a list so um I guess for us like and John you partially answered the question how how what are our frequent complaints right so the early bird special is one I will say that I've heard of the two consecutive six-month leases a couple of times so that was on my radar but like are there other this is the repeated pattern this is what we need to address and have we fully covered that and I mean from us as the renters commission I think that's a question to ourselves have we but we also haven't been seeing these complaints we don't know how many there were and so I don't feel like the renters commission is as informed as we could be so maybe Kristen could help

077us by getting us the forms that have been turned in um anonymize the so that we could have a better frame of reference um so that's my kind of first Global thing the second thing is and John maybe I'm reading this wrong it sounds like when I'm giving the offer as a landlord I'm also supposed to give the completed lease or like what are you envisioning there because to to be giving that's just not something we can do we can't type up a lease for every person we're offering a renewal for so I'm trying to figure out like what maybe it would help to define the bare minimum like do you want the least price what are you thinking there that that's that's what it says and we're proposing that but we're not proposing it

078necessarily via usmail or hand delivery we're proposing it by that or electron electronic communications so I assume that the next year's lease is going to be patterned on the current lease and it's just typing in the new terms the new dates is that correct or am I wrong on that no not really I mean it takes us about 45 minutes to make a lease on Adobe each time so to cuz Adobe is because it's a contractual you may know how it works you may not but because it's a contractual thing there's not a lot of changes it allows because it wants you to sign something and have it be Stone clad Ironclad and not have changes to it so for us um I mean just to give our perspective and obviously there's a lot of

079perspectives to to say here's your offer for Renewal I mean right now our letter says here's your offer for Renewal here's what your new rent price would be if your group stays the same um essentially just that here's where we need to know by um so to me it seems more reasonable to put like what what information do we want the tenants to have access to versus seeing an entire renewal lease with that because that's going to have an A then there's a document out there that some people could sign but others couldn't it's like so our process right now is here's your email W with renewal that we have sent out just before 180 days cuz we've just waited um we send that out and it says here's your terms um here you know

080they say yes and then we say okay great we'll send you the lease within the next couple of days and you'll need to complete it by X um the 10 business days so we to uh to me I sending out an actual filled in lease is not a viable option here so I'd like to see if we can maybe consider you know if we want to say the dates of the lease the price of the lease um any major changes to the current lease because that's the other thing they already have a lease from us they already know what our lease looks like so I'm open to tenant tenant things that you say you really just would need the lease with that offer but um you can push back on me feel free but for

081us this just doesn't and I'll maybe Bob has some um input on that too but that's just not a feasible ask for us personally and I I appreciate the feedback um part of that was because of the leas addendums or we've had some complaint complaints where they say here's what the terms are and then lo and behold it doesn't include parking for this year so so so so there's I'm not saying bait and switch that's not the right word but no I get what you're saying what what parties think they had an agreement to really isn't the same when the actual lease comes in so you and and there's the you know there's the gravitas of an actual lease like this is it these are what the terms are going to be rather than hey

082let's reup for the next year same thing we'll send you the lease later so so I wonder if we could specify that though like lease price lease dates and then any major changes or something like is there a way that we could dictate what should be in that email that would help prevent these situations or do tenants think like that's just not what do you guys think I guess yeah we have ter remember right now it currently says terms conditions price parties address those are kind of what we require now on the United unended version but and you don't have you don't you don't have to mail it you don't have to print it you just got to prepare the thing and hit the send button but you know I'll I'll defer to this body

083but I appreciate your input yeah okay that's fair I mean we're ours basically says your lease will be exactly the same minus the changes of these dates this this amount um but I don't know I'll be curious to hear maybe Bob has another input for how his process but for us that that would be very very difficult and add a serious amount of work and go ahead Bob so yeah I it's it's it's not quite the same thing I think anymore as as just sending an email we use an electronic um you know document signing thing so and you have to it's not the same thing as you know hit and send it's it it does take some time I I you know I wouldn't say our lease takes 45 minutes but it's it's in

