001but uh welcome to the January 19th uh meeting of the Ann Arbor renters commission the purpose of the renters commission is to advise the city council and the city administrator in matters affecting renters in the city the commission is made up of voting members who are appointed by the mayor and approved by city council of City Council Members appointed by city council of non-voting Liaisons to the house and Human Services Advisory Board of non-voting members representing different landlord perspectives and of a non-voting representative to University of Michigan student services um to speak during any of the public comment opportunities you'll be able to speak through the webinar link or by phone depending on your method of access to this meeting and I don't know if there's anybody here right now oh yeah there's two uh
002for phone access you have to call 877-853-5247 or 888-788-0099 and enter the meeting ID 935-8080-1941 and then you press star 9 and or use the raise hand feature I guess when we get to the public comment part Kristen will walk you through all of that so I'm going to skip ahead so let's do a roll call I know we have some new people here um and just say uh that you're here and then where you're calling from because we're remote so commissioner Chen are you here today yes I'm here thank you are you calling from Ann Arbor oh yeah I'm from another great commissioner Kelly I am here and also calling from Ann Arbor commissioner Mukherjee isn't here tonight uh commissioner Cohen Smith here and calling from Ann Arbor commissioner Cato commissioner rumel commissioner droppleman
003I'm here and I'm calling from Ann Arbor great welcome to the commission thank you commissioner else here and from Ann Arbor as well the commission uh commissioner Lowe's commissioner Tibbetts here and Colin from Ann Arbor great welcome uh commissioner Rosen here and I'm calling to man our commissioner wanza council member Regina here in Ann Arbor and I will apologize in advance for my glitchy camera tonight uh you might notice me going a little crazy no worries council member Harrison I'm here and from Ann Arbor great and Kristen is here and is the City Attorney John Riser here tonight he will be joining a little bit later he's attending an event that should be wrapping up shortly great um so to get started we have a couple new members as I'm sure people notice so it
004would be great if um everybody who's new could introduce themselves and I'll just call on you so that you're not awkwardly calling on other people and you know just say who you are what brought you to the commission and anything else that you want to share we could start with uh Jamie if you want to go ahead and introduce yourself yeah thank you um I'm Jamie um I'm a current master of Social Work student and I've worked in the field of social work for a few years now um most recently I was working for an organization that um supports families experiencing homelessness um so doing that work I gotta interesting perspective of the challenges that people with low income and people it's particularly people who have um rental subsidy vouchers part of that program the
005challenges that they face when they do find a rental property um and just noticing that they seem to be especially vulnerable to sometimes predatory practices on behalf of landlords um yeah and that really just piqued my interest in tenants rights and this was one of the first things I learned about when I moved to Ann Arbor and I'm really excited to be here and meet everybody great to have you on the commission welcome um Bob do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself sure um I'm Bob droppleman uh I am one of the non-voting uh individuals providing landlords perspective we own one house that we rent uh and um uh so we would represent the small landlord perspective um that's been kind of um I guess you could call it a side hustle um
006I work for Michigan medicine uh in information assurance as well great great to have you here and Jordan be granted yep oh you ready for me okay yeah go ahead I'm Jordan I know a lot of you who already know me because I've been kind of uh attending as a as a watcher for a while um a little bit about us my husband and I uh own rental property in town we own and manage everything that we manage um on our own with a couple of employees I am a nurse practitioner by degree but once I had kids that was not a workplace that um could sustain my life with two small kids so I've been home with my husband since then um I rented in Ann Arbor as a student as recently as 2014
007so I do have a little bit of experience with that um but other than that I've been very active in parent spaces and kind of connecting and trying to figure out what what students do need and want and advocating for that um even if it means that I am blacklisted by uh landlord organizations so something that's really important to us is to make sure that we are always listening and fighting for those perspectives and I think we we have a um a good number of tenants that we are able to connect with varying from the you know working Professionals in the city to um undergrads though we do end up being mostly student housing um and so that's kind of our love um I do a lot of activism work in the community outside of
008this and um that's that's kind of our role in this city and something that we hope to uphold so I'm really glad to be here and listen and learn and um yeah thanks for having me it's great to have you here good to have so many new people and I know that there's at least one other commissioner who couldn't be here tonight so commission is filling out which is great um if did everybody get the agenda because the next thing is to approve that so if somebody could make a motion to approve the agenda I can motion to approve the agenda great motion by Patrick and a second oh second grade all in favor and for people who are new we just um vote by voice you can just say yay if you vote Yes
009thank you yay oh wait we can't vote how does it work for Robert and I we can we like motion for something or can we not or I guess I don't know the logistics of that question uh Kristen could you answer that for us sure um since you both are non-voting members you um can't motion or second uh can't move or second something or vote um but your input is definitely welcome uh in discussion of those items yeah um I think I think everybody said yeah but if anybody wants to vote nay this is your chance those opposed say nay okay so the agenda's approved and then we also have to uh approve the minutes so is there a motion to approve the minutes from the December 15th meeting I can make a motion to
