Councilmember Thomas, who is the chair of our housing and affordability commit committee, and we will now call this meeting to order.

I'd like to welcome uh the council members and staff that are in attendance today.

Councilmember Carter is here, Councilmember Alcorn is here, Vice Mayor Pro Tim Peck is here.

We also have staff from Councilmember Castillo's office, staff from Councilmember Salinas' office, staff from uh Councilmember Ramirez's office, staff from Councilmember Huffman's office, staff from Councilmember Jackson's office, and also staff from Councilmember Cayman's office, and of course the uh incredible staff that has been helping us produce uh our community meetings and all of the work, uh the staff from Councilmember Thomas's office and the staff from uh my office uh uh DD and Justice.

Thank y'all also for um being here.

So this meeting is open to the public.

It's also it's being held in person and virtually.

We are also broadcasting uh via HTV.

Council members and staff, y'all know the drill.

We'll do the presentations and then you can ask questions if you are online, you can put your questions in the chat pot.

Um there are six members of the public that have signed up to speak today.

If you are here and you did not sign up prior to today, there is a sheet on the uh desk here to my left, uh and you can sign up to speak today.

If there are um any other um staff from councilmember Davis's office has also joined us.

Um if there is anything in particular that you'd like to share with us, our our council offices are still accepting feedback, um, but we will move forward expeditiously.

Councilmember Thomas, do you want to jump in and make any opening remarks?

Uh and then we'll just jump into uh you leading us off on our agenda for today.

Let's get this party started.

Uh so on today's agenda for the joint committee, and I want to just thank all of the city departments that are here, but who actively participated in uh the two citywide uh public meetings, your contribution expertise was paramount, and thank you for meeting the constituents constituents where they're at in regards to their issues.

Um I really appreciate that.

And just to recap some of the meetings, we'll go through the feedback later in the presentation, but we had hundreds who participated online, uh, who watched.

So I want to just appreciate the fact that technology has really helped advance um today's agenda.

So today's joint committee will hear from several departments regarding the apartment inspection ordinance.

Um I want to start by calling up first the city legal department will provide an overview of the latest version of the chapter 10 apartment inspection ordinance.

Uh Attorney Michelle, are you ready?

Yes.

I want to give you some time.

Okay.

And then following our city attorney, we'll hear from Houston Public Works.

Thank you.

And so this ordinance has been in the works for a bit.

Uh what people are really trying to focus on is how do we have something that's fair, provides notice, and is workable for people.

So we came up with a scheme where if you have 10 violations in a six-month period, you're required to register.

There's a period of time to register that can be appealed.

Once after that happens, uh, they're subject to an inspection.

There's notice for that.

These are life safety issues, uh, stairwells, lighting, things of that nature.

Uh, then they're given a certain period to rectify it.

Uh if they do that and everything's in compliance for a period of time, then they no longer have to register.

Um, but if they don't rectify it, and they can also be repeat offenders, they can be fined on a daily basis up to $2,000.

Uh and this also includes things such as a lack of um uh certificate of occupancy that's going to be required.

There's a committee of the various departments that are involved that meet for this purpose to determine how compliance is going to make sure the inspections are occurring and following through on things of that nature.

At the end of the day, what we hope to do is to monitor this, see how the number 10 works, see how well is the committee working, get the feedback from not only the tenants but also the uh apartment owners, and we'll this is going to be an organic document that we'll look at to see what can be done.

But that is really the essential framework, and I think really the heart of it is hearing from the departments that will be doing the inspection, the permitting, and they can put more meat on this.

Thank you.

Uh colleagues, do you have any legal questions that you want to address our city attorney on?

If not, we'll move to our next hold on one second.

Um attorney Michelle, has the legal department been able to review any of the feedback from our operators and leaseholders who participated and submitted um recommendations.

Have you been able to review that and have responses prepared?

Yes, we've been able to review it, and I think you know, for the most part, really it's the opportunity is we clearly have the legal ability to do that.

What they're really looking for is are there adequate channels for people to contest any findings or any determinations?

And we believe we have that.

Okay, thank you.

No other questions in the queue.

Public works.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

You want to stand?

We can raise it up if you want to stay.

Can you state your name for the record, please?

My name is Chris Shanahan, assistant director with Houston Public Works, serving as a bit building official for the city of Houston.

Hold on one second.

Let us get out.