084that vinity so it's it's it's not um I would say it is not trivial because you know most of our stuff is done all electronically and the great thing about that is it's you know it's legally binding everybody gets a copy it works out real well but there is a cost and it does take some time to prepare is it portal um yeah it's a service it it's it you you uh I go into a portal and you know prepare the lease and then I I set a list of you know here's who it's sent to and it then it emails and then you know but it's it's uh you know there's a certificate involved so that the signing is uh you know there's non-repudiation uh involved there you know and things like that so

085it's it's a little more complicated than an email so what would you and Jordan report that we do uh by way of having landlords um letting tenants know what it is that they're going to be offered for next year and agreeing to good question I mean I think I think the the big thing is we have some of the terms and condition I think naming like any major changes in the from the current lease agreement um the other thing to me is that that the idea of sending a lease then to the tenants also seems like more pressure on them like this isn't just a renewal offer if I'm sending a renewal offer with a lease um I'm curious as to how renters feel about like that that when we're talking pressure and part of

086this problem is the pressure to me that seems to add another layer of pressure um as someone who has rented fairly recently I don't I don't know so um I have other bullet points do we want to kind of talk about this issue a little bit more or should I just go through my list and no no me this is just an airing of the version you'll have a month that mull it over and I see other hands raised yeah okay then I'll I'll yield and maybe just put all of my stuff in an email maybe that's the best way to use our time tonight go ahead Julia um just on kind of like the doc you sign or whatever service you're using like I get that extra burden and I don't know if there's

087a way to do it in word first and then drop it in but there's got to be some Assurance of what the tenants agreeing to because there are things all the time oh well we didn't tell you that you have to pay for the washing machines now because we don't think that's a big deal but when you've got a household and you're running you know the washing machines for your kids it can sometimes start to really add up the cost or oh we took the washing machines out and we didn't bother to put it in the new you know tell you about it before you agreed to a new lease and then having to Trek the kids clothes across town also you know so there are things like I feel like the tenant has to

088know for sure what they're getting before they can say yes or no and the only I don't know how to do that besides in writing but isn't I mean isn't the purpose of signing the lease that like so agreeing to sign the lease is not legal binding toward the tenant if I say yes I'd like to renew that's not legally binding me to renew the lease is so while I agree that I think morally and ethically we should be pointing out the changes especially I mean if there is a major change um I I guess how do you see that as different like you would get the lease and you would you're not legally Bound by saying I'd like to renew but you'd get the lease to sign and you'd be able to see that

089parking wasn't included and say hey can I negotiate this or no I'm not going to Ren like you still have Choice beyond that right or does that feel different's that but when by the time that the lease is due to be signed H so that's a month period in the law well no I mean usually like 10 business days between the time that we're sending out the lease but I guess that's what I'm trying to help figure out is so I think oh I'm going to renew it's all the same they told me it's $50 increase everything else is the same and then I've got 10 days before my lease is up and I realize oh no it's a totally different lease oh no I'm I'm saying so you'd have the the 10 days like

090I think it's 10 business days between when the the new lease is sent to you and then when you're signing so maybe maybe our process is very different from others but essentially we're sending that email just before 180 days people either let us know right at the 180 days or they say we are going to take until day 151 to let you know which we're totally fine with and sometimes even beyond that and they let us know we get them the lease right away so this isn't like you getting the lease that you're signing in that time frame so it's it's months before I mean you're accepting that lease at the time that you're agreeing to move in you're you're you're getting that lease within 10 days in theory now we know that are other

091situations where like a landlord's not signing the other half and that's a whole different um bullet point to kind of talk about but you getting your acceptance of that lease is you're signing the lease and so you're seeing the terms and hopefully reviewing them so that's the part that I'm trying to parse out is how that how that feels that different to you um between getting getting the offer saying yes getting the actual lease and then having a choice still to sign it does that make sense I hear what you're saying but I'm I'm not sure if I'm looking at the law right then because if we're not requiring the law the lease to be presented in that Clause is there somewhere that gives a day the lease has to be presented Julia under under

092the current ordinance where where they're providing terms but not the the completed lease itself that the landlord is required to present the written lease renewal to the tenants for Signature within 30 days of their acceptance so as if if they were to provide that under current ordinance um and the Tenant were to say yes this sounds good to me within 30 days the landlord is required to provide that lease and then 10 days after that the tenants got to get it back okay I mean I I think what would be a bigger thing to me when we're talking about the issues and maybe this will help you feel a little bit better about that Julia is I'd rather see like in bullet point 2B agreement signed by the tenant and landlord right like we've had