010approve thanks Patrick in a second foreign okay so we have a public comment now and if there's any listeners on the line to make a public comment you can call in at 877-853-5247 488-788-0099 with the meeting ID 937-50801941 or you can join by Zoom so are there any uh anybody wishing to make a public comment we do have one caller um um let's see if you'd like to address the renters commission you can go ahead and raise your hand by pressing star nine give it just a moment and then we'll give it a moment too if anyone's calling in or trying to log on foreign listener has not raised their hand um so we can close public comment okay um and there's another at the end so if you're listening on the phone you can
011you'll have another chance to speak but let's get into it so the first thing on the agenda is a tenant education committee update and I'm not sure if this is actually happening because we haven't met since the last meeting and rich is not here but Hannah do you know something different is there an update from the tenant education committee no I believe the only update would be that where we have a scheduled meeting now for in February so we'll have a more robust update at the next meeting right and I guess since there's new people uh if you're interested in joining the tenant education committee that would be something to let Kristen know and then you could come to that meeting which is on February 2nd um okay the next one is the right to
012renew committee update and this is actually for me am I able to share my screen yes I'm gonna do that so just to give a little bit of background we've been talking about different issues with right to renew especially around enforcement and some of us got together and um Drew very heavily on on Jordan's right to renew policies actually to drop some best practices for the right to a new ordinance which is a kind of a new ordinance that protects tenants from predatory early leasing so we put together some best practices to share with the larger group best practices for landlords best practices for the city best practices for the University of Michigan and then for renters themselves I'm going to share my screen and go through it and then I don't know if we
013have a quorum in this meeting so maybe in the next meeting that would be a good thing to vote on to say like this is um kind of the way that we as a body would like people to be approaching this ordinance because I spent a lot of enforcement issues uh so I'm gonna share and walk you through it can you see that yes so the top just gives a little bit of background um and essentially it explains like where the where the right to renew ordinance came from in the city council passed it fairly recently and um you know the idea is that it restricts just for anybody who doesn't know I'm not sure if everybody does the idea is to restrict landlords from showing and leasing Apartments really early in the season because
014that creates a lot of pressure early on in the leasing cycle and people are scrambling for houses and for apartments and that often means that people who don't have as much Financial Security end up being in a situation where they're left um without enough housing options because they can't sign early um so yeah these are just some ideas we had for best practices for different groups of people so like I said um the landlord section really comes from wessinger properties which is uh Jordan's company and you can see them here this is in this section it's basically saying that you shouldn't start showing leases uh until four months before the big leasing dates so December and for leases I started may start showing in December for leases that start in August start showing in March
015established States when you could conduct showings and renewals and make those dates visible on the website so a lot of landlords don't have public information it's really useful to put that on there when are you going to start showing have a policy and commit to it have that on your website inform tenants when you're signing what your policy is don't keep waitlist this is something we've been talking about a lot like just because you can't legally sign leases don't keep an informal wait list to give people who sign up early priority don't charge fees to be a in kind of a first come first serve wait list uh don't keep informal informal wait lists behind the scenes uh having people on Deck don't prioritize do prioritize current tenants for renewal unless there's a reason not
016to renew to them uh ask current tenants about renewal one month before and um give them that month to decide whether or not they want to renew before you start showing and these this one's obvious don't sign leases until the legal date but you know it's it's worth saying anyways and then don't ask prospective tenants to sign until it's legal to sign so those are the ones for landlords and I'll just pause here unless any in case anybody wants to comment on any of those ones yeah go ahead Jordan um just two kind of minor things uh I would say on the bullet point to hold an apartment that isn't available for leasing I think we even need to include the squishy that may not be available for leasing because a lot of these times
017the landlord's saying and I think with right to renew having specifics about when you can ask about renewal um that we're going to have even these situations where they're saying well I can't ask about renewal but I'm going to take a b and it may or may not be available um I think that's kind of an important gray area because we the tenant still has no idea the prospective tenant still has no idea what their actual chance of actually getting that apartment is so that kind of covers a little bit further um and the only other thing that I might suggest addressing is um uh the what was I gonna say the um I guess you've kind of you've covered most of the things that it just it's tough it's tough because there is Nuance
018in the least start date I mean there are some landlords in Ann Arbor that have July leases um they're definitely more in the minority but um I think making it clear that there are the timeline is based on the dates not this arbitrary May December Connection by date um and I don't know I'll leave it up to you renters do you feel like that's captured well enough because if it's July it's going to be a different timeline um than is listed here so I'll leave that up to the renters to comment on but I think just that that is part of this that gets confusing is that you know there's Late July leases and there's you know so how do we and how do we cover the non-student population that's working on leases that may
019be totally not related at all to May or August uh necessarily yeah that makes sense to me I think that's a good change I mean I think that this does capture most leases but you're right it's not all of them um I where is the first comment that you made I didn't catch where that should go okay that was um that was the the one two three four five six seventh bullet point do not charge fees refundable or non-refundable to hold an apartment that may not be available for leasing yeah I mean basically the bottom line is do not charge fees period um so you could even just put period uh or especially to hold an apartment that may not be available for leasing um and then the only other the third point that I
