0012022 meeting of the ann arbor renters commission the purpose of the renter's commission is to advise the city council and city administrator on matters affecting renters in the city the ann arbor renters commission is made up of voting members who are appointed by the mayor and approved by city council city council members who are appointed also non-voting liaisons with the housing and human services advisory board and a non-voting representative to the university of michigan student services to speak during the public comment opportunity members of the public can speak through the webinar link or by phone depending on your method of access to this meeting for phone access please call zero 877-853-547-888-7888 nine and enter meeting id nine five three eight zero eight zero one nine four one you will hear an automated announcement that the
002host is allowing you to speak please state your name at the beginning of your comments city staff will indicate when callers have 30 seconds left of their three-minute comment period after three minutes they will be placed on mute so that we can proceed to the next speaker all right moving on to roll call since this isn't since this is an electronic meeting please state where you're attending the meeting from um city and state all right commissioner zachariah uh president i'm from i'm attending from ann arbor okay commissioner welch commissioner uh peterson uh commissioner kelly here calling in from ann arbor commissioner cohen smith here and i'm calling in from ann arbor commissioner ramel here ann arbor commissioner cato commissioner chen i'm coming from romulus dtw airport commissioner mukhtry hi i'm here i'm calling in from
003anna and then we also have um both council member nelson and councilmember regina present and gail rosen the liaison to the university of michigan student legal services great so we have a quorum kristin uh this is aj redmond i'm here as well i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm calling in from ann arbor thank you can't get rid of me that easily you know no i apologize i have to update my list here okay okay thank you all right so moving on to the item three approval of the agenda do we have a motion to approve the agenda i will also move you have a second second i second [Music] those opposed approved as presumptive moving on to item 4 approval of the minutes before you are the minutes of the july 26 meeting of
004the renters commission are there any comments or corrections to the minutes any a motion to approve them in motion to approve the minutes a second thank you all in favor yeah hi any opposed okay unanimously approved [Music] all right we'll move on to the next item public comment please all right this is an opportunity for members of the public viewing this meeting to speak to the commission for up to three minutes if you would like to address the renter's commission please press star 9 if you're listening over the phone or you can use the raise hand feature if you're viewing through the web link i will select callers or zoom attendees who have raised their hand and call on them by their phone number or username so if there are any attendees who would like
005to speak to the renters commission please raise your hand caller with the username ricardo m you'll have three minutes to speak to the renters commission you can mute yourself to address the renters commission caller with the username ricardo m you are allowed to address the renters commission you can do so by unmuting yourself okay all right there are no other um attendees with hands raised um kristen should you perhaps promote john reiser the city assistant city attorney to the panel i mean he has been analysts for the previous meetings sure all right seeing no other attendees i will close the public comments john reiser from ann arbor if you need that information thanks this is our first televised meeting so in case there are any late um joiners to the ctn stream i'm going to
006read that phone number again because just in case there's anyone watching who wants to go very briefly you are watching and you'd like to call in to address the renter's commission please call nine 888-788-0099 and enter meeting id nine five three eight zero eight zero one nine four one and we'll give this just a minute um there's a little bit of a delay between the live um between what we're in now in the live stream on ctn i forgot about that so it'll be just a minute hey kristen yes um where can people watch ctn is it just like they use the live youtube channel or is there another way they can watch on um live online on the ctn page and then also on there's two different channels um uh comcast channel 16 and
00718t channel 99 which is the government channels for all of the other uh public meeting folks can also go to a2gov.org watch ctn and be able to watch it there all right there are no callers or attendees with raised hands um so we'll move on to the next item which is the election of officers at an earlier meeting the renters commission elected a temporary chair and vice chair and now that there have been several meetings and you all know each other a bit better it's appropriate to elect a chair and vice chair for a whole term so how that works is will someone will nominate a member of the commission and that will be the motion to nominate one of you as chair and then we'll do a second and then vote and then do
008the same for vice chair question yes are the council members eligible to serve as officers that's a good question check the bylaws i i don't know of any commissions where that is currently happening i don't know if we're i don't know if we're eligible but i would say i think there is a benefit to not having us surf in the chair capacity god sorry i was just going to say i think it adds a little bit of a additional kind of buy-in for the the commission to not have the council members who already have a vote at the council table also running the commission okay i won't nominate you travis i see i think it needs to be a voting member of the commission you're probably right yeah zachariah would you like to continue continue
009as the chair you mean yeah yeah sure i mean yeah well we'll get to that part yeah well i'll nominate you as chair okay thank you i can second the nomination oh aj can suck in it hi that's fine thank you i'd like to second the nomination thank you all right all in favor of this nomination yeah yes hi hi hi any opposed all right unanimous is there any um nomination for a vice chair the vice chair's role is a little bit less intense um on the occasion that the chair is unable to make it to the meeting you would be responsible for that you'll also be copied on all of my emails to the chair so you get a little bit more emails and it will say ch vice chair next to your name
010on the city's website kristen who is our current temporary vice chair our current temporary vice chair is loosely she's not present at this meeting um and i don't know if um they're interested in continuing that and well um she's not present she can't decline so i'm going to nominate her for vice chair is there a second i'll second all in favor lucy peterson vice chair yeah hi great so moving forward moving forward zachariah and lucy will be chair and vice chair um and is there any questions okay zechariah do you want to take over facilitating the meeting yeah that's fine i thanks everybody um i know the chair is mostly a procedural thing but um you know if there's anything i'm doing that upsets you or i think i should be doing differently just let
011me know um i really do appreciate it and i hope that uh lucy is okay with it within the vice chair but i guess if she's not she can always just step down we can find a new person um okay so uh thank you very much kristen that brings us to point six b b write to renew update um so i guess i can start off and maybe i could pass it off to the council members since i've been somewhat involved uh so we as you know at our last our last special meeting we passed a resolution advocating for the council to pass a right to renew ordinance of some sort um we asked the council if they make any changes to the version that we passed in our resolution that we stay informed in
012the process here uh i think it i think we should probably decide how we want to stay involved as a commission if it's if we want to wait until our next meeting if they propose a change we want to be interested until our next meeting and then you know we can discuss it or if we want to destinate people so that it can be more of a free flowing and quicker response to any proposed changes but um they're at the last council meeting council member nelson introduced a resolution saying that they should pass right to renew but then uh they uh you tabled that council member nelson and that was uh i was part of that discussion about you know why it should be tabled basically the stage we're at right now is um hopefully