093all of these situations where the landlord's not counter signing a lease like I'd rather see us address the the big holes that we've seen which are um you know those kind of things where the the tenant has signed a lease they think they have a lease and then the landlord is saying oh but no I never signed it and you never got the completed lease back like some of the things to me seem like they would be a better focus for our protection of the tenants in that in that sense so maybe Julie that because that's the other scenario that we've seen is where a tenant does agree they do sign it and then the landlord hasn't actually counter signed so the lease is legally binding only on one side of the agreement um doesn't

094speak exactly to this but as kind of part of that whole timeline um process thinking but what if the landlord just sits on it if that were to be the ordinance you say by the tenant and landlord then the landlord gets it by the tenant here she just kind of sits on it waits see if they really want to release renew can we make it can we make it so that a renewal lease has to be signed by a landlord in order to be handed to a tenant so that the choices in the tenants power I mean that's what I'd really like to see happen I'd really like it that the renewal lease must be completed with the terms and the landlord signature before it goes to the tenant personally but I'm I'm open to

095other thoughts on that but to me that seems like it would kind of cover that bullet point well my understanding is under contract law if the if the landlord offers a lease to the tenant and the Tenant accepts it by signing it that that's a binding contract at that point I mean I've always I've always argued that I mean the landlord doesn't the I mean because it's out of the tenants control if the landlord Now counter signs it but it's been an offer and acceptance so what happened with the ones that we know that did that I mean there were tons of them last year what happened because I heard a lot of those fell apart the tenants were told oh no you didn't actually have a house we never counter signed it and a

096particular I can't remember what complex but there was a North Campus complex that was doing it yeah so what what happened when those came to you did they did they find them a I mean that to me like some of those things are like the bigger ticket items then yeah yeah no I mean I didn't get a lot of those honestly I mean but um yeah I mean I'd have to think about it a little bit more in terms of like what we were seeing and what um and how that all played out yeah I mean because I know that like in there's some instances where landlords are saying well here's your lease go ahead and sign but it's not binding until we counter sign which then kind of works in the favor of the

097tenant if they want to get out of it and the landlord but I mean generally without all of this I would say that once it's offered and accept it it's binding so I don't know I have to think about that they weren't they weren't allowing people out of it even this year I had two two parents I was um referring to you that they they couldn't get out of it even though it was signed so to give some people some background that that was a case where they were pressuring tenants to renew the tenants were saying in September yes I'll renew they were signing their half and the landlord said well because of the early leasing ordinance we can't sign this until March um so they were actually throwing the early leasing ordinance back in

098the students faces and the students who then changed their mind these two that I know of had to end up paying the $800 fee or whatever it was to transfer the lease and find a new tenant so can you get back to me separately about that some point so those are I mean those that is a bigger ticket item that I'd see i' I'd rather have us like focus on can we just say that a landlord cannot give a renewal offer until 200 days before the lease end unless specifically requested by the tenant like can we not address some of this early communication period like outside of of the the early bird if they're if the ordinance said you can't even send a renewal offer until I mean I'd love it to be 180 days

099but to give give people to 210 days or something like can we just stop the early bird communication and then we don't have to deal with the pricing scheme like that's a party wonder about John so maybe you can help me understand that you mean can we tell what can we tell landlords they can't communicate to their tenants about certain subjects and not get sued can well I mean maybe that's the answer I'm saying we've specified dates and we've made timelines and we have made that law so why can't we say no renewal offers can be communicated until 210 days or 180 days so that they have a 60-day acceptance period unless it is requested by the tenant because I also want to empower a tenant that says no offers so here's how I get

100around that I say this is not an offer but I value our relationship as your tenant um we would love to have you stay with us and the sooner you renew the sooner you commit to us the the the the lower the price we can commit for you I mean that's what I'm saying can we make can we make that predatory communication possible and we got to be careful regulating speech be commerci speech between landlord in tenants okay and I'll leave it at that I mean there's a memo about that but so you know and you know some tenants might want the communication that they do want to be able to commit sooner to a lower price if they know they're going to renew it's the pressure tactics it's the like you gota you gotta