020might consider in there is um you know tenants and I don't know part of this is how do we want to approach this morally too right like if tenants want to I also when we're speaking of tenants rights we're empowering tenants I also want tenants to understand that tenants per even the the right to renew could come and say I for sure am staying this is my third year of dental school I would like to sign my renewal you know um at the first day that it's able or I guess how do you cover that how do you cover the piece that the tenant could could request to sign earlier if they wanted to or do we not want to I guess throwing that out to renters is there any any point in bringing that
021up foreign yeah does anybody want to respond to that directly before um moving on to Zechariah that's a good question yeah go ahead Hannah um yeah this isn't fully formed but this is actually something that happened to me recently because of like a risk to like a buyout of where I live that it was important to me to extend my lease and I had to look up the rules myself and like be like oh I I wish I had this more front and center I'm wondering if there's a way that's like since this is for landlords and not for the renters but to make clear like only extend or add on to a lease before the deadlines if approached by the tenant or like or something like like something about Proactive or approach language might
022be helpful right yeah I think that's a really good comment um Jordan and then Gail Zachariah did you put your hand down because you would be I didn't mean to oh then then you're up okay thank you um just to try to figure out how much the delay there is um I wanted to ask Jordan uh and Bob here what you to think about wait lists that don't have fees do you see um you know validity there uh would it do you think it's helpful for landlords to hold those uh wait lists if they don't have fees and I'm just curious from your perspective do you think that that would maybe hurt any prospective tenants uh having uh fee that's waitlists go ahead Bob uh yeah I don't think so I mean I think I'm
023the wait lists it feels like just another uh sort of constriction of uh of supply for for people who are trying to get in or if you're brand new to the city and everything is wait listed then what are you gonna do um it I don't know that it just doesn't feel like wait lists are are a good thing to to use um having said that it appears that they that there are a number of companies that are using them um but again I don't I don't see how that I don't see how that helps tenants and I don't see well I I don't see how it helps tenants yeah I generally I generally agree because that's you know you're you're artificially giving them some hope that they're going to have something that could be
024zero chance they could be 10th on the waiting list the apartment could not be available I think it provides a false sense of reassurance but I will lift up you know Gail and I have been working with um some landlords and U of M that are uh looking to do better that are more corporate perspective and I will say that for them you know for me I'm leasing a number that's reasonable but for them they have mentioned to to us that um if they don't have wait lists they're then trying to fill 300 beds in a matter of a couple of weeks even maybe and that's really tough so I just want to lift that up I don't I don't have a lot of commitment to it or um you know effort behind it and
025Gail may be able to chime in on that too but I also want to note that there is kind of that perspective that isn't being represented here and also I guess to lift up that we're talking about um you know these are often students that live in these buildings that are dealing with this actual physical piece of it and so if if the idea is that they can't do wait lists and then you know the handful of students that they have doing leasing um are slammed with all these things we have to be you know well they're owned and managed by higher rise folks um sometimes the Fallout comes down on those students so I just I guess gently bring that up and say that that would be something to investigate um in my perspective
026is the impact on on completely outlying wait lists on landlords that are trying to do the right thing that are functioned very differently than Bob and I yeah go ahead Gail well I think Jordan and I can continue to kind of give you guys information as we continue to have meetings with them because it is a different animal completely and so you know we're there are people as Jordan has mentioned who are trying to do the right thing and we're going to try to work with them but but back to the the point of could I I think um you know whether or not a tenant could sign earlier um then the hundred then before the 150 days I mean there is a provision in the right to renew ordinance that says the provisions in
027the section can't be waived by the parties to a rental agreement so I wonder you know how that's going to impact things as well yep go ahead Travis so I I was going to speak to that too and I was going back and rereading the exact language and it might be worth a further conversation with attorney Riser at some point um the way that I'm reading it the the early leasing portion which sets the actual timelines um stipulates dates that the landlord must abide by um in terms of like no later or no sooner than um can they notify that they have to let them know um I think there might be some wiggle room to allow for a tenant to come earlier but I'd like to double check on that as I'm kind of
028rescaming the language right now um and I do know that we don't allow them to kind of waive their rights but the language does appear to be landlord-facing not tenant facing uh Hannah um this probably depends on the answer to that question when we officially get it but um I'm wondering is this a place where we could have another bullet or within a bullet about like okay assuming that people can Pro like if the renter wants to resign early or go back and like extend their lease or something um is this where we can say like the landlord should not be I know threatening rent increase this is something we've been talking about like um there's just some ways that it's like clearly a thread versus like this is a normal rent increase and I
029don't know if that can be captured here but the stuff that says like the rent is going to go up each week until you re-sign right I wonder if that can be involved in this best practice somehow yeah I'm glad you brought that up that was missing from here any other comments on the landlord best practices and my thinking is that we can I can share this document with everybody after the meeting and then you know we can refine and make comments over this month and then maybe we can vote on it next month if we feel ready for that um so this is just our first discussion okay I'm gonna move on to the city of Ann Arbor because I don't see any uh hands up some some suggestions for the city and we
