ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 9, 1996 TAG: 9604090109
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Below
``THERE'S NOT ONE THING I've heard you'd do for landlords," said one rental owner. But another countered, "I want to thoroughly compliment the city of Roanoke.''
Landlords outnumbered every other subset of Roanokers at a public workshop Monday night - some expressing anger with City Hall for plans to inspect rental housing regularly, some cheering the city on, and almost all demanding that the new program punish tenants more forcefully for damaging rental property.
"They know how to screw us," property owner Bill Lange said of some of his renters. "There's not one thing I've heard you'd do for landlords.''
"Why are you making the landlords develop Roanoke city?'' he demanded to know. "My tenants don't pay taxes. They don't pay the rent!''
Rental owner W.K. Ramsey popped up and "apologized" for Lange's comments. "I want to thoroughly compliment the city of Roanoke," said Ramsey, who owns about 10 rental houses. "I've been a landlord for 25 years, and my goal has been, when one man moved out, I'd make it better for the next one."
Lange, though, said Roanoke landlords aren't appreciated for what they do for tenants. "They'd be out on the street if it wasn't for me."
Addressing a task force of city staffers, landlords and neighborhood leaders guiding development of the rental inspection program, Lange said, "You guys went out to eat dinner tonight. I was out fixing apartments."
Rarely have so many Roanoke landlords been so vocal and visible at a public meeting. About 20 of them sat in on six small workshop sessions reviewing an outline of the inspection program.
Landlord John Kepley, on the task force as founder of the Roanoke Property Investors Association, said that before Monday night's workshop he had thought the inspection plans were 90 percent to 95 percent complete. But after hearing landlords' pleas for more city monitoring of tenant misbehavior, "I think we're back to about 80 percent. Somewhere we have to address the responsibility of the tenants."
"The good tenant base in Roanoke city is going down, down, down," Kepley said. "I've got one who lies to me every month; I expect it."
The city-appointed task force is recommending that for the first time, the city begin regular inspections of rental units. Currently, city inspectors check rental housing only on complaints or the issuance of warrants against an owner. The inspection program would be limited to inner-city neighborhoods.
Roanoke neighborhood leaders long have complained that deteriorating rental property is devaluing owner-occupied homes and contributing to increased crime, fires and unsanitary conditions in the inner city.
Bill Wilson, a broker with Anglin Realty in Old Southwest Roanoke, said rental inspections should lead to greater investment by owners and a general upgrading of rental housing in the city.
"We've kind of gone the old-timey way for a long time," he said Monday night. "I don't think the old ways work anymore."
City Manager Bob Herbert said he will definitely recommend an inspection program to City Council. The evolving plans are being reviewed by City Attorney Wilburn Dibling and, Herbert said, "There doesn't appear to be any big barriers legally to what's being recommended" by the task force.
He said some landlords see the inspections and the certificates of compliance that would be issued as proof that properties comply with the city's Building Maintenance Code as a boost to their properties' marketability.
Herbert will preside over a public hearing on rental inspection at 7 p.m. April 23 at the Roanoke Civic Center's exhibit hall.
Ellen Fuller, a Roanoke landlord for 25 years, said the inspection plan has become a lot better for landlords since Kepley joined the task force last month. "When we got to speak out," she said, "it went a lot in our favor."
Clarence Hall Jr., who helps care for his landlord father's properties in Northwest Roanoke and the Hollins area, said landlords believe inspections are inevitable. Although the quality of rental housing probably will increase in Roanoke, he said, many landlords resent the proposed regulation.
"I think it's all being put on the landlord, and tenants are going to get away with murder," he said. "I look for a lot of people to start selling their property, getting out of it. A lot of your older people are going to get out of it because it'll cost too much to fix places up."
LENGTH: Medium: 80 linesby CNB