101you gotta lock in before next week or next month or the price is going up a lot so it's we've got I mean some extent it's educating tenants that they don't have to lock in um the the problem is we can't regulate the price of rent because of rent control so we can't we can't tell a landlord that they can charge more that they can't charge more in the future because of that so I get you that's why I'm saying if we could focus on stopping the the communication and specifying a timeline by which they could communicate maybe we could impact that but I I hear your point maybe that's not possible okay I'll yield to I see other hands up go ahead Jamie yeah I would just Echo what Jordan was saying I think

102even if it's not written in a predatory way the timing um as a [Music] student renewal that I received at the time that I received it this year like I was in the middle of midterms and I was pulling my hair out and that just also felt very intentional like you know your tenants are students and you know that this is a very stressful time of the semester um and I just I don't know I think I mean I hear what we're saying that you know you can't regulate the communications but I just that part also felt very um kind of calculated at the specific time that the lease renewals were sent G so I guess John because you you also said that there was one case where you were where the city was considering

103writing a ticket for the behavior how is that couple so that's good but so what's I mean I assume it's good so what's the behavior in in that case that's in those two cases that stand out that make it different than the early bird specials which you're saying can't be regulated like what's happening deadlines deadlines to get back with us to lock in at a certain price and then Communications via email that talk about hey h do I have more time no the deadline is this or that so it it you know it's it's um looking at the current ordinance I got both in front of me um the notice must specify the date by which the tenant must notify the landlord of the tenant's acceptance of the successive lease and if it says act

104now this this week you must act by the end of the month you must act within 30 days well that's probably sooner than 150 days before the end of the current lease period right right but they all but they all say that I mean all the early some of them have dates but then there's correspondence back and forth between tenants and landlords that talk about the deadlines and extended times and things like that so so it's it it's it's an early bird special with a deadline that talks about the parties the the the the terms things like that I don't want to get into too much about potential PES I'm just trying to understand the distinction because I mean by definition you know I think early bird special ends at a certain time right like

105no well well it depends I I you know I appreciate it like bir special like a Black Friday sale or a cyber monday sale kind of thing those are those are Fridays and Mondays but some of them are more than that you know really some of them are more or broader than that or or less specific than that okay okay so I mean I guess and I I I think one of my recommendations would be that that we as whoever wants to that we meet sort of between now and one month from now because we obviously have a lot of questions that we need to address no no and you you guys bring up great points which is why we vet this we bring it up in front of you you've got great perspectives both

106from landlord and tenant so I would ask you to um you know share your thoughts with council members Rina Harrison um I think they should directly to you all our thoughts are going to go directly to you at least see see them so it looks like I'm following my orders well go ahead Travis if you have another question please go before me um so I just wanted to reiterate something that John said at the beginning also which is a number of the complaints that we've received have not come in as formal complaints either there are emails that have been forwarded or text messages or things that have been kind of passed along but the form itself hasn't been completed and so one of the things that all of us can do and I know council

107members have received this message as well if we get an email is direct people to the form ask them to complete it even if they can't complete every single piece of information complete as much as they can and submit it because that will actually officially kick off that process if an email is just forwarded along or a text message is forwarded along it's not a formal complaint that the the attorneys or our city can act upon um so it's really important that people fill out the form um we've also had some conversation about getting the form um right now it's you know that editable PDF we've talked about if we can even make this more accessible by just having it as kind of a web form that exists on the website um making it as

108easy as possible POS for people to find and land on but please if you hear of complaints encourage people to fill out the form even if they're intimidated by the fact that they may not have all of the information um and yes if you have questions or concerns a lot of you are raising points that council member Harrison and I have already brought up so that's why John is probably kind of chuckling along a little because there are things we like theot seat we have been um pestering about as well um you know John and I have had a number of conversations about my non-lawyer interpretation of what the law should be um but um if you do have feedback yeah please do include us because what John is also alluding to is that the