013there will be some changes made to the uh to the language and then it will be introduced as an ordinance amendment not as a resolution an ordinance amendment and um that will take at least two readings and i'm guessing there will probably be there'll probably be some changes especially since we've gotten some feedback council members nelson regina do you have anything to share beyond that the only thing that i can add is that um the city attorney atlean cower uh says that they are going to have a memo available by august 26th hopefully sooner and so um we are still waiting to get feedback from the city's legal department but august 26 was the date that i was given um i will i will also briefly add we we did hear from some members of
014the housing and human services advisory board that they have some interest in reviewing the language i know that um i have connected zachariah to several members of that commission so that those conversations can begin before their next formal meeting so that this work can kind of continue and um i would also just applaud the commission and reappointing zechariah's chair because i know he has been doing a ton of work behind the scenes on all this on all of your behalf to keep this moving forward um and so hopefully he will um he'll be able to connect with some of them them soon and also be able to provide updates on that i know a few of the agencies in particular were interested in just making sure that whatever impact it might have on the the
015folks that they serve um that they were also looking at it and and were able to raise any questions or concerns uh before it got too far into the process um and and very briefly i also just heard from lucy that she accepts so she she is fine serving us vice chair thank you for the update travis um yeah uh another addition here which is in our agenda uh we received an email from jordan else who's a local landlord and is supportive of a few different reforms in the city and she raised some really good concerns very justified concerns about uh right the current right to renew language just some things that i think that should be addressed um one of the things i mean i would encourage you all to read the email but
016one of the things that she pointed out is if there's a multi-tenant unit with six people and there's three two groups of three and three of them you know they don't get along and three of them say well we want to renew and then the other three say we want to renew and they both find replacement tenants for each other then who's the who gets the right to renew i guess if you have multiple groups of tenants who are trying to replace the other groups i don't think it's a very common situation but it is something that should be considered so hopefully especially with the legal memo uh and and conversations with the legal staff we can iron out some of those issues and some of the concerns raised but i would like to open
017the floor for any thoughts about um the general idea of right to renew what we passed and any concerns or problems you may have heard go ahead gail i just wanted to say we also i also was contacted by another local property manager and included in the minutes are are included in the packet is in from in some of her questions that hopefully um the city attorneys can look at and be able to answer um so i just wanted to get to point that out to you guys as well thanks again nick gail was that jordan else because that's what's or is there somebody else so right about the the email we received from kristin has jordan's email at the end but the first page i just um kind of numbered the issues that the
018other property manager raised it's it's just the first page one to eight she was generally in support of thank you she was generally in support of the right to renew but had some um had some questions and also the communication from jordan as well oh there's some right it might have been the same for it might have been the same forward but go on i'm sorry well i was just going to say that this was from this is completely separate from jordan and and while jordan may agree with some of the questions i in no way want to attribute this to her the questions one through eight were from a property manager who reached out and these these were her questions and and concerns okay should i keep this up or can i stop sharing
019i think you can stop sharing we should all have it god bless you thanks zachary um okay any other um points or you know i guess points of discussion go ahead hannah yeah i had a quick question understanding that i missed the last um special meeting and i know the minutes weren't available when i last checked them so i'm looking at appendix b still like from the stuff from today but i thought that the questions from the email were talking about from the property managers the stuff about negotiation timelines i had a question if that was addressed or if there's an update on that i know myself i'm always asking for little changes in the lease if something seems inapplicable or something like that and i wasn't sure how that's been addressed like if there's
020time to negotiate the lease before tenants accept that's a really good question um i don't believe in the current language there is i think it's just a 30-day window to my understanding uh go ahead richard i've we've been asked this question by other tenants in the past uh if this ordinance amendment were to pass in october or november would it come into effect for the year 20 22 to 23 or would this only be enforced in the next lesion cycle i don't i don't expect an answer right now but it's just a question that's come up a few times so i just wanted to forward that question to the truth and travis i i don't know if john if you feel comfortable trying to answer that last question um i know that's something we've potentially
021talked about previously john if you'd like to respond go ahead well yeah that's that's something that we're going to definitely address in our legal memorandum the issue is going to be well does it impair a contract right so that's something that will uh we'll look into a potential challenge on the on that basis and the applicability to current leases versus perspective going forward thanks nick right i've heard from i'd say about five or six landlords and the theme of the they're probably about three or four main themes to the communication i've heard one is questioning the need for the ordinance um you know what is the problem that we are trying to fix the second theme is the um concerns about the re-rental window which i believe we tried to make corresponding with the early
022leasing ordinance but there were still some concerns about that that window of opportunity that they felt was either too tight or the wrong window the third were some of the very practical that i call them the what ifs you know where somebody comes up with a situation um a lot of those i think can be addressed with language but the fourth and perhaps the most overriding concern that i heard was that there was some frustration about the inability to communicate um that you know whether we call it a um a listening tour uh that we hear from different constituent groups uh that but some landlords don't feel that they have a voice to be heard um in this and i think that that probably you're seeing also a split or a dichotomy between the reactions
023of the smaller landlords and um you know and and and then the bigger companies um and the smaller landlords i think feel more impacted by some of those things and it was interesting to me because um uh kristen i think in our agenda you linked us to it wasn't actually a study of the detroit landlord situation and i worked in legal services in detroit doing landlord tenant work there for many years and i was still surprised to see that the vast vast majority of landlords are folks who just have one or two houses and there are one or two units or something like that and that's um probably close to what we have here and just informally so those are just some of the comments i've heard and i just passed that on uh in
024lieu of um um now just pass that on so thank you thanks nick um just to address the the first part of what um i guess the first thing that you heard is a from some landlords is this necessary i um i've met quite a few people who've been counting on renewing their lease and simply weren't offered the chance to do so um it's it's so prevalent that i just happened to know a few you know quite a few people uh to whom this has happened and in fact one of my close co-workers one of uh three researchers my age in in my lab including myself uh that this happened to them and now because of because they've had to move they now have to commute from dearborn all the way to ann arbor every