Let us catch our tech up to the presentation so we can follow all right.

So I'm gonna be providing you uh the panel with a uh an overview of the apartment inspection ordinance moving into the multifamily habitability uh program, which was uh passed into ordinance in 2009 under under ordinance 2009-1043.

Next slide.

So the multifamily habitability program is a city of Houston program that monitors multifamily rental properties with three or more units to ensure that they meet the minimum stand minimum safety and habitability standards.

Next slide.

So properties subject to the habitability inspections.

So this applies to apartment complexes with three or more units.

Properties must register with the city of Houston.

The city conducts two types of inspections to evaluate compliance with habitability standard standards.

The first type is known as your programmatic inspections, which are conducted on a four-year cycle, and the second being service request inspections or those those kind of complaints that are received via 311.

Next slide.

What inspectors evaluate?

So our inspectors primarily evaluate exterior building conditions and common areas of multifamily properties.

Some examples could be building exterior condition, stairways, balconies, and railings, exterior lighting, walkways and accessibility paths, structural concerns visible from the exterior, and general maintenance of the property.

Next slide.

So this is uh just a general overview of the workflow of that inspection process.

So the property owners receive an inspection invoice and a notice of the inspection to be scheduled.

Once they submit that uh payment for the inspection and the registration paperwork, the property is then registered with the city.

An inspection is scheduled.

Our inspectors evaluate the property.

Violations are documented if any are identified, and then the owner is notified and given time to correct the violations.

Next slide.

And if violations are found, uh the notice of violation may be issued by the inspector or inspectors.

The property owners must correct the violations and reinspections will be conducted.

Additional enforcement actions may follow if violations remain unresolved.

Uh an example of that would be the issuance of citations uh for non-compliance.

Next slide.

So the habitability inspections team is currently staffed with three senior inspectors, 12 field inspectors, one assistant chief inspector, and one division manager.

And throughout an annual basis, the programmatic inspections, which are our recurring uh inspections of these apartment complexes, this this team is roughly completing approximately 1200 inspections per year.

In addition, that we're 311 requests that are uh received average between 3300 and 3600 uh cases a year.

Next slide.

So moving in, just a brief overview of the high-risk apartment inspection program.

Next slide.

So what is it?

So this proposed amendment is a city of Houston program that will identify, monitor, and address multifamily residential properties that meet the conditions to prioritize inspection and enforcement while supporting compliance.

Next slide.

So remedies and enforcement.

So city inspectors authorized to enforce building housing, health or safety codes are empowered to issue citations or notices of violation for any infractions of this article.

An owner and/or operator who violates or whose multifamily rental building is in violation of any provision of this article and remains in violation beyond the period for correction, consistent with the repair type time frames under state law were applicable or is otherwise set by the city shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable upon conviction by a fine of not less than 250 nor more than 2,000 dollars.

Each violation and each day that a violation continues shall constitute and be punishable as a separate offense.

Next slide.

So in order for this program to be successful, we'll Houston Public Works will be in collaboration with multiple city departments which are here in the room with us today.

Uh some of those folks would be with housing community development, Houston Fire Department, Houston Health Department, Houston Legal Department, Houston Police Department, and Solid Waste Management.

Next slide.

But I really am interested in the current four-year cycle.

Um what's the number of apartment complexes that we currently are looking at?

And through that four-year cycle, how have you determined the kind of worst of the apartments list?

Um, you know, what do we have in our data now that can give us the starting point for folks that we need to keep on the horizon as we start creating this this site?

So you're referring to the the offenders that would be at the top of the list for this program, right?

So uh Houston Public Works are building code enforcement in conjunction with Houston Health Department and other city departments, uh, looked at 311 and complaint data of known properties to be repeat offenders or resistant to correcting violations.

Um you have some of these complexes which are in just a state of very poor repair, and we have numerous numerous occasions sent multiple inspectors from public works, health department, HPD.

We've issued notices of violation, red tags to no avail.

Uh and so the team has pulled data from 311 and then and I guess internal uh tracking to support you know which are our hot our our hot topic or our hot offenders, if you will.

Um, and I believe they've they've proposed that or compose a list of the the top 10 or 15 properties.

Right.

So what I'm looking for is as we are in our regular state of doing business and going through our four-year cycle, is there do you have the correlation of these are ones that we know will definitely be on the list?

And does that coincide with our 311 um data?