109attorneys work for Council and so um council member Harrison and I are happy to express all of those questions and concerns along is there a timeline for responses because what I'm finding is that you know at least the students that that have filed complaints are getting a little antsy and they need to make decisions and so a lot of their decisions depends on where things are at with their complaint by responses do you mean rers commissioner responses about the proposed changes or responses with respect to early leasing ordinance complaints on the new form uh with the copies of the release copies of the communications uh that type of thing G yes I mean to the second I mean once a student or attendant files a a official Complaint is there a specific timeline or a

110goal for when they'll get I'm hopeful to turn them over within a within a week uh you know at least we're trying to get these out before the end of the year our decision okay okay thank you okay well this convers will be ongoing rosanita you can go ahead oh I just wanted to um I think it's for Kristen because I I had mentioned it before the meeting was just to make sure that the forms are accessible um um because that was that was one complaint from I think it may have had to do with screen readers I'm not [Music] sure definitely something we can look at um in working on the form happy to work with Trac on I think my um like my power editing the form is a little bit limited since

111it's rental housing's form but I don't see why they wouldn't be um agree okay make it more accessible thanks oh dear um I'm having some internet problems Julia do you mind taking us taking or either Julia or Christen taking over Julia Vice chair uh where were we that was the update so now we're in reports report from city council um I I think this was a large piece of our report um is that this is something we've been working on quite a bit um there's also a group of us working with attorneys on um an ordinance to address junk fees um I hope that we'll have something um early in the next year that we can ask folks for additional feedback similar to this process as well okay um so then I think we're moving

112on to report from hhsb and I believe we got a message from Jeffrey that there was not a meeting so there's no report there which then takes us down to report from staff I don't have um a large report um but I can report that updated rights and duties booklets have been ordered um we tomorrow is a possible delivery date um but end of next week we're expecting them um for a really large order we received from McKinley we had to order some more and it includes um the Complaint Form the ELO and right to renew guide in it um and the most recent El and Rich for new ordnances I also received an email from sustainability about a grant opportunity for green I want to say green rental housing it was um something in

113that ballpark I haven't had a chance to review it yet but I will send it out to the group I think they were kind of looking for Community Partners and working on it are you aware of it Zachariah is that the washing County OED I don't let me pull it up weatherization program okay Greening rental housing with the PA's Community change grants and so um I will send this out and see what the group's interest is my I haven't responded yet um but my initial thought is that you guys would be interested in kind of whatever level was available so that's the only other report uh zachari I think that takes us down to report from Commissioners yes if you'd like I can take back overall there's not much to lead us through on sorry

114about the internet problems yeah do any Commissioners would uh want to share a report with the commission I'd like to share a report uh so there's a few things um first of all I know I had spoken previously about contacting other institutions in the area to discuss uh eviction evictions generally and eviction diversion uh and maybe right to counsel um so talking about the problem of evictions and then talking about potential Solutions and I was connected with uh a few different uh people including some people at the the county level uh there's Wasing housing Alliance as well and it looks like there already is a group that exists where they have representatives from lots of organizations and they're talking about um evictions and homelessness and I attended only one of their meetings but that there

115I think it's monthly it looks like so if anyone else is interested in attending uh you're more than welcome to I can I just send me an email and I'd be happy to invite you um I can check the name of that it's called Uh the coordinated entry evaluation and oversight committee um so anyway hopefully uh I'll learn some things about um the state of evictions and what um response responses there are currently in the area I know that some of these things go through the district courts rather than you know City by city or like that um beyond that there we have spoken previously about a situation with um a company called realpage.com uh and potential antitrust um action so what was H what is happening is there's um third party Corporation Called real

116page which is uh offering services to landlords and one of the services is that they apparently tell landlords how to price their apartments and how to increase those prices from one year to the next the issue is if lots of landlords are relying on this third party service the third party service can tell them all to increase their rent at the same time by similar amounts uh so that's kind of virtual price fixing or I suppose that the argument rather uh and and um it looks like this is this is on the radar of the Washington the Washington County prosecutor uh and I am planning on reaching out to the Attorney General's office at their at the um recommendation of um the County prosecutor because the Attorney General can bring a suit against um these

