This study session, held on June 2, 2025, focused on the city's rental licensing and enforcement program. City staff from the Life Safety Division and representatives from One Roof Community Housing presented on current inspection processes, complaint handling, and tenant-landlord resources. Council members discussed data, enforcement strategies, and potential ordinance changes, including administrative citations and landlord education requirements.
Good evening. We will begin our study session with the reading of the tools of civility. The Duluth City Council promotes the use and adherence of the tools of civility in conducting the business of the council. The tools of civility provide increased opportunities for civil discourse, leading to positive resolutions for the issues that face our city. We know that when we have civility, we get civic engagement. And because we can't make each other civil and we can only work on ourselves, we state that today I will pay attention, listen, be inclusive, not gossip, show respect, seek common ground, repair damaged relationships, use constructive language, and take responsibility. I want to thank you all for being here this evening for this important meeting. And I want to remind people that are with us this evening that there will be no response from the audience. There will be no clapping or jeering or any such uh outbreak. Thank you. And Mr. Staling, I will let you take over. Council President Tomonik, uh members of the council, and for uh uh members of the public here interested in this topic tonight. Welcome. Um just a few uh comments regarding this format, the study section format. Really, it's designed to be a work session. Ideally, we'd all be sitting around a council or around a conference table at the same level, but uh this is designed to really be more conversational in nature. Um tonight you'll hear from uh some city staff or subject matter experts. Uh you'll hear from administration a little bit less, but it'll be an opportunity to hear from our uh subject matter experts, and council you'll have an opportunity to ask questions and really just learn more about the topic. And tonight a very important topic uh rental licensing and enforcement. It's a topic that's been uh bubbling to the surface the last several weeks of great interest in our community. And so with that, I'll turn it over to Deputy Chief John Otis. Thank you, and welcome uh Deputy Chief Otis. Thank you. Um good evening. Um thanks for having us here tonight. Um I am here tonight to speak um as the deputy chief that oversees the life safety division for the fire department. Um may not uh understand uh the depth of work that our life safety office really does. I had no idea even working for the fire department. I'm going on my 25th year working for the fire department. Um I have been doing inspections in the life safety division um as part of the uniform staff for um just under 10 years, and I have led this division now for the last three years. And um at the time of coming in and doing inspections, I had no idea the depth of what we actually did. Um could you hit the next slide here for me, please, Kelly? Um, tonight I'm just specifically talking about our our uh civilian side. We have uniformed and we have uh civilian employees in my division. Um the uniformed um side actually does they do fire investigation, they do commercial fire inspections, those sorts of things. Um tonight I'm here to talk specifically about our housing side, um, which is um is civilian staff. Uh this staff inspects all rental housing. Uh we do we investigate unlicensed rentals if we get complaints from from folks. We have several opportunities for for folks to send in complaints on unlicensed rentals. Uh we investigate complaints related to housing matters. Uh we work to um condemn properties when there's been a lack of utilities, when there's been unsafe or unsanitary conditions. Uh we investigate and enforce solid waste violations, vacant but we have a vacant building registration program so that we track and monitor vacant properties and work with owners to bring those properties into compliance. Um and most recently we've added some encampment outreach and compliance related to that. Um when we're talking about housing, uh we're talking about the long-term rentals. So when we're talking about housing, and we're talking about the long-term rentals. So we're talking about rental that is 30 days or more consecutive days. And actually 40% of the residential structures in Duluth are licensed as a rental, and that's at long-term rental, so that more than 30 days. We have over nearly 5500 licenses that are issued for housing, and that uh covers over 17,800 units. And we average about 125 new licenses that come on every year.