At a special city council meeting Tuesday night, the potential implementation of a "renter registry” prompted public comment from both renters and property owners.
"I really believe in a mandatory rental registry, and soon," said one speaker.
"Please stop this journey and focus on things which are more important to our community," said another speaker.
Three options for rental registries were presented to the council. All were based on research done in other areas already using rental registries.
Those include using the existing business license database, a software-based voluntary registry, or a software-based mandatory registry.
If mandatory, these options could come with fees for registering properties or fees for failing to comply. Tenants who spoke at the meeting were largely in support of the mandatory option.
"Who benefits from the registry being stopped? The ones who don't want their practices being seen by the light of day," said one renter.
"We need to have much more accountability for the landlords in this city," said another renter, but realtors and landlords say a registry will impact housing supply and raise costs.
"Additional costs will be levied on property owners, who will simply pass those costs on to their tenants—I know I will," said one landlord.
"We don't solve a housing shortage by making it harder to provide housing," said another property owner.
Other concerns mentioned at the meeting included privacy and the potential of the database being publicly available, the accuracy of information collected, noncompliance, benefits to landlords or renters, and more. There were more than 90 minutes worth of public comment, as well as questions from council members.
Tuesday's meeting was only a study session, so no decisions were made. The council will revisit the idea at a later time.
