Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 9, 1992                   TAG: 9203090158
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LYNCHBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

LYNCHBURG ORDINANCE WOULD HELP TENANTS GET SAFER HOMES

But that could change under an ordinance being considered by City Council in an attempt to abolish substandard rental units.

One woman, who asked not to be identified, told The News & Daily Advance that she can't really complain. Her landlord has added new front steps and plastic on the windows to keep the heat from her wood stove from escaping.

"For $150 a month, you're not going to find nothing much better," she said. "And I've been here four years. I'm comfortable here."

But her kitchen floor is a patchwork of loose, splintered plywood sheets.

Heavy blankets hang from window frames and every door frame in the lower half of the house in attempt to minimize drafts.

"In a lot of situations like that, the tenant becomes the pawn," said Karen Johnson, the city's superintendent of inspections. "It's just not worth their coming forward to complain to us. In some units, there's even a standing rule that under no circumstances does a tenant allow an inspector in the apartment."

Under the proposed ordinance, the landlord will have to purchase a permit, for about $10 per unit, if the rental property is up to code. But if the property does not meet code standards, a permit will be withheld and the apartment closed until it is brought up to standard. The city would work with various agencies to find emergency shelter for the tenant.

"This takes the renter out of the middle," said Richard Jacques, director of community planning and development.

Hal Craddock, chairman of the 14-month-old non-profit Housing Coalition, said the approach should aid in sifting out the good from the bad.

"There are some landlords in the city who do an excellent job," he said, "but then there are some who work right along the edge of the codes - who don't provide conditions that are decent and affordable. This process should increase pressure on those who do the least."

As it works now, the city can inspect a rental unit only when a complaint is filed and when an apartment is vacated. But the latter condition - like the first - is rare, because the city relies on the landlord to say when an apartment is vacated and when someone else will move in.

"Before one person moves out and another moves in, the landlord has to allow the city to inspect it," Jacques said. "We wrote a letter to all the Realtors that said, `Tell us when your properties are vacant.' Of course, the ones that comply aren't the problem. The ones that are the problem never contact us."

Inspectors would be searching for anything that made the rental unsafe - exposed wiring, inadequate utility service and unsafe alternative heat sources, among other things.

"You'd be surprised," Jacques said. "It's 1992 and there are still rentals in this city without a bathroom. It's amazing."