Because we heard from a lot of tenants, and many of the tenants I know you know that didn't know to call 311 or how to address the issue.

So a big part of what we're doing is education, yes, and making sure people know what what they should do if they are in a property that they are concerned about as far as habitability.

So what I'd like to to know is in your traditional four-year cycle, do we have some correlation to our 311 data?

You and you may be able to get that to us later if you're I don't have the data available today.

However, um the time and time again we see on these programmatic inspections where we have a very lengthy inspection report.

Um and over that four-year cycle, we may not even get compliance from that apartment complex.

They may never call us back or achieve uh correcting all those violations that were identified.

So then we show up in four years, and they still continue to have all the violations present, and then some so those complexes, that's where we have these folks that are calling three on one.

That were that are reporting.

And I guess my concern is because we are such a big city and we have so many apartment complexes that we aren't getting to those for four years.

So the people that are living there for that additional four years, they're still dealing with the issue that had not been addressed.

So we want to try to shorten that time frame, and that brings me to my second question is the number of inspectors.

Yes.

Um, if we want if what is an ideal number of in inspectors, and this may be for you or public works, that we need to shorten that four-year cycle window.

Well, so with full staff, 12 field inspectors, that's we that would be a team of two.

So that would be six teams of inspectors that were out doing inspections for these programmatic inspections.

And so if we're averaging 1200 inspections per year with that volume of staff, um for the four thousand forty eight hundred known apartment complexes that we have, we would almost need to quadruple that number.

Thank you.

Councilmember Alcorn.

Thank you, Chair.

On the reinspections, uh how do you determine?

It's probably based on the type of violation.

How do you determine when you're going back to reinspect and when the citations could start coming?

So after our uh initial inspection and we produce and issue the inspection report, the the team will we automatically schedule ourselves out for 60 days to go reinspect that property.

So 60 days is the standard.

Okay, and then is that is it in the new proposed ordinance, is that remain 60 days?

Uh it's it's actually trimmed down within I believe 30 days.

Okay, I do know in one of the sessions I went to that there was some concern over like larger type repairs taking longer, and is that kind of taken into consideration?

Absolutely, okay.

Absolutely.

So I mean, in some cases, there could be uh construction documents or plans that are required to be submitted that could be you know, they're having to use an engineering firm to work with them is documentation and and proof that they're working towards that would satisfy that they're making a good faith effort to resolve the problem.

So right now it's 60 days and we're moving to 30 days.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Pro Tim.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, thank you for the presentation.

Just to clarify to make sure I fully understand uh Mayor Pro Tem's question about the 311 calls and your list of the apartment complexes that are you know really focusing on.

So it's not just from the 311 calls alone.

It may start with the 311 calls, but then when your inspectors actually go out there and you realize that this is serious, that's kind of when it makes the list.

Is that correct?

Yes, it would be I identified known violations, whether it's from a 311 complaint.

Um one of the issues uh with 311 is the fact that you can have multiple callers from one address, right?

Right.

So are they calling about the same issue, or are we calling about multiple issues?

Now, when our inspectors are on site, they're able to look at the entire property, and if we can document that there are substantial, numerous violations, um, that just exponentially grows and would put somebody to climb higher on that list the more and more violations that we continue to see.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Um, thank you.

I have a few clarifying questions, and then I'm gonna move to staff from District G, Councilmember Huffman.

So uh if we look at the 311 from public works, and then if we look at the cost for service from HPD around similar issues, right?

Um some there needs to be a um a deconfliction of those properties because oftentimes um if you and I have quite a few on the west side, you you go, there's issues on habitability, there's structural issues, there's some safety issues, and these are repeat offenders, and where there's smoke, there's typically fire, right?

We know that these things aren't necessarily isolated.

So I would be interested, and I think what would may show a um healthier view, um, which aligns our staff's energy is that when we know HPD has their top 25 or top 20, public works has their uh top 25, so does the health department, right?

Repeat mold cases, repeat leaks, you have you, and I think we can have a better sense of on how we deploy our effort.

One of the things that was really important in what I um expend overtime with my HPD stations is to deploy certs.

Um and HPD goes out and it's like a community environmental response, and they'll audit these problem properties, present those recommendations, everything from street lights, broken windows, gates that don't work, right?

All structural issues, and then they work with property management management to get that across the line.

I do think that there should because you are lean and you're and your inspectors are carrying a very aggressive portfolio.

