ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, September 5, 1996 TAG: 9609050077
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
Roanoke rolls out its rental inspection program this month with checks of rental housing in the eight blocks of Elm Avenue between Jefferson Street and the Wasena Bridge.
City inspectors then will target a 10-block section of Orange Avenue Northwest, probably beginning in December, and a long stretch of Bullitt and Jamison avenues in Southeast Roanoke early next year.
The three sections were chosen as test sites because they are highly visible, bear heavy traffic and are home to many tenants - not because they're the city's worst rental areas, said city housing development coordinator Dan Pollock. "I did not want to tackle the toughest areas right off the bat."
This will be the first time the city has done systematic inspections of rental properties. Until now, inspections have been conducted only when tenants, neighbors or others complained.
Under the program, inspections and certificates of compliance with the Virginia Building Maintenance Code are required when a vacancy occurs, but the city is counting on landlords to voluntarily agree to inspections sooner than that.
The program was developed last winter and spring after a rental house fire killed a woman and her four grandchildren in Southeast Roanoke and a coalition of neighborhood activists pushed for a crackdown on substandard rentals. The inspection program will be limited to low-income neighborhoods close to downtown, including Old Southwest, Belmont, Gainsboro, West End and Loudon/Melrose.
Letters and rental inspection handbooks went out Tuesday asking Elm Avenue landlords to complete cards listing their properties and to set a time for inspections. Lawyer and Elm Avenue landlord Robert Szathmary opened his letter Wednesday afternoon and said he would comply.
"I've been trying to get ready to do some major improvements to my property, anyway," he said, "so this gives me extra encouragement to do it. They're going to have my cooperation. I trust the cooperation will be mutual."
Some Roanoke landlords objected to the rental inspection plan in its early stages and succeeded in talking the city out of requiring that landlords display stickers saying whether a piece of property had passed inspection.
The stickers and certificates of compliance still will be issued, but landlords have the choice whether to post them.
City Manager Bob Herbert said with rentals constituting about half the city's housing units, he hopes the inspection program will help the neighborhoods.
"Our goal," he said, "is not to be in a position to cite property owners for violations, but rather to work with property owners to help them understand the code requirements and come into voluntary compliance."
"The program is not nearly as strong as some people had hoped for," said Bob Fetzer, another Elm Avenue landlord and member of a city committee that drew up a draft of the program. "But it is a start."
Fetzer asked Herbert at a Wednesday news conference in Old Southwest to organize a housing task force to take a broader look at housing problems. He said Herbert agreed to consider setting up such a body.
Two housing studies have been done since 1988, Fetzer said, and their recommendations for how to create affordable housing across the Roanoke Valley have been ignored by all the governments.
"We have certain sections of this city that look like a [demilitarized] zone," Fetzer said, and he said cutbacks in welfare and other social programs will put an increasing squeeze on the poor and leave more people homeless. "All our missions, all our shelters are to the brim."
The city plans an information session on the rental inspections at 7 p.m. Sept.12 in the cafeteria of Highland Park Learning Center, 1212 Fifth St. S.W.
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