025single day just to get to work which is pretty crazy um so i do think that there's definitely a strong need at least in several um groups of of tenants of some version of right to renew but i do agree with some of you know some of the concerns that have been raised i guess to ask a question back to you nick do you think that there should be more outreach to to to landlords before this is passed that's a thoughtful way to put it and i appreciate that um just in general in decision making or something to be successful such as the ordinance that we're crafting it's helpful if you have buy-in from the various constituent groups i think we have that from the tenant groups and i think you articulated pretty well uh
026zachariah and certainly i've been working with uh um you and and your um fellow advocates for several months on this and the things that you pass on anecdotally you know i'm hearing those too it's very frustrating and expensive to have to face moving every year and not to be able to find um housing um you know i i can certainly understand that need but the other so we're hearing from tenants through the tenant advocates where the landlords um our one constituent group um the um university might be another constituent group um and you know i'm sure we could think of other stakeholders uh as well um and if there was some formal or systematic way that we could do this and we could get input from all the stakeholders um without people feeling like we're
027trying to rush something through before they get a chance to be heard we might have a better we might have greater buy you um and those are just some of the things that i'm hearing that i'm passing on and um hopefully that addresses your uh your thoughtful questions after ryan yeah i i hope that you know i know we will be discussing the town hall idea later in the meeting i hope that that can somewhat satisfy um that point uh at least for other issues i definitely do want to talk to more people as a commission um and i i have followed up with um jordan ellis and i'm plan on doing a for you know more thorough follow-up with with her and some maybe some other landlords as well just to make sure that
028they understand what's going what's what's happening that we've heard you know we hear their i'm really happy that uh jordan emailed them that was really convenient for all look at that go ahead travis yeah i just don't want to lose in this conversation i think it's been great i i don't want to lose a question you kind of initially answered or asked at the beginning which is also you know as changes are potentially made to the draft ordinance how the body wants to remain informed um acknowledging that you know if it's the entire body wants to kind of vote on a final draft that that may be impacted kind of by your timeline of meetings and things like that as well or if you're comfortable kind of appointing i know you know gail and nick
029and zechariah have been working pretty closely with staff on this already are you comfortable with them kind of speaking for the group as this moves through the process um i think that would be important and helpful for you know us as your council liaisons to know when when you guys feel like this has the buy-in of the body thanks travis oh you're muted i was listening i'm still learning and i was hurt i heard that nicholas was think that and mentioned something like small properties owners landlords it's harder for them to uh have their voice to be heard so my question is what is the difficulties what are the difficult parts for this smaller landlord to have the access approach to have their voice voice heard what are the difficulty parts and what are because
030i'm still learning so i'm not very familiar with the approach that we could let them know they do have those supports what that that's my question thank you go ahead gail i i think more what i've been what we were hearing from smaller landlords is that they're in a different position because the high-rises the bigger landlords they generally don't assign a particular unit so when you sign a lease for one of the high-rises in ann arbor you're signing a lease for you know a two-bedroom two-bathroom apartment and not a specific unit so they don't necessarily have to comply in the same way as a landlord who's renting out a smaller apartment building and someone's being assigned to a specific unit that's what i'm hearing i'm not sure if that answers your question but um but
031those are some of the concerns that were raised thank you travis yeah and i think to go a step further in terms of kind of providing that voice obviously council has been hearing from from some landlords who are who are emailing us i think obviously there is an opportunity for folks who could take advantage of public comment at this meeting um at council meetings they could obviously email members of this body as well to to ask questions or to raise concerns um and then i i will also acknowledge that there is also the potential that that two non-voting landlord seats could be filled on this body to to have that perspective at the table as well and so those are kind of the options that were laid out to provide that perspective thank you uh
032go ahead nick excellent okay um do we have vacancies and are there pending applications for the vacancies there is one voting vacancy and two non-voting landlord vacancies the two landlord vacancies um there have been two applications received and they have both been provided to the mayor's office so those are mayoral appointments um there are several applications in for the voting position some of them are fairly recent staff hasn't had an opportunity to look at them but that is something we're planning on doing in the next couple of weeks you know we we sort of jumped i'm sorry i'm not even raising my hand but um quickly like there is an opportunity for this this commission to to identify people to review those applications to make a recommendation of the mayor i just wanted to throw
033that out there that's a good point um i guess i don't know at what point during the meeting we could do that probably what um question to elizabeth what have other commissions done who's usually that the group of people so i the reason that possibility exists is because i brought a resolution asking for it and the reason i did was because the bylaws of the commission on disabilities issues includes that and i came in sort of midstream and there was one person on the commission of disabilities issues who was regularly just sort of pestering the mayor's secretary and saying where are the applications who is anybody applied um the human rights commission um i alerted them to this option and the way they did actually you know what the way the human rights commission did
034it is they don't have a designated person like the disability issues committee does um i alerted them like hey you know you could do this and they just had volunteers and so you know three or four people volunteered to participate in this and i requested a pad like the staff create a packet of the applications and likes um remove identifying information and just send it on and they had quite a fruitful meeting i attended um and then they came up with a pretty a pretty clear explanation that was sent to the mayor of like these are the candidates that we think would support our commission best and these are how we rank them um so yeah it could be ad hoc actually if you wanted in this particular meeting to just say who's interested in
035sitting down and looking at these applications um you could do that that way that's the way the human rights commission did it i know we're getting kind of off of topic here but uh maybe we should have that question at the end of this discussion and you know off the chance for people to volunteer but um i oh i lost my train of thought i'm sorry oh yeah no uh what travis had brought up um about deciding if we're going to have designees like our you know designated people to to talk with council members about the right to renew language since the resolution we passed does say we want to be involved in this process um travis i believe you proposed um the our two members who are lawyers and the chair uh is anybody
036else interested in being part of that group of people if we think this is a good idea so i guess first of all let me take a step back do we think that this is a good idea to designate a small group of people to talk with the council members about the issues and and kind of resolve um any any amendments to the language for righteousness aj i think it's a great idea i think it would speed things along tremendously and the work that your smaller body has been doing thus far has been right on so i think it would help tremendously to have that in place going forward thank you very much any other thoughts i think hannah had you mentioned before that you wanted to be involved i was and also i think