I do think there's synergy around leveraging HPD cert um around what your team is doing because it's a more holistic response, it's not just a structural, but we're also addressing some other things.

And I think that can color in the lines about um to get uh uh a better view of what we're doing.

Um I think that is it in terms of this.

I really do appreciate this because I think it reflects back on the type of portfolio inspectors have to carry because we have so many multifamily um properties throughout the city and the type of demand, and once every four years may not do.

Um staff and council member Huffman's office.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

I just have uh two quick questions.

One, who's gonna be chairing up this committee and who should the council staff reach out to with an issue that we might have with a multifamily uh like is there gonna be one specific person or we have and I don't have a copy of the proposed ordinance in front of me, but um public works will have public works to two vice chairs from public work.

Okay, great, thank you.

And then my second question is when we put together the list of the people that are gonna be on this uh committee.

I see one is a representative who is a property owner in the city, but I don't see HAA.

Is there a reason for that?

I can't intelligently answer that question.

Uh I would have to defer to the legal department or part of the reason why uh we wanted to make sure that there was uh property owner representation there, but we wanted to try and minimize the association and advocacy group side.

We wanted to have individuals who are able to represent um again, represent uh the perspective of again for this a property owner, but we didn't want to have an entire uh advocacy group.

Gotcha.

And how did they feel about that?

Were they fine with that?

I think they're here, you can ask them.

Okay.

We we received fee that was a current answer.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that.

Uh we have had uh a ton of conversations.

Uh Joshua Sanders and I had one-on-one calls with uh the apartment association, the contractors association, uh, as well as the Texas housers, um, to to get feedback to hear perspective.

Um, this was not a point of feedback that I have heard from anybody.

Um, but I do think you should ask any advocacy group about that.

What I'll tell you is that we are trying to keep this with the exception of um representation of a tenant residing in the city and representation of a property owner.

We are trying to keep this uh group to the people who are doing the work and the idea behind it, and this is exactly to your point.

I'd kind of like this to be practitioner-led, not to have a chair where we do sort of a formal committee structure.

This needs to be people solving problems.

You did good.

You made a good way.

No other questions, thank you so much.

Let me get back on script.

Who do we have now?

Health department.

Health department.

And for the record, can you share your name, please?

Thank you.

Uh good afternoon.

My name is Roger Seely.

Uh, I'm assistant director at the Houston Health Department.

Okay.

All right, uh, next slide, please.

Uh so as I mentioned Roger Seely, uh, I'll be talking a little bit about our apartment compliance program.

Um, for the sake of brevity, I will um give an overview of what we're already doing as these uh regulations don't necessarily um affect how and what we are doing.

Uh so I thought it'd be helpful to over go over what we're doing and how we do it.

Uh, next slide, please.

Uh so this will be a very brief briefing over uh our inspection process, uh, the legal authority, um, the uh operational and financial considerations of this program.

Uh next slide.

So uh the goal of the Houston Health Department apartment compliance program uh is to ensure that all Houstonians have access to safe and healthy housing.

They do this by responding to resident complaints.

Uh a team of environment environmental investigators identifies ordinance violations and works with tenants, management, ownership, and our partner departments uh for positive resolutions.

Next slide.

Uh some of the common uh complaints that we address are water intrusion, uh, pest infestations, uh, a lack of hot water, a lack of adequate HVAC, uh sewage overflows within the units, uh, and lots of garbage overflows uh in the dumpsters outside the units.

Next slide.

Uh these are just some examples, um, rather extreme examples that we've cited over our the course of the program.

Uh next slide.

Next slide.

Uh next slide.

And next slide.

Okay.

Uh so once a complaint has been routed to our department through Chris, uh, we typically uh expect our investigators to respond within three business days.

Um if a violation is identified, we generally give uh the management seven to ten days to correct that violation.

In some cases um where there's extreme violation or extreme need for the get for the tenant, uh, that could be shortened.

Um if the violation is not remediated within the designated time frame, a citation is normally issued and they'll be required to go to court.

Uh next slide.

Uh so this is a dashboard internally we use to monitor the work.

Um over the last three years, our uh team has responded and uh resolved over 12,000 cases.

Um that is a team of five investigators, one uh community involvement coordinator, two field supervisors, and a manager.

Uh and if you factor in the uh the budget, uh that is 200 per resolved case for the city.