030might have more to talk about here because we've talked a lot about landlords and renters and less about the city but I'll just run through them so um sending information to landlords on postcards describing the law and the best practices sending postcards to renters themselves explaining their rights um sending best practices for landlords oh I think this is just a repetition oh no sending it through the Washington area Apartment Association which communicates with a lot of landlords so that's just getting information out then um auditing the the bigger landlords and kind of assessing their compliance auditing auditing landlords that have had a lot of complaints and kind of communicating with those landlords about how to uh be compliant with the law so that's not um it's a more proactive way of making sure that this
031law is being enforced and then sending warning letters if there are landlords who are suspected of violating this and I know that Richard has some good information on um who's not abiding by the ordinance processing complaints swiftly publishing aggregated data about violations so that people know how widespread it is that could be on the city website then revising the Complaint Form this is something that we've talked about but there's the way that the Complaint Form is written is pretty confusing to renters so they're dissuaded from filling that out so that needs to be corrected and then producing a yearly compliance report for the next five years because it's a new law to see how it's working out any comments on that yeah Jordan um I agree with you on the Forum I mean I think
032something that's like a forum that can be just filled out and clicked like the idea that you have to download the form then fill it out then send it to Janet the the whole like process it just seems um not great either um and piggybacking on that too um the thing that I get from so many people and even when I'm like like I've talked to Zechariah about like a handful of situations where people don't even want to email the renters commission um with an issue that like we really need to be hearing um the idea of anonymity and how that is all working and what is done with the information seems to be kind of missing in all of our processes here and I'm wondering if that wouldn't help students and renters in general
033feel more comfortable um like what happens with the information when can you expect to hear can you remain fully Anonymous with information that goes back to the landlord just kind of how to make that um better and I don't I don't have any answers just things that I hear from parents and students uh yeah Travis um I was gonna wait until our Council update to to share this as well but um since it's relevant to this conversation I did also want to let folks know that council member Harrison and I did have a meeting yesterday is that right Cynthia um yesterday with um the administrator and some other members of staff to chat about enforcement um and uh to share some of the concerns that renters commission has been passing along through us um it
034was I would classify it as a pretty good conversation um I think that they're I am expecting I know for a fact that that attorney Reiser as well as a couple of other staff members are working together on a more formal communication and update to the body um and so I would expect that soon as well and some of it does cover kind of the some of the education pieces that the city is doing um and I also shared some of the frustration with with enforcement or the perceived lack thereof and and so so I know that they are looking into that some more as well and plan to provide an update to this group as well so hopefully that will help um as we're crafting some of these recommendations um am I missing anything
035council member Harrison from our conversation no you're not missing anything that's great thanks for that update any other comments on the recommendations to the city the once for the University um need a bit of work on it maybe maybe gal can help here because I didn't know exactly the timing of uh campus leases but you know the last meeting somebody had called in and said one concern that they had was that the right to renew ordinance would be out of sync with um Michigan University of Michigan Housing leases so I was just thinking here we could say let's let's try to get those on the same timeline if they're not already then communicating renewal laws and best practices to incoming students that could be through beyond the diag and other channels I think students get
036a lot of their information from the University so they can help a lot there uh not advertising or providing a platform for landlords who are advertising off-campus housing really early on keeping a list of landlords that are keeping wait lists or have in in other ways violated tenants rights so that students know to avoid those landlords and then I just put this on here I don't know if other people know about this I just learned about it from Gail but eliminating that the pay structure for advertising off-campus housing foreign and yeah maybe somebody who knows more about any of these things would like to speak to them I don't really know I can find out but don't really know the process for on-campus housing um you know as far as the rest of it I
037mean that's something to discuss with with beyond the diet but um you know keep keeping some of the information the communicating renewal laws that that's I think we're going to try to do maybe with the the work that Jordan and I are doing um but I can't really speak to you know how they'll respond about the rest of the suggestions Jordan yeah I I agree I mean this is tricky and this is something that we've had conversations with beyond the diet like ourselves personally Nick and I for years um you know it used to be it used to be a really open thing and then it switched over and for those who don't know I know I've talked to Zechariah about it too and um this is we we pay beyond the diet to be
038a part of it and when that started and I would say that since I've known my husband so maybe 10 years ago um is when that change happened and so it's an apartments.com based platform so as everyone can imagine apartments.com caters to apartments and high rises and the more commercial structure and so the thing that we're gonna hear when you say don't advertise a platform for landlords to advertise is you're going to hear every high-rise say we're always leasing it's year round and so our model unit is going to be up because you never know like even when you sign a lease with some of these high-rises it rarely happens but Gail and I do hear about it where they come back back to you you know in March and say oh you signed a