037i will hold things up schedule-wise so i like the idea of being you three but i appreciate it okay just want to make sure absolutely yeah thank you hannah um uh we had a conversation about the about the language a little while back with gil and nick i believe and that was really helpful um okay richa go ahead i think this is more of a clarification question or just a comment uh so are we interested in remaining in the loop as the conversation moves forward within city council are or are we interested in participating actively in sharing our reactions to how the language also changes because that's like a more active kind of participation versus receiving updates which i think is great and just a comment the second point is that now with right to
038renew there is an overlap between some commissioners and uh the original group that had sort of proposed right renew in the first place but in future if there are other campaigns or other forms of like grassroots movements that put forth uh like some kinds of amendments to renters commission we might want to be answerable to those groups in some ways well basically i don't want i'm wondering if this is this shouldn't replace an existing movement so i know at this point we don't have like an email for instance where that people could through which people could reach us but i think going forward if the renter's commission is probably a really excellent body to amplify tenants concerns but it shouldn't replace it in some way so i think it would be nice to think about
039some way in which the renter's commission can also keep reeling information back to tenants uh rather than coming in the way in some way just a thought i think that's a good point um i guess to answer which is question the way i envisioned it is we would have both to the beginning of your question which was i would like to have updates back to the to the commission about what's being changed about the rights for new language and also i would like some of our members to play an active role if they're willing and making those changes uh to make sure that you know a version of right to renew doesn't pass that we really just don't agree with but i also think that the the people who originally proposed the language should definitely
040be involved as well so i guess what i'm envisioning was having a few uh people designated from this commission sit down with a couple council members who have concerns or other you know people from different commissions whatever it is um as well as the you know some of the people in this campaign for right to renew so that we have everybody in the same room but i don't want to hold up because we asked to be involved in the in that process of the amendments um you know as the renter's commission i don't want to hold up those amendments by saying well we need to wait until the next uh [Music] you know calendar meeting i want to be able to continue forward with this so go ahead richard zach i just wanted to add
041that i'd be interested in participating in like the next steps whether it's like getting updates or thinking more about the language and how it evolves is there anybody else who's interested go ahead hannah um no not to join the group but i was gonna say feel free to um push back but i would rather see it move forward and whatever small group of people is interested like represent us and accept changes and i trust that the changes won't go out of the spirit of it um to move it forward rather than waiting till the next meeting um others can push back but i am comfortable with that so it doesn't keep playing ping pong between uh changes with us thank you for that so hannah sounds like there is some um agreement here that we
042should designate a group um so i suppose everybody who's interested uh you know feel free to speak up i know that it seems like nick is interested rich is interested gail would you like to be yeah gayle as well um so that's three people so far i'd be more than happy to be a part of the conversation which would make it four people i guess three voting them well ooh so did we just count the voting members there travis i see you shaking it only really matters if you were to start growing this group to be concerning about a quorum um i think i think the four of you are are perfectly fine yeah okay and i'm more than happy to switch in our you know switch off with somebody else if you want to
043take a more engaged role within this process i'm more than happy to do so um okay so i'm just going to put this out here uh i guess it if anybody has any any objections make that known i i don't think it's i don't think we necessarily need to take an official vote on this but um does anybody object to this group of four people nick gail myself and richa being kind of the designees for the body in discussions about right to renew amendments okay sounds good and uh i also feel strongly that we should report back to the commission um we're able to send updates to kristin to the commission if there's something very significant and you know everybody just don't reply all don't i guess just don't reply period we'll be very thoughtful
044about you know how we do those updates and we'll definitely update you at the next uh official renters commission meeting and if you feel like this group of designated people have are not representing the commission very well you're also welcome to give a comment to the the city council or just email say you know speaking up as a commission okay any other points on six dash b the right to renew update okay seeing none we'll move to six dash c discussion of tenants town hall planning committee um an update on allowing in-person meetings go ahead travis so sorry i am i have one more question uh that i wrote down as a question that maybe hasn't been answered yet for the last one um you kind of you asked kind of the body a question
045about whether or not you wanted you and nick were kind of going back and forth about whether or not more outreach needed to happen and i think the group maybe the group of four of you can decide that going forward but i don't know if you kind of want the body's decision on whether or not you feel that enough feedback has been provided already yeah i guess i'll open that up to everybody um do we feel that we need to do more outreach to any constituent group [Music] i'll just add that um i do plan on talking uh further with jordan um the landlord who emailed us but go ahead richard i just wanted to again like forward a concern from another tenant organizer i mean the renters commission objective is to gather and really
046deliberate on renters perspectives issues concerns and things like that so when it comes to gathering landlord perspectives it's just a question around whose responsibility that is at the city level again we know that the renter's commission has non-voting seats and platforms like public comment time and anyone can email the rented commission at any point but just at the city level like is it the renter's commissions responsibilities of city government just just a question about like who should be thinking about things like this i mean tenants have been talking about concerns with like elo and things like that for a while like over a year so in the interest of like those concerns i feel like there was a lot of time for discussion and to hear landlords out i suppose if the council members feel
047that there's something very urgent that they or or a good could a valid concern uh from a landlord that they've received by email they can always send that you know send that on to the rest of the group um go ahead nick right i was looking for um in the agenda i thought that there was something about uh sort of an education aspect for the commission um if i can dig that up you know i i think it's in our work plan um you know we i'm looking at that now the town hall meetings learning about the inspection process um investigating current landscape of landlords etc how much vacancies there are many many other things that even those of us who are you know housing advocates or somehow involved in local rental housing that we
048might not know the answers to all those questions and it's helpful for example you know about those things um i don't know so if we could combine maybe a town hall aspect or a listening tour with the self-education thing i think that would be great i mean we also bring a diverse and deep body of knowledge given everybody's individual background and work that they do so we all have that with each other as well but it's um kind of an ongoing process so if we could continue our work continue our self-education and to be listening to our constituents at the same time we're still involved in this process i think that would be great and the final point that i would want to make though and somebody raised this earlier i mean this is just