200 per resolved case.

Uh next slide.

Uh this is a heat map of the uh resolve cases by zip code over that same time period.

Just to kind of show where um, as you see, the uh the team covers the entire city and uh there are some hot spots where they spend more time at next slide.

So just in summary, um, our team is dedicated to working with all parties, um, the owners, the managers, the tenants, and our uh sister departments and you the members of the council uh to create safe and healthy living conditions uh and to make a positive impact on the quality of life in the community.

Uh that's all I have, and I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you for the presentation, and I want to reiterate again how much we talked about compliance and bringing these properties into compliance.

But how do we determine if someone is calling for specific issues?

How do we determine the time frame for compliance?

Sure.

Uh depending on the specific issue.

Who determines that time frame?

There is some um, I guess, judgment involved in that, but it depends on one uh how many units are involved sometimes.

If an entire building is out of hot water, there we would that would probably be something we would ask them to do within 24 to 48 hours.

Um or sometimes if uh a boiler is out and the part is on back order, we might work with them as long as we see they're making progress, progress to extend that time.

Um, but generally uh we ask our investigators and our managers to to use discretion and determine the severity and the impact on people's lives.

And then another um big topic that we talked about when we were in the community meetings with the property managers was the issue of the citations going to the property managers as opposed to the property owners.

So I want to make sure that we have come to resolution with um you know making sure that we have contact with the actual landlord, the actual person who owns the property, and that our citations are going to the owners and not being put in the property manager's name.

Um, and then this is also education for property managers.

If I were a property manager, I would be giving up the name of the owner and saying, don't write the citation to me.

It's my owner, Mr.

Johnson, who owns this property that did not send me the money to get this trash picked up.

So I want to make sure that we are having that conversation with our inspectors so that we are giving the correct person the citation because we had a uh a person who was saying that her name is tied up into some citations as a property manager.

So I want to make sure we avoid that.

Yeah, absolutely.

We've been having those conversations with legal about how to best write the citations.

Um our instructions to our investigators are to always uh whenever possible cite the the owner directly.

Um in some cases, they would the owner will be given will be issued the citation, but it will be handed to the manager, even though it's in the citation's name.

Other cases we might send it registered mail.

Um the last resort is to actually write it to the manager, and that's only if there's no one else, no else available.

So when these properties are registering, you know, I know sometimes they're in an LLC or in some other type of name that does not give us the actual owner's name.

Is there something legally when they register that we actually have a contact of a person?

I I'm not aware of that, but uh that would be yeah.

Mayor Pratem, that's a wonderful question.

I'll try and get ahead of the bell ring.

Uh so if you look at section 10-154 of the MFRB registration.

Hold on one second, hold on.

Let me get my bear and say.

Go ahead.

Section 10 what 10-154.

A seven, the building officials shall promulgate a form of the registration of MFRBs.

Seven sections or section seven says the name, mailing address, physical address, telephone number, and email address of at least one owner of the MFRB.

So the expectation here is that we are going to have someone's name on this list.

And then the conversations that we're having, and this is gonna be more of an operational thing, um, is as we transfer someone who is part of our MFRB into that sort of hot list of people that were wondering, we're gonna transfer that information.

But more importantly, and this is still part of the discussion is do we ask them to refill that form out?

Do we ask them to give us a more current thing?

Because as you know, right, our cycle is four years.

Um, so do we lose, does an owner drop off if it's multiple people who own this thing?

So we're we're working through, and that's gonna be part of the of the committee itself of the people who are doing the work.

Um, what is the best operating position for us to have the current information that we have?

But and I'll I'm gonna say this, and this is something that is equally important.

We want to absolutely have the side uh the uh an owner's name for the purposes of citation, but for the purposes of daily check-ins, it's really important to know who those managers are.

Yeah.

So we want to have both.

Right.

Thank you.

Um, three things that came up during the uh town hall on the tenant side, and I want to thank the health department for your presence and um your contribution to that uh conversation.

Uh number one, mold inspectors as a climate city, disasters, hurricane barrel.

We were out of power 11 days, apartment complexes had leaks.

If it's already humid or if it's already a mold prone um uh unit, right?

It just it happens.

We don't have mold inspectors, and we have to account for um that type of demand on 311 to address the second thing was pre-inspection, um, the possibility of looking at our high risk and if we have you know X number of units that needed to be cleared, having a pre-inspection to make sure that if there's a new lease put on those units, uh the the property manage everyone's clear and also the leaseholder and we're clear as well, and I think it saves a lot of uh time and effort on the back end if we had a pre-inspection.

