Fulton Landlords Speak Out Against Proposed Change To Rental Permits

by Kassadee Bradshaw | August 19, 2020 12:26 pm

FULTON – Several Fulton landlords spoke in opposition to a proposed change in the city code [1]during a public hearing at last night’s Common Council meeting, August 18.

The change in question consists of tripling the price of rental permits from $50 to $150 per unit and changing the length of term for a permit from five years to three years. 

Before the public hearing began, Mayor Deana Michaels said the council has met multiple times about the topic and wanted to hear the thoughts of the public before making a decision. 

“The reason they go to this point is for several reasons. First and foremost, it’s for safety. Five years is too long for a rental inspection so they want to move it to three years to ensure that the healthy living conditions of the tenants are monitored more closely than five years,” Michaels said. 

She said the other reasons were to align with what other municipalities have done and keeping up with the increased cost to do business.

Ten landlords with rental units in the city spoke at the public hearing to say they are against this change for financial reasons and none spoke in support of the change. Many said the pandemic has caused hardship and some tenants have not been paying rent, and some said they would end up increasing their rent to pass the increased cost of the rental permits on to their tenants.

One landlord, Renee Doney, said right now landlords feel beaten up because of the financial hardship, the inability to kick a tenant out even with police present and now they are facing the potential tripled cost of rental permits.

“I paid $550 to get my inspection done, which really is a lot of money,” Doney said. “I don’t really  have a problem with it being three years; I think that’s probably even a better idea because a lot can happen in five years. I have no problem with that. But I think right now during all these issues – I have people who owe thousands in rent, nothing you can do about it. Nothing.”

Doney said she is sure there are landlords who do not care about their tenants or units, but she is not one of them, having just spent $5,000 in paint alone. She has four empty units and is afraid to rent them out to anyone in case they do not pay rent and she cannot evict them.

“It seems to pile up and I gotta tell you, I was so frustrated a couple weeks ago, I was this close to saying, ‘You know what, I’m gonna just sell my building. I can’t afford it.’ I’m not making any money,” Doney said. “The landlords, we’re responsible for all these [tenants] but we have no backup… You get a bad tenant, you’re in trouble and you’re on your own.”

Doney’s sister, Kim Burch, is another landlord with a rental property in Fulton. Since she lives in Redfield, she has Doney manage her property in her absence. 

“I do agree that maybe three years could be a little more realistic, but the money is totally out of control. I can’t afford that,” Burch said.

She said she has spoken to different municipalities and they have free initial inspections with a cost for reinspection and she thinks that would be a good idea for Fulton.

Like Doney, she said she is proud of her property so she has no problem with keeping the units up to par. They recently had their units inspected to renew their rental permits and said the inspector was fair and she was able to fix any of the corrections he said needed to be done. She said it should be fair to everyone by penalizing the landlords with several issues in their units.

She also said a bad tenant can be the cause of the issues in a unit, and even if a landlord is able to get them evicted, there is still the risk of the tenant leaving a “squatter” behind and starting the process of getting them to leave all over again.

“You can have a tenant move in and six months later they can destroy your property,” Burch said.

Following the public hearing, Mayor Michaels polled the council for their closing remarks, thoughts, and updates within their wards. 

First Ward Councilor Tom Kenyon:

“I think we should concentrate on getting druggies out before we do anything with this rental property stuff,” Tom Kenyon said. “I have second thoughts because I feel sorry for you landlords because you can’t evict them, but yet you gotta pay your mortgage… I think we should be concentrating on the bad landlords.”

He also said there has been an issue with skunks in his ward and asked the mayor what is being done with animal control. Michaels said they are researching animal control services. 

Second Ward Councilor Doug Chapman:

He said he has listened to what everyone had to say and the city needs to increase the rental permit cost, but maybe not as much.

Third Ward Councilor Don Patrick Jr.:

He thanked those who spoke and said their thoughts have been noted.

“We want to hear you. Thank you, mayor, for doing this. It’s long overdue. Before, we’d just have a public hearing and vote on it. No, we’re not going to do that anymore,” Patrick said. “I’ve listened to everything everyone has to say and I know it’s a hardship. I know we’re gonna end up – if something like that goes through – we’re gonna end up passing it on to the tenants and that’s not always a good thing because we have a lot of good tenants and we have a lot of good landlords in the city.”

Fourth Ward Councilor John Kenyon:

He said hearing what everyone had to say has given him another outlook on the matter and agrees with Tom Kenyon in that the drug problem in the city needs to be addressed. 

Fifth Ward Councilor Audrey Avery:

She said she listened carefully to what was said during the public hearing and took note of it. Avery also wanted to offer a defense to the police department saying their hands are often tied and they do their best.

Council President/Sixth Ward Councilor Larry Macner:

He said the council will further discuss the proposed changes to the rental permits and anticipates they will vote on the matter either in September or October. He was excited to say that the Fulton Footpaths multi-use trail will begin construction soon.

Mayor Deana Michaels:

She said she no longer wants the council to hold a public hearing then immediately vote on the subject, but rather really listen to what the public is saying. She also said she now looks at the subject of rental permits differently because of what everyone had to say. 

“If we want to influence change, we have to be transparent and we also have to allow the community in to share their thoughts,” Michaels said. “We can’t hide behind closed doors and try to make decisions. We can’t try to pull one over on the public, which is what I’ve heard time and time again in the past. That’s not what this is about. This is about transparency. We don’t always get it right up here. We know that.”

The next scheduled Common Council meeting is Tuesday, September 1, at 7 p.m. in the courtroom of the Municipal Building.

The agenda and documents relating to the proposed change can be found here[2].

Source URL: https://oswegocountytoday.com/news/fulton/fulton-landlords-speak-out-against-proposed-change-to-rental-permits/

---