049how legislation is made right i mean we can craft something but we have no control over the final outcome we can try to influence it we could try to talk to our city council people etc but ultimately it's going to be their decision sometimes it can be really frustrating you know if you start out with one um you know one thing and it you know goes awry turns into something else but our role is not to pass the final legislation our role is to try to give the best product we can to city council and answer those questions the best of our ability and then leave it to them thank you nick go ahead hannah um i just want to agree with like what nick was just saying and then also what um richard was
050just saying about um that we are not the final people on this and i'm not saying i want to ignore the perspective like all the landlords in ann arbor but i think there are paths for them to contact us during a public comment period and i think since we are not the final step there are still paths beyond this commission for them to contact so um i trust our smaller group and at council meetings like for people to have that path and i don't i personally don't think that we need to hold up by having our own route to landlords in this commission here i mean proactively versus our public comment period i definitely agree with you hannah um i think you know landlords and property managers have had the same opportunities to contact us
051as tenants have um and the same goes for city council okay are there any other points about the right to renew up today before we move on to 6 6 c okay kristen it says here that you wanted to leave that yeah i have just a couple of updates about that there was some interest from the commission about holding in person or hybrid meetings for um town hall style meetings um the city has i've requested um to see what the options are for a commission like the renter's commission their commission commissions and boards at the city that meet in-person decision-making boards like the planning commission or the zoning board of appeals and then there's a really large amount that are only permitted to meet electronically because of the pandemic um and so the city isn't
052ready to um have i guess kind of move from that with unless um it's kind of a like a socially distant or like a little bit of a safer situation um so the city has explained that they would allow town hall style meetings at the farmers market similar to the way that the independent community police oversight commission has met so the in-person option is at the farmers market but that's the only meeting like that that has taken place uh post-pandemic or during pandemic so if there are other venues or ideas that you have i'd be happy to propose them um to staff but there just is no um precedent so that's kind of the only idea that's uh kind of floating around for something like this so i'd be happy to propose something else if
053you were interested um and then if there was anyone else interested in joining the tenants town hall planning committee i'm gonna be reaching out to that group uh this week to try to get something scheduled soon so please let me know yes question um thank you very much christian i really appreciate the update um i can think of first of all i really like the idea of the farmers market that seems like a really ideal location um especially since it's incl like it has you know the roof shelter and i guess some other alternatives although i i personally prefer that one uh would be like i know there's liberty plaza and i heard something about being able to use the um the center of the city area there's a permit system for that but i
054know that the parks department really wants people to use the uh liberty plaza so that's that is another alternative although it's not enclosed so if there's rain we'd have a problem close downtown options like that especially if it's a city a city park makes it really easy to facilitate um like having chairs delivered and set up for a meeting like that so that's good uh patrick oh you're muted yeah there we go uh so if we did the uh the like farmer's market or outdoor option that would that just be then strictly an in-person gathering or is the city able to provide uh remote access for virtual attendees um for like an outdoor venue we were discussing that today and to my knowledge that is not what um ikpak did when they were meeting at
055the farmers market i could be mistaken but i don't think they were able to do that we were kind of brainstorming today how we could make it inclusive for people who wanted to attend um virtually and still hear and see the same things as the people who were there we haven't come to something that we feel like is a good option yet but we're definitely open to ideas thanks are there any other items um you've uh there's been some discussion today about some priorities maybe for like some stakeholder priorities or some topic priorities are there anything else like that um that would be worthwhile to bring up now so we can note um and then discuss at the committee meeting there were some comments about student landlord any like specific perspectives you were looking at
056um i know this isn't 100 kind of our jurisdiction well i mean it sort of is but it's also overlaps with the housing commission i'm very interested to hear from maybe the tenants uh in the public housing like the public rental housing units um about what the situation is there i think it'd also be helpful to talk with some of the members of the housing commission generally trying to trying to hear from low lower income tenants would be really nice um but i certainly want to make sure we hear from non-student tenants as well although you know a large portion of the tenants in the city are students but a lot of them aren't so definitely some non-student tenants so um also this is a random uh thing that i think we should all be
057uh aware of apparently the kind of the rental area that's like managed by the rental housing services um office isn't exactly like the ann arbor city limits so there are sections that are you know there are addresses within ann arbor that aren't managed like the you know the bureaucratic side of things aren't managed by the rental housing services um office of ann arbor instead they're managed by like i think another municipalities so it's just something to be aware of i know that uh something that was told to me about uh rental uh by someone from the rental housing services office was that like if you look at a map and you kind of take the the main highways most of what's in between you know between the main hyde wood the main four highways um
058is within ann arbor zone so i just want to make that clear because i do want to engage some people kind of on the outskirts of ann arbor but want to make sure that we're hitting people uh who actually are affected by the laws in ann arbor so maybe some like emphasis on within the city but maybe some of the surrounding townships that are super close and people who get on people who are on the same transit lines and things like that um okay yeah and i just i want to make sure that we hear from the proper people because if we end up having a town hall that's focused on people kind of like on the outskirts of town and it turns out we actually have a lot of people showing up with problems
059that aren't that we can't necessarily directly help them with and that would be kind of problematic so i don't know how we addressed that but i just want to put that out there god yeah i just i don't want to take up too much time or space because i asked to be on the smaller committee but i just do agree with a lot of what has just been said i know in the previous meeting also it's come up that maybe if student in the rent or community of students are more actively engaged it might have to do with outreach channels so maybe thinking about really putting in some work into reaching out to tenants who are who pursue other occupations there must be reasons why also like they might be busy or that there might
060be you know times of the day when you just can't reach them so they're really thinking about how to reach constituents who are not affiliated with the university if that's through local organizations or uh anything else that would be nice maybe different wards as well uh we have in our experience found that like ward one ward four those are also affected in different ways than other wards so maybe some ward level outreach i think zach you made a really good point about type of housing as well like this public housing we know that some types of housing are not even affected like the the laws don't apply to them so yeah targeting accordingly makes sense but i had some other thoughts around uh yeah even participation during the town hall like what's await like oftentimes