039lease for a one bedroom and all that we have is the penthouse one bedroom and it's twice as much rent and that's all we have for you and so if you want to live with us you know you have to take this thing and so there's this problem with they're always open for Leasing and they have model units and so they're not advertising unit number 1428 whereas Nick and I are advertising unit 1428 because that's the only 14 28 that we have and I'd say that's probably true for Bob and most of us other small landlords and some some larger ones but so that's kind of the problem is is they're gonna say we're always leasing we're always open we have vacancies at rolling times a year um and so we you know we deserve
040to advertise for this thing that we're paying a lot of money for um at any time that we want and so I think the pay structure as you note it is is like really a huge part of the problem um but this is a resource for you know I got two emails this week from um incoming either post docs or PhD students that are actually just moving to Ann Arbor in February and so we do have to keep in mind you know that there are people that are outside of those um cycles and that we want things to be available in them to maybe know about Woodland Muse that might have something on a rolling basis and so I think that's the feedback that you're going to hear about that um and the question about
041the pay structure you know Nick and I had complained for a while about it to the Past director um Mark Simmons is head of it now he worked for Avalon in general uh find Tim to be really lovely human and he really does want to make things better um and also there's this huge financial piece to this now that is unfortunate so I think we have to look at that um but I do hear that anybody can advertise on it now um so I think it is a little bit different say in the last five years or maybe just before kovid that they have opened it up so it's not locked into only those things but the one thing that is a lockout is the are the housing fares so like Nick and I said
042make us the most basic package to have access to the website we pay I think it's like eight or nine hundred a year for the service but we are on a very bottom package so we're locked out of the in-person housing fairs so when you go to an in-person housing fair you may not see Nick and I or Bob or someone else um because of that and so then the the students go to that and they come back and say oh my gosh all of these options are well over twelve hundred dollars a month or something like that and so there's there ends up being this that's all they think there is for housing the one fair that we did go to just before kovid the most common thing most common statement that Nick and
043I got was holy cow I had no idea that there were other options um for people who are just new to Ann Arbor so I do think that not only the pay but the piece that is what is beyond the diet representing as the available options for on-campus housing and what they're promoting is a whole kind of side piece that's related not related okay looks like there's a lot more thinking that needs to be done in that section than that that's useful uh okay and for renters this is the last one renter should familiarize themselves with the law don't sign on to a wait list although it seems like there's some complications there too don't pay to be added to a wait list don't sign leases um with landlord tour known to violate renewal laws
044and you know that would be contingent on that information being available and If you suspect that your landlord has violated your rights to file a complaint is there anything missing there from the renters section or any comments that people want to make on those okay so that's what we have so far and like I said I will send that out to the larger group and we can keep working on it over the next few weeks and come back to it in the next meeting and that's all I have for that update next thing is the University of Michigan Community partner and Grant update Zechariah are you speaking about this foreign yeah I guess if uh someone else was at that meeting might want to speak about it I I can open it up to them
045I know Patrick was there I guess I can just briefly say that we met with um some a faculty member two I guess technically two faculty members from school of uh Public Health to talk about um a study that they're undertaking and uh they're submitting a grant proposal and uh We've signed on as a community partner um but I know since Patrick is an Alum from the School of Public Health and he was there I can pass it off to him if you have any other details that you remember from those meetings yeah I don't have a much more to add it's an exciting opportunity and I think um I don't have my notes with me uh but I think uh this opportunity was really to I think some funding from the Ginsburg Center if
046I remember correctly and it would be sort of like a sub study of another study that is uh being undertaken um and and I think would involve some uh key informant interviews um with the student uh renter population um and we can definitely provide kind of more of a official summary of of what was proposed but I know Kristin did reach out and um and said that we have the full uh permission to participate in the project and I believe that the proposal was submitted uh Zachariah have you have you seen any confirmation of that on your end I don't think so no but uh I have no reason to suspect that it wasn't yeah any other comments on that okay oh Zechariah are you speaking um I think I oh I would just add
047really quickly yeah can you hear me yeah okay uh sorry uh I just wanted to add just to clarify for people who weren't there at the um the meetings where we did discuss this this is a study on the School of Public Health to um uh learn more about how the stresses of the Ann Arbor housing market affect U of M students specifically so it's just to look at student registers um so I just want to make sure everyone and we can resend the The Proposal materials out after the meeting so um everyone has them that's a good idea Zachary you broke up a little bit at the end there but I think we caught everything that you were saying um yeah it's an exciting study I think we can be of some some use
048to it too the next thing is that we've invited uh rental housing to attend one of our meetings to ask them some questions what they know about renters and renting in the city and Kristen made a form so to facilitate um gathering information and questions that we want to ask them so Kristin if you want to take us through the form you made that would be great sure all right so a link to this is um in the email I sent out earlier today and then also in the email from Friday with the meeting agenda um I wanted to create a form where you all could see um what other people are requesting um to to be able to kind of collaborate remotely um there's just a drop down here with some topics and then
