March 28, 2024
Local News | The Times


Local News

La Salle licenses committee discuss changes to rental ordinance

Landlord training program suggested as an option

Changes may be coming to La Salle’s rental community. The La Salle Licenses Committee met Monday and spoke with Fire Chief Andy Bacidore about possible changes to the rental licensing ordinance.

Bacidore’s main goal was to limit the amount of repeat violation offenders as well as increase the level of communication between the city, landlords and renters.

While no specific plan was set into place, Bacidore and the committee talked about multiple ideas with the intention of improving the rental community.

One focal point was the implementation of a landlord training program all landlords would be required to attend, either in person or online, in order to inform them what is needed to avoid violations of their properties.

Consequences for not attending the training could possibly result in higher rental property registration fees the following year.

This system would look to penalize repeat offenders on top of the tickets they receive for violations and incentivize landlords to make sure their property is taken care of.

According to Bacidore, the city also needs to look into technological improvements to help better document and update the status of complaints filed. He stated updates can be made so more information is available online that require less paperwork for both the city and the registered landlords.

Bacidore said this program’s purpose would be to inform all landlords before violations occur and not to punish those who continually take care of their properties.

“The idea is to let them know ahead of time by having them in here and saying this is what it’s going to cost you,” Bacidore said. “Yes there are those who don’t know, they honestly don’t know, because we are not communicating with them out there.”

Bacidore did not advocate for across the board increase for those who own rental homes, but rather urged the city to provide more information and training to help ensure less building and nuisance violations from the rental properties around La Salle.

If implemented the rental system would still take time to be put into place as Bacidore and the committee members agreed this wouldn’t be a quick fix but rather a long-term solution to the city’s problem.

“This is not something I’m expecting to happen overnight, this is going to take some work to put all this stuff together,” Bacidore said. “What I’m seeing out there is we are chasing versus heading it off at the pass.”

While nothing was decided upon Monday, Bacidore encouraged the council to think about his proposals and left the severity of fines or rate increases open ended and up for future discussion.