061fewer people share for like a longer period of time maybe like five people end up speaking more but there's like 100 attendees so are there like little tools i know when we did a town hall last year it was jio and maybe travis also participated in like polls and things like that so that's just another way to get more like quick answers about very like key questions uh from more people even if they don't like speak up at the time so just like little add a few thoughts which i will share in a separate meeting and we can talk more later but just more participation would be interesting thank you there are no other comments about this item um i will be in contact with members of this committee and if you are interested please
062let me know and i'll include you in that [Music] so we can move on to the next item um oh the next item is so attached to the agenda was kind of a an informal summary provided by um city staff and rental housing services about the process for taking in a complaint so this is something that the commission had previously asked about if you have any other questions or other information that you're looking for please let me know and i can work with rental housing to provide that for you but this is a good opportunity for any discussion about that or like i said let me know if you have questions i am still expecting some communication from um an inspector about the inspection process i know that was also of interest to the commission
063and i just haven't received it yet um but i anticipate it in time for the next meeting yeah go ahead sorry i'm not sure you're saying yes sorry go ahead and go ahead nick um one of the things that i might be interested in learning more about from perhaps the city attorney or the inspection officer how enforcement would work under the proposed ordinance that we have what would the city's enforcement mechanism look like you know how just the process how would a complaint be made you know sort of walking us through that that would be helpful to know i promoted john reiser back in i'm not sure if he'll have a response prepared oh you're muted i mean i don't need to know that necessarily tonight no you're not gonna because that's a great question
064that's a great question and that's something that ultimately it's the city administrators you know prerogative to decide whether this is going to go in in whose shop are there resources to do this uh are the rental housing people who are trained and funded on code and construction operations sufficiently trained to uh do a deeper dive into leases and the summary proceedings act so um getting a law passed is one thing uh getting staff up to speed with the knowledge and the resources to enforce it is another thanks john um i just wanted to mention that i did speak with someone from the rental housing services office as i mentioned earlier and um they had the same questions you know who would be in charge of enforcing it and that's definitely something that needs clarification um
065i know that there was mention in the ordinance of a court issuing um any sort of order that would be necessary to enforce it but i don't know the process that would lead up to that i guess go ahead oh sorry oh yeah that's it so go ahead elizabeth oh thank you um yeah i just wanted to say that i had i probably had a conversation similar to what you had um with a wrapper up someone in our enforcement rental housing office about how frustrating it was for the to enforce the early leasing ordinance because there was a lot of back and forth between the complaints that she was receiving being sent to the legal department and um not being clear and not there not being clear answers and um i think i i would
066be interested in having a better understanding or a clearer um establishment of boundaries in terms of where our our lawyers on this commission are permitted to interact with the city legal department um we're kind of at a disadvantage in terms of how the relationship is understood and what people feel comfortable sharing um like who's the who's the client is a conversation that i had um whether or not our city's legal department is empowered to interact only with city council members or whether they're empowered to speak openly with legal expertise on this commission that's a conversation that i i'm not exactly sure who to direct that to maybe atlan cower is who i need to talk to about that but i think that's something to think about moving forward at the previous renters commission meeting um
067the commission also was interested in learning about um kind of some information on enforcement about the early leasing ordinance about complaints um and what that was looking like for renters and rental housing services and staff is working on putting a report together for that rental housing services is in the process of doing that right now so i anticipate that also for the next meeting and again if there's anything specific you would like um included please let me know and i'll try to find out um if it's something that can be provided um it is seeming like anything with personal or identifying information is not going to be included just with the nature of rental housing complaints so yeah um i just wanted to mention as well that i did speak to a tenant at length
068about a situation actually we heard from this tenant and i think that he explained the situation um to all of us but they uh he found out that there was a pretty severe safety hazard in in the basement where there was an unlicensed or i guess unpermitted water heater it was very close to flammable containers it was not that part was not up to code and at the same time there was also a lack of working uh smoke detectors i think and in that same room so it was kind of like a terrible you know the the the situ that crazy situation that you think will never happen but it did and um nobody in the building was informed of that when the inspectors came and found that situation so i think that he was
069expressing some frustration and concerns that every all the tenants should be aware of that that was a violation that was found and um when i spoke to somebody at the rental housing services office they said well it's on e-tracket e-track is this database if you're not familiar it has permits and locations for the rental houses rental housing units in the city um and it was there um but the thing is almost nobody knows what e-track it is and tenants don't really look at that and so her point was all the information is there but and people should check it but the problem is people don't do that so how do we reconcile that i mean i want to make sure that tenants know about severe safety violations in their units because that could really definitely
070um change whether or not they want to renew their lease with it with a landlord that you know that does that sort of thing or not it's just one example councilmember radino thanks um kind of in a similar vein uh kristen i i would find it helpful i i completely understand a reason for not including um identifying information of complainants in uh in this process or this report but i do think it would be helpful for the body and to know if there are consistent or patterns i guess in verified complaints being uh being found to have to have been sustained if there are particular bad actors or particular properties that have a pattern of violating elo i do think it is valuable information for us to know um if you know we find that
071there were you know a dozen for example complaints and 11 of them were against the same landlord we may find that actually there has been relatively strong compliance but if there are you know 12 different complaints all from 12 different landlords um that's important information to know so if that is possible i think having having information about who the complaints have been filed against would be helpful thank you can i just quickly add about e-track it i think this ties in well with uh events like uh like a town hall i think it can be two the information can flow two ways i i feel like it's possible that renters will even want to attend if they know that they learned something from the experience oftentimes uh yeah i think in now it's been almost
072two years in an hour and i've been involved in planning two town halls at a smaller scale and it really matters how like what we're offering at the event so i do feel like drawing attention to tools like e-racket uh would be helpful i'm looking at the website and there are steps so maybe it's also about how we package the information i i don't remember off the top of my head but i think it's some city where the city's ordinance like diff audiences differ from what prevails at the state level they do have like pdfs like quick explainers about how things that are unique to the city like function so maybe these are also things that we could always work on but uh it seems like a great thing to bring up at a town