049um spaces to write your in your more information or kind of whatever you'd need to clarify I'd like to provide this information to rental Housing Services um so that they have a pretty good amount of time to prepare so um about a month to collect any questions I don't know what rental housing is planning for the format of their like if they're going to do a presentation or be kind of an informal q a um but I think that providing them with questions gives you the best chance that they'll be prepared to answer them so great thanks for putting that form together Kristen anybody um have any questions or comments I want to make about that but in advance of rental housing coming here now we have one more meeting in between then and now
050so you have a lot of time I just want to give one more chance if anybody has anything to say moving on to the plan for the February 16th meeting Christmas entail just deciding what will be on the agenda yes um so it sounds like you might want to have your uh the best practices document back up for discussion and maybe um approval or Rec um I had some questions about that um like an approval to say like these are the renters commission official best practices you could also decide to provide it to city council as the communication um something like that does that sound like what you'd like for next month yeah I think the right to renew committee yeah I think that should definitely be on there for next time because there's a
051lot more to talk about and I mean hopefully people will leave comments in the next one yeah Travis I have a suggestion although I need to follow up with one of my colleagues who would be responsible for the presentation um but I know that I need to and here's the video thing I was talking about um lead to uh follow up with council member uh Cornell but I know that we previously discussed that she had been exploring uh some ideas around carbon carbon monoxide detectors in in apartments um and so I can check in with her on where things are um and depending on that she may have interest in in joining us or asking me to give some sort of update to the commission because I know she would like your feedback if we're
052going to move forward I just don't know where she is in discussions yet so I will I will check with her and can follow up with you Kristen foreign I think also for February 16th that that would be a good time for the tenant education committee to talk because we're going to meet on the second and I is there anything on the waitlist report Gail would you want to talk about that at the next meeting sure yeah we can talk about that next meeting it takes me too long to find out figure out how to unmute myself foreign I'm not sure if I missed other committees I can't remember all of our committees but if you're on a committee and you want to be at the next meeting this would be a good time for
053you to talk okay that sounds good um I know there was something about sending in like a picture of who we are for something is that something that we would put on a meeting agenda um yes so I could talk about that a little bit more or I don't know um I also emailed about Community Academy Community Academy is a program that the clerk's office puts on um that highlights kind of city services and functions and there is um there'll be a presentation on the renters commission during one of the sessions so I would really appreciate um a photo like a headshot or like a photo of each of you and then a couple of sentences you'd like uh to describe yourself um that would be great if you could provide those in the next
054couple of weeks I have one commissioner uh so there's in already so I can um pull up about render or uh Community Academy also I definitely encourage all of you to look at the different sessions that are available since this is such a new commission or if you're new to the city it's super interesting it is a little bit limited for in-person sessions and I've been hearing that it um a lot more people are signed up earlier than usual so definitely take a look cool that sounds great uh anything else that people want to discuss at the next meeting or have on the agenda for the next meeting okay let's move on to reports uh report from city council so if Travis or Cynthia if you have updates for us what the ing Cynthia do
055you want to go first do you have anything I've kind of given my up the main update that I wanted to give which was that we did have that conversation with staff um John is here now I don't know if he has anything else he wanted to add to it I don't know if you were here for my first um update but basically just filled in that we had the conversation that I'm expecting uh more formal communication from the administration uh filling folks in on enforcement and education efforts and those types of things um and so once we receive that I think um if we have more questions or follow-ups or anything like that then we can we can chat about that but I don't believe oh the one other thing I guess I could
056bring up because um Jordan uh mentioned to me that that I think a few folks were talking about the um legislative policy agenda that that Council passed um we did uh adopt our kind of legislative priorities for the upcoming year um and wanted to highlight that there are a few very specific renters um pieces in that we have a much more comprehensive list that we've passed in previous years that we've provided to our lobbyists but it was a really really long document with a lot of things and we really wanted to focus in um but a few of those included a repeal of the state ban on rent control um allowing or incentivizing municipalities to do duplexes triplexes and quadruplexes by right and a Statewide band to reflect Ann Arbor's ban on source of income
057discrimination so that there's more consistency across the county as opposed to just in Ann Arbor and Ipsy and so those are a few of the things that were pretty clearly renter related but there are other things that certainly impact renters in there because it has to do with housing and things like that but just wanted to share that as well that we are hoping to have some Partners at the state level that might be able to move some of our more ambitious policy agenda forward now that's great thanks for sharing that uh Cynthia anything on your end no not this evening thank you and I don't think the hhsa B liaison is here so let's move on uh Steph Kristen you have anything for us my main items were Community Academy and the submitting the
