02-06-19 Health and Public Safety

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CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK Committee Chair Broden followed up, Ok, great. I consider these open questions and stuff that can work, additional information. I do think it is important that,before we go to the public,we need to encourage the dialogue. I indicated we had received letters and I will transfer those to other members of the Committee. Jennifer Coffman, Chief Deputy City Clerk with offices located on the 4th floor of the County-City Building, stated, Any other supporting material for this legislation can be submitted to ccouncil@southbendin.gov Committee Chair Broden stated, Also,jbroden@southbendin.gov is mine and I would chase that in as Committee Chair. Committee Chair Broden then opened the floor to members of the public wishing to speak in favor of or in opposition to the legislation. Myron Larimer, 402 East South Street, stated, I'm with Greater South Bend Mishawaka Association of Realtors. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. Thank you for all your time and efforts. I know it is a thankless task working in government as elected representatives. So, thank you for your commitment. Briefly, we've been involved in some of the conversations. We believe this is well-intended. We recognize there are a lot of problems with a lot of rental properties in South Bend. But, logistically, and I think it's been mentioned but we think this is overwhelming. We think the need is really to focus on the problem properties immediately and then if that doesn't work, then we can retool and look at the bigger picture. But we don't want the City to waste the time and resources going after people or addressing people and properties that are already in compliance and doing a good job. It is too important to address the problem properties. Secondly, as it has been mentioned,we have concerns about Census Tracts and zip codes in terms of redlining or targeting areas. The legal ramification could jeopardize the City in terms of it being embroiled in a lot of legal discourse. Also, the sustainability of the program, where are the funds going to come from on a regular basis to make this program succeed? Our concern is that at some point, it will be looked at as the fines and fees associate with the program, which brings into question whether or not there will be some subjective enforcement. A big problem is right now, the City can't really effectively identify the problem landlords. I know the landlord registry was intended to identify all landlords and register everybody with properties. That didn't solve the problem then and I don't think it is going to solve it now. Those that are bad players aren't going to cooperate. Our concerns on this issue include the high potential that the landlords that aren't cooperating and playing nice now won't play nice and cooperate later. There are going to need to be a lot of time, effort and resources spent simply trying to enforce the ordinance on people again that are already in compliance, already doing their job and already cooperating. That seems to be without a purpose. We encourage you to focus on the problem properties and landlords first (1St). Utilize Code Enforcement tools in place. Provide a voluntary program where good landlords that have done x, y and z are on a list and promote those to renters. We really, again, would like to see this problem go away. As realtors, we are concerned about property values. Amanda Govaert-Konrath, 1015 College Street, stated, I'm speaking to you as a renter. I live on the west side of South Bend. When we moved into our home about two (2) years ago, the home had been vacant for four(4) years. The landowner was very upfront with that. It didn't have heat. NIPSCO had disconnected the gas meter, we didn't have water and none of that was set up. We EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION j EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 16