073hall [Music] also just really briefly on that front to the to the extent that there are i know that some of this information has been challenging for tenants to find on the city website um to the extent that folks are hearing consistent complaints about aspects of the website that are difficult for folks to find and things like that that we are undergoing a process of updating and uh refreshing our website uh so there's an opportunity for us to make sure that we are getting in front of the right people what needs to be centered on you know attendance rights page or things like that and so if there are particular things that you think are difficult to find or difficult for people to understand let us know that also thank you there any other items
074or comments okay i will uh turn it back over to you zachariah okay thank you and thanks for those discussions everybody um let's see we are now in uh 6-e the work plan update uh gil and i met i think a couple weeks ago to talk about the work plan and kind of reorganize it a little bit so we took a lot of most of the ideas i think we tried to get as many as possible that had been proposed by the commission and kind of separate it into three categories um so that we can go about prioritizing them these different ideas and so there was an email sent out ten hours ago by kristen it includes the a link to a google form it says work plan prioritization and so it may not be
075the most user-friendly but i just want to show everybody here um we took all the ideas that are in that pdf that's linked in the agenda and we put it here where um everything's you know ranked so i would encourage you all to read through all of these and within the three sections and then rank them one two three four where one is the highest priority and you know um uh it depends on the number for each section for how many points there are so the three categories are one commissioner education so educating all of us about the different issues in the city uh second category is uh possible legislation and reform that we might advocate for that was a major part of the resolution that founded the renters commission is proposing new legislation and
076then category three which is tenant education how do we get the word out about our current rules and any new rules regarding being a tenant uh to all the tenants in our city and then there's also an open ended question here that you can choose to fill out if not you know if you want for any additional priority suggestions that we didn't get in there are there any questions about this form or the work plan okay so oh go ahead hannah thanks just a quick question um thank you for making this i thought the the pdf and the form itself are really great and helpful um my only thing is i don't know others opinion on this but i was curious if we need the right to renew in the town halls in these rankings
077um because we know because we're already working on them as a priority i just don't know if that would mess up um i don't know our data on ranking them i'm fine to still rank them i just know that we're already making sure that they're a priority that's a very good point um i think personally suggestion to the commission is we could just leave them in there and ignore that spot that might um confuse things but has anybody filled this out kristen do you happen to know not as of around 5 pm today but i can check because if no one's filled it out then i think that we should just remove those too it's a very good point i agree i think that would be fine okay travis um the the only suggestion that
078i had if you and if you are working to potentially remove right to renew from possible legislation um i know right to counsel is up under commissioner education but there has also been some discussion already about whether or not we should follow that up with the potential potential ordinance i know that councilmember song has had a conversation with me and hopes to eventually um suggest something to to renters commission to look at and so um that may be something you could substitute out there and included in possible legislation does anybody have you know i guess take objection with that big issue with that suggestion there no okay then i think we should go ahead and move that the um right to council into the legislation category i wholeheartedly agree that that's a very important issue
079that we should uh start to talk discuss and hopefully follow up with action i know that the city of detroit i think this is in the the pdf but the city of detroit just recently allocated funds to right to council for low-income tenants which is very a very interesting idea i hope that it's already effective okay any other questions about the work plan prioritization form okay kristen do you mind making those edits to the forum please absolutely thank you and i encourage everybody to fill that out um sometime after this meeting the sooner the better i think okay then we can move on to the next point on the agenda which is six 6-f plan for september 15 2022 meeting which is our next scheduled meeting so i i get some things that we know
080that we've talked about already discussing at the the next meeting number one is at least get an update about how the right to renew language has changed if at all and maybe an update from the town hall group if they've met already i think would be too good points to have on the agenda is there anything else richard i think we briefly discussed the non-voting landlord seats like how what that process is going to look like so maybe between this people that there's a way to look at the applications and decide something yes that's a good point we didn't decide on that yet um so i guess a question is do we want to have us uh kind of similar uh to here but a smaller group of the commission to look over the applications
081and then make a recommendation to the mayor for his appointment um i think that there was some people who are interested in that do we just want to have some volunteers is that how we want to do that that seems like it'd be a good way to involve everybody who's interested is anybody uh go ahead travis i was just going to also add that um it is you could absolutely certainly kind of do this as a as a rotating group some of the commissions that i serve on also have the chair and vice chair and council liaisons meet i think every commission does it a little differently and so i think you guys can kind of figure out how you want to go about kind of adding your voice to that appointment process um yourselves
082i will also say i think so there right now there are only i believe there are only two people who have applied for the landlord prospective non-voting seats um so to the extent that the body or the subgroup would not be happy making a recommendation for either of those people um there may need to be some additional outreach if you want to to get a more diverse group of people applying um i will say i think we've been it has been out there and so uh similar to what richard had said before you know folks have had an opportunity to apply um it is not like uh like landlords are not aware that those that that application is open so um so it's really up to you guys how you want to decide going about
083that and then um this is maybe a question for kristin um for the remaining uh voting seat there's also and this is a decision maybe the body can make at some point there is there is uh karen wanza who is the hhsab liaison also had applied to be on the renters commission i know that i don't believe she has attended this meeting yet uh kristen has she been included in the invites for it i just want to know that because i know at some point there was maybe some possibility since she may be here already that she may want to serve in a dual capacity as well if that was something the body was interested in once they met her i believe that she was included um i'd be happy to double check and make
084sure that she's included moving forward if she wasn't um but i think that she works okay thanks i'll add that my experience with other boards and committees and commissions has been that um if there are a lot of applicants which happens sometimes sometimes um folks apply to when you apply there you can check a lot of uh the boards and commissions at the city so sometimes there just are a lot of applicants staff has provided um a smaller set of maybe five or six uh to us to a group on the committee or commission which has been the chair and vice chair but definitely a group of other members would be fine too so i think this is appropriate any thoughts about what those you know what that group should be should consist of uh
085you know which members i kind of like the idea of doing a rotating group uh people can just volunteer and try to get a different group each time we could have a list and go down the list and assign that you know assign that role to people i think any of these systems would work to be honest any preferences go ahead rachel i'm so sorry but can you please repeat like can you summarize the question again for me well we have to decide how we review application applications and we are going to get applications in the future anyway as people leave the commission and we need more people you know so i guess the question is how as other commissions have done you know have had smaller groups that make recommendations to the mayor should