058photo to yourself so I'm pretty much covered um definitely uh submit your response to the rental housing uh question thing and um yeah that covers up and to any of the Commissioners have updates or reports that they would like to give if you have something just raise your hand yeah Jordan just a question are we going over the the handbook separately or is now Kristen I don't know if you I know you sent that out and said read it but I just had a couple of oh yeah questions that should be a great time okay um so a couple of things just uh I know I've seen people be like out of state it didn't address anything about people like not being in Ann Arbor and saying your location so I had a question about
059that didn't seem to be noted anywhere um in there um you can attend virtual meetings from outside of Ann arbory just important to uh during the roll call but we would just have you reference where you are we've had um Commissioners like at the airport or sure you know all over the place so cool just wanted to say that that might be a nice thing if we're handing this to new people um and then the removal for caused by the mayor like we have a pretty supportive mayor right now but just kind of thinking about if something changed does the commission have any input or say if a mayor if the mayor at some point decides that they want to remove someone for cause I don't I was just kind of wondering about how um
060that would work so maybe something to think about there um 0.6.4 more than one office I was just that wasn't clear to me where we were talking about like you can't have one office within the renters commission you can't be on multiple commissions I wasn't sure what that part meant um and then if committee meetings followed the same like open meetings stuff and having to be announced so those were my four main things that seemed unclear to me as a newbie okay um so for uh the mayor removing members it it's a little bit Case by case I think that if if there was a case where a member missed the meetings um for a situation that staff was aware of and the commission was aware of Ali would communicate that to the mayor I
061think that um typically members are removed by the mayor if they um are constant no-call no-shows or uh some different reasons like that um so it hasn't I don't think it's a big issue that I've seen with uh members being removed when the commission thinks that they shouldn't be removed but that's a good question um and then holding more than one office at the same time the renters commission only has the chair and vice chair but other groups have like a secretary or some other positions I think that we probably don't need that item in our bylaws if there's only two offices um but today um we had Lucy Vice chair around the meeting I was thinking to myself what if Lucy wasn't available today and we don't have a secretary so um something to
062think about and then what was your last question the last bullet point was um I know that the the commission meetings and the committee meeting were like in separate so yeah just about committee meetings and kind of the duty to notify how those work or if they're public or that that I left that section feeling a little unclear yeah so um for our formal committees we have a couple of the formal committees and then we have some of the work groups um if there is more if they're more than a quorum on the committee we definitely need to do all of the open meetings act stuff um sometimes there may be less than Quorum on the committee um but kind of depending on what's going on it's always good to to have it noticed and
063available for people to attend and speak during public comment Riser I do you have a comment about that no some Quorum committee meetings are fine hello I've uh just saw your kind of pop up at the bottom um for folks who uh were here at the beginning when Riser wasn't here this is John Reiser he um is in the attorney's office at the city hello everyone and hello again to most of you and hello because some of you that are new I was a the investiture for uh new judge Aryan slay at Pioneer High School so um sure I was great to have you here sorry I didn't say hello when you came in that's right um Jordan did you have anything else no I think that that covers it just things that we could
064make it a little more solidly hand off to a to a new person right yeah and you know on that I I should go through the Committees we have so that you all know what they are we have a tenant education committee a right to renew committee um and is that in chapter 105 enforcement committee and then there's a work group right for application review and maybe that's all what am I missing I think this research study is the some kind of work group or subcommittee is that all right Christian I think I saw my name on that yeah just kind of one of the informal um the community partner for the grant the group that does the research on wait lists and fees um and then also um because we've had so much uh
065like vacancy and turnover a little bit there's been a group looking at applications for members also and kind of reporting back those and making recommendations those are meeting or those are groups that we haven't been doing um public notice for because sometimes they're only two people any other reports from commissioners or things that people want to say yep Zechariah uh I wanted to let everyone know that I've been in touch with council member Cornell regarding carbon monoxide detectors I know that she's working on evaluating our current rules for carbon monoxide detectors it looks like new structures are required to have them but existing structures aren't so there's some holes there and there is somewhat recently a very tragic accident that happened in a motel or someone was killed by carbon monoxide poisoning so I think
066there's a reminder um kind of spurred this effort so I'll let you all know if anything you know as I come as I learn more information from the council member and let me know if you're interested in potentially working on that I'm guessing she's going to uh have a resolution uh sometime and then probably the next few months yeah Jordan that might be a good thing to have on deck for the housing um people when they come in March too I mean just thinking about like we we bought them for all of our buildings um after that we had them some places but we just made sure that we had them everywhere that made sense but there are some logistical things that even Nick and I can't possibly think to consider because they're so outside
067of our stuff just about like where they're they should be placed in things so I think making sure that we are involving um the inspectors and and fire department question mark like people who know about the logistics of where carbon monoxide you know where is not a risk and where is a risk um in those discussions I think is is important yeah go ahead Bob um I would second that uh I know that uh they're required by code if you have any uh electric work done uh or permanent electric work done on the uh done on the unit um and there is some code specifications on where they have to go uh and I think it would be really really valuable to uh to learn that as well as honestly especially for old houses um