117companies I think that's it for me any other Commissioners with the report oh one other thing um is that uh a local property manager invited uh me and uh Julia to have a meeting to to discuss the early leasing ordinance situation and so um Julie and I are planning on going in January to meet with this property manager um and just listen to their concerns okay no other reports last call okay we can move on to uh item nine our second uh general public comment you speak during public comment um please call 877 853 5247 or 888 788 0099 and enter meeting ID 935 941 um then you can press star N9 to raise your hand be called on to speak if you uh would like to join through the zoom link that is a2gov.org

118renters commission meeting and you can use the raise hand feature um that be call on so give it just a there are no attendees thank you Kristen okay we can move on to item 10 10- a is a we have a one communication um me open it up here it's regarding you know I was a little confused by this email actually I I know I remember the conversation at greenfair um me open it up go ahead ga oh sorry I would this is the one about breaking the lease due to the dis due to disability is that what you're looking at yeah you know what I may have misre these are these several emails I think I only saw Sor it's just one document don't worries I typically that's okay so different senders here okay

119gotcha so so I would suggest for the one where they think they might have a right to get out of their lease because of the disability which um I I would suggest that they reach out to the fair house fair housing center might be a good resource for this one okay Kristen are you able to refer to them refer them to the fair housing center yes thank you [Music] um unfortunately I actually haven't read the rest of them I got confused so do anyone um anyone who has read these do you want to give us like a little summary or respond to any of them yeah so this this second one is just somebody that's kind of complaining about um not feeling respected in the inspection process so I think referring them back which I

120think Kristen you did right sent them back to rental housing to to talk about how to figure out a way to negotiate it is challenging I mean they you know they'll give you an appointment window and so I can get I can get this person's concerns and um hard when you're when you're sick and you have cats and things like that so I think referring them back to rental housing and um trying to have them talk to them is probably the most appropriate Next Step them over to um but I did send them to rental housing good I hope that can be addressed um Courthouse Square not much new for us in this one um just okay a communication between the two of them that she's seeking more information I think she just copies us

121on the emails but nothing no action steps on this for us all right great any comments or questions on those emails Julia actually not on the email but I had something before for the next meeting sure um oh yeah I guess we don't have a slot to talk about the next meeting right but go ahead um I just wanted to make sure with um Kristen we were GNA have somebody from the fair housing center at the January meeting yes I sent the calendar item over and I uh they responded with a question that I still need to to respond to okay so I sent it over um at the end of last week okay good so that's something that'll be on the agenda at the next meeting we'll have a brief presentation from the fair

122housing um Council sener councel great thank you for checking in on that Julia um so for our next meeting I know this isn't item on here but we should talk about what we're going to do at our next meeting um seems like it makes sense to continue the conversation about the amendments to the um the housing code um there is the discussion of fees if there any updates we'd like to hear those um we don't want to have too many items besides Our Guest we don't want the meeting to go too long but is there anything else that you all feel we should discuss at the next meeting Travis yeah I just wanted to briefly say so I think we can touch base again about um the proposed amendments to ELO and write to renew

123ordinances but if you guys could perhaps use that meeting as a deadline to get back with us if not even sooner than that if you have specific things that um that you'd like to call out so that we have some opportunity to try to work on them and um because also acknowledging that the time of this meeting we will have gone through two additional Council meetings at that point and so I know that we will want to make sure that we can get them introduced if we'd like to move forward sounds good yeah if anybody is interested in meeting just for like a little working group um session um between now and our next meeting please send me an actually I guess raise your hand if you're interested in doing that I'm not saying we

124we need to do that okay Jordan Julia okay great anybody else Kim Jamie okay well I gotta write this down [Music] okay um yeah uh so hopefully we can time we can find some time maybe in January early January uh to discuss this get in some Rec kind of have more concrete things to send over to C Council okay great um I think we can move on then unless is there anything else before we move on to adjournment no okay well I know I said at the last meeting I am very proud of what you know all the work everyone has put in I really do appreciate your work um thank you so much for making this an enjoy experience as enjoyable as these long meetings on on Thursdays can be um thank you Kristen

125for all your work as well and I look forward to seeing everybody in uh in 2024 so we move on to item 11 adjournment do we have a motion to adjourn want to stay here till next year okay okay thank you resita do we have a second I'll second thank you uh Patrick um all in favor of joury say I I I was a POS say n okay with that we are adjourned see you all in January happy New Year happy New Year yeah happy holidays