086we do this you know i i think we should do the same but that's an open question and if so what is that small group going to consist of you know which members are going to serve in that capacity it's it is important that we decide this i feel because we do have two applications um and i would also say that i mean the the mayor will will eventually fill vacancies particularly as you are getting closer to you know a struggle with quorum and things like that but so so i would suggest that it is to your benefit to be making recommendations uh so that your voice is hurt in that process okay i suppose i will propose just the chair the vice chair and two volunteers and we'll try to get different a different
087group of volunteers each time if that's possible does anybody have comments or concerns about that okay i guess kristen should we take a vote on this just so no i need to um we'll just do um an email out um just to that small that would be fine that's perfect okay any other thoughts about that we're still on six dash f um before we move on nothing else on 6-f plan for our next meeting hannah um did we already say is the plan to go over the priority rankings for the work plan um i think i was getting ahead of myself yes so um great the uh i guess i a question i have is the work plan the results of the prioritization form is that going to impact what our agenda is for for
088our next meeting is that what you're asking or um i guess so cause i guess um no not not like i guess impact the agenda i just assumed there would be like a discussion of the outcome of that and i mean i was thinking oh okay i see yeah yes so i'm definitely in favor of having that on the next agenda a discussion in the prioritization form results okay yeah i would like to i mean it might be getting ahead of that meeting but like once we have that i feel like we can discuss what other committees should be created to like get moving on all these other smaller things uh great okay thank you hannah anything else for the agenda for our next meeting um oh you know i do have something to add
089actually i i was hoping to get maybe a short presentation from if if they're willing gail and lucy unfortunately lucy's not here but regarding what the current situation is in the city um with waitlist deposits because we've heard some feedback on you know that that's if the current system is a problem in fact i spoke to um a landlord i yeah i think i can say uh jordan else uh who did email us she mentioned that there was a group of tenants who um lost fourteen thousand dollars at a different you know it's not one of her properties but a different property somewhere in town it was a large group of tenants but fourteen thousand dollars is an enormous amount of money so um that seems pretty pressing to be honest so i i um
090that's fine i i will i will connect with lucy but and i would ask that if if any of you have specific information about a specific landlord or you know just send it to one of us so that we because i've compiled it from students that i worked with over the you know the last couple months um but you know there there's i know there's quite a bit more out there so you know any any information you have i know a lot of landlords property management companies sent out letters at a certain point saying here's going to be you know here's our process coming you know moving forward so if you have those letters you can redact the names of the tenants and send it to me that would be great okay so just to
091repeat if you have if you hear from any tenants or if you have one of these yourselves um like a description of um the waitlist deposits redact them and then send them on to gail and gail you're you said you're willing to do a short presentation right wonderful so it's another thing to add on to the agenda for our next meeting anything else okay if you think of anything feel free to send that on to kristin all right so i think we can move on unless there's any anybody else who has any points for business on to seven on the agenda which is communications see this kristin you wanted to present so go ahead if you'd like um thank you um attached to the agenda is that analysis of detroit landlords that richard provided um
092she sent over sent that over to me um to communicate to all of you and it really aligned with um some other things that you were interested in learning about so that's also attached to the pdf um that was sent out with the survey then i have a couple of updates um let's see the renters commission webpage is available online as of today and that's a2gov.org renters commission and it has a kind of general setup right now really similar to what other boards and commissions have um but if you have any interest in adding anything or including any parts to um be communicating with the public about anything specific i'd be happy to add that or work with other staff to get it added um and then another update on an email address for the
093commission we're still working on having a renter's commission email address created um but there will be a renter's commission email address that will go to um staff that will just be a direct email address right now we're directing the public to contact city clerk at a2gov.org in the meantime but after the renter's commission email address is set up that will be a really direct way for the public to get in contact with you okay any questions or um anything you'd like included on the website um feel free to email me too if you have a chance to take a look and then let me know it was just this afternoon it was published so it hasn't been very long also um if you're familiar with gov delivery i think that i don't remember their name
094the caller from the housing and human services advisory board at a previous meeting suggested gov delivery we've set up a gov delivery channel and a link to subscribe to that is included on the renter's commission webpage and there are three subscribers other than myself already so feel free to subscribe um or encourage others to subscribe i plan to regularly send out the meeting agendas with that link um but if the renter's commission has anything else they'd like to communicate with subscribers like upcoming town hall meetings or if there's like a deadline for something that'd be a great way to to get the word out [Music] okay that's all i have to report your connections thank you very much kristen that's really exciting that we have three subscribers i expected it to be um staff like
095maybe communication staff because that's who set it up and i wasn't there where appeared to be uh non-staff email addresses so hold on i think you know we can also uh encourage people through through our channels as council members and i'll talk to some colleagues as well about sharing it out to their network so that we can try to get more people subscribed so that you can start filling that that list or vote thank you or if there's any um direction you'd like staff to take about um that too with city social media or next or anything sorry again i feel like i totally missed something here where is the link like where can i find the link to the web page thank you that's a good question so something else i'm working on is
096to have the page show up as a result when someone types a renter's commission on the city's webpage we don't have that set up yet just because the page was just published today but the short link is a2gov.org slash renter's commission it also can be found if you kind of go through several links on the city clerics page but we are definitely um trying to get it to show up if someone types in renters or renters commission right now it's not any of the results um but we i have an i.t ticket in for that we could also add a link on the meeting agenda too could add that to our to our uh kind of standard closing there's information at the very end of the agenda about um accessibility and like accommodations and um
097the broadcasting info so i can add it there also are we good to move on kristen yes i'm all set thanks thank you so much kristen and thank you for your work i really do appreciate that i know we all appreciate that very deeply so um well that brings us to our last point on the agenda which is adjournment do we have a motion to adjourn the meeting our second is our second official meeting right this is the regular meeting the second regular meeting rather yes we have a motion also move wonderful we have a second i second seconded by aj okay um all in favor say aye aye all those opposed say nay with that we are adjourned thank you everybody i really appreciate it thank you you