068uh personally uh I would support a resolution from Council definitely thanks for bringing that up Zechariah any other reports or comments updates from commissioners it's a quiet meeting tonight isn't it um okay so let's move on to our second public comment then and Kristen do you do this part I just realized um that that I kind of awkwardly read the first part but normally you do this I think oh either is fine um it's just important to um say it so people can hear it and call in if they need to so right all right so this is the second public comment um public comment can be made by phone at 877-853-5247 or 888-788-0099 with meeting ID 935-8080-1941 or you can join the zoom meeting by going to a2gov.org renters commission meeting right now we
069don't have anyone in the waiting room except ctm um so we'll give it just a moment right there are no callers or attendees okay the last thing is Communications to the renters commission they're included in an attachment on the agenda and yeah I don't know if anybody wants to respond to the communications we got or you know say anything about this yeah Kristen um I'll share that so those come into the renters commission impacts that I see and then um I kind of depending on what the issue is either put them in contact with Janet or ask them more questions and put them in contact with Janet and then they're always asked if they would like their communication provided at a renters commission meeting um so I've just been including those that come in that
070are kind of um kind of tough cases that residents are experiencing um and Janet has been super responsive um like responding within the hour so um kind of just passing those along yeah Gail for the ones that are for the folks that reach out that are students you can also refer them to our office for assistance will do thanks we have a automatic reply that goes out when people email the renters commission I will include your office's contact info in that also uh anything else I mean does anybody want to say anything about these communications foreign okay um that brings us to the end of the agenda just uh anybody want to speak before we move to adjourn yeah Gail sorry I I do think we need to respond to folks so I mean I
071I haven't I didn't look at them ahead of time I can look at them and maybe make some recommendations for how we should respond but I don't think we can just leave them without more response and so Kristen you said you have a um usual response that you send uh yes I'll pull up um it kind of says if you're like if it is a code violation we'll put you in contact with Janet um if it is actually about something else at the city we would put you in contact with that department um if it's like a general Clerk's thing we'll get back to you kind of like we'll get back to you no matter what but these are the kind of different situations that could happen I don't include rental housings information in the
072automatic reply now but I think that definitely could um I can pull it up here okay I I will send you the the best link for our office and I'll take a look at these and then just make a record make a recommendation for what we should do if anything more than that for these yeah Hannah yeah I think I just um have a question about that because I think I got something wrong so I guess I heard what Kristen was saying as like somewhat like Janet has been responding to these but Gail are you saying like we want to make sure that we confirm like the render's commission has seen this um separate from that yes I think so I mean I think it would be they're reaching out to the renters commission so
073I think we should let them know that you know we've seen it you know maybe we think where they've been directed is sufficient or maybe we have some other suggestions or not but I think if they're going to reach out to us we should respond directly to gotcha okay cool is there a process that we can set up for doing that like how would we go about responding to these people it's definitely something we could look at they're not super frequent um and kind of depending on the issue it's always like a different response right so sometimes it could be an easy code violation and sometimes it's not um I I really like the idea of providing Gales resources because rental housing can only enforce like approvable rental housing code violation and maybe there's some
074other issues that a person would need assistance with um so definitely getting a conversation could be had about how we should be Fielding these uh Jordan I think another resource I mean my my standard reply whether it's in a Facebook group or if somebody contacts me via email or text or whatever is also includes legal services of South Central Michigan um you know Gail is awesome who is the Gale for non-students I think is something that we and if we don't feel that legal services of South Central Michigan I mean maybe John maybe you have an idea I have no idea if it if it they do much if they respond like is there any other help and maybe Gail you know too like a resource for people who are not student tenants feels particularly
075important um so I don't know if there's crowdsourcing that come and come up with others but that's that's the general resource I give though I admit I haven't heard many successful stories with it I think Nick Rommel and I put together a list of resources but maybe I never shared it with anybody so it's not doing anybody a lot of good I'll send that to Kristen as well because there's also there's also the U of M Legal Clinic we do a lot of like paralegal tenant counseling and Geo as well just because people have so many issues so you know if they email there's I mean we can't do anything legally of course but it helps just to talk with someone about their issue talk it through uh so that's another place that we can
076refer people to it's a little bit off um of that topic I had one more update about the tenants um the rights and duties of tenants booklet um kind of the state of it post right to renew um we went through all of the booklets in the clerk's office and we have about 4 000 copies that were updated in March 2022 so they include yellow but they don't have right to renew but they now all have um right to renew um like in them as a leaflet and we have plenty of those available in the clerk's office and if anyone has a book that says a date other than March 2022 it's not up to date um it doesn't have up-to-date voter registration information or uh housing code information that's great that's good that we
077have new books um anything else from anyone in terms of the communications we got I have some ideas about how to respond so I'll just email you about that Kristen if that's okay okay does someone want to make a motion to adjourn we made it through our agenda get motion to adjourn and a second a second all in favor yeah yeah any opposed okay and with that meeting is adjourned it's great to see you all