Um, and then lastly, communication to tenants.

What was really interesting is many of them said that they had better response from 311 than with property managers, and they would often call 311 first and receive that response, and it would trigger response from the property manager um that that uh their front desk.

And so how can we ensure it uh once um recommendations are shared that the the tenant, the leaseholder is aware of the timeline, the fees, and what's available to them.

Mayor Pro Tem mentioned it's about education, and we have been um uh you know encouraging leaseholders to read their contract, know what's available to them in their own private agreement, which is really important, but then how from our perspective are we then communicating what it what we're obligated to in that timeline.

Sure.

Uh so first the the mold issue.

Um yeah, so mold is in itself very hard to address in that there are um no regulations about levels, types of mold that are toxic.

What we do is address the underlying causes.

If there's mold in a in a unit, if it's mold present, there's a reason for that.

It's probably a water leak, uh leaky window seals, could be the HVAC, whatever it is, um whatever's causing that moisture to intrude, we will uh violation for that, expect it to be fixed.

Um in general, we usually pressure the um the owners to do some cleanup uh mold.

It's fairly easy to clean it up in general.

I think usually uh a detergent soap and water, and maybe some repainting after you clean it up, is generally good for um non uh extensive abatement.

Um we don't investigate mold in itself, but we investigate the cause of mold and expect it to be functional.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Absolutely.

Comments from District C.

Thank you.

My questions were answered in a back and forth.

So I just want to thank you so much for your continued partnership, especially at Life at Jackson Square in Myerland.

Um his team just helped us again, where they had once again 200 units without hot water.

They've had issues with no water, they've had several fires, and your team has been incredible coordinating with multiple city departments.

So thank you.

And we're glad that we've been able to support with overtime funds the apartment compliance program.

Absolutely.

We dare we appreciate your support.

Um, and I do want to acknowledge that we never go in this alone.

We work very closely with all of the other departments um to show uh these residents that the city does care, and we got their work together.

Um you did mention some of the tenants' rights things.

So I did bring a document that we pass out to make sure that tenants are wearing this.

I can pass them around.

And I just want to say when I lived in an apartment and I had mold in my bathroom, they just painted over it.

So it came back later.

The paint was new.

I know um Council Risk Linus Office had referred over some of the uh regulations that New York has in place.

Uh and they do have something on ordinance to deal with mold.

Uh uh, in my opinion, it's kind of a roundabout way to get it cited in that they choose to cite it as um, so they establish um any allergens as a dangerous health condition.

So that's how they choose to deal with mold, um, pest infestation, etc.

Uh, and then they uh there is a um mold's hard to test for, it's very expensive to test for.

So to get around that, uh it's a visual inspection.

If there's 10 square feet or more of mold present in a unit, that's deemed a hazardous condition and has to be remediated within X amount of days.

Um so there is precedence out there, but it doesn't directly, it still doesn't directly deal with mold as I think a lot of people would expect it to be dealt with.

No, I appreciate this, and then in closing, and then you can um we have no other questions in the queue.

I do think it's advantageous for us just knowing the conditions of our city and our climate to look at some type of guidance of prioritizing like what we know to be true, right?

The types, just so we can um prioritize those incidents of mold, um, and that may come once the pilot, once we get you know, the departments gets their hands on it and starts working through that um to start coming to come back to the body with recommendations on what that looks like, um, because it is very expensive to test for, but we know in the in in in our city there's such a demand because it's 110 degrees, it's a rainstorm, the power's out, things happen, um, and we don't want health conditions, you know, to expand around that.

Thank you so much.

Mayor Pro Tim, do you have anything else from that?

Okay, wonderful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, well, next we'll hear from the administration, Stephen David, representative from the mayor's office.

Let's start that clock.

Y'all hold up that sign in the back and say you got two minutes.

For the purposes of brevity, uh the document that you've got before you, uh, which is pulled up here is the apartments ordinance feedback.

We went ahead and took uh all of the the bolded items of recommendations that uh came from the the two uh hosted meetings and we numbered them, so AOF 1 through 24.

Um and what I'd like to do, if you see the word resolved next to it, what we believe has occurred is that the draft that you receive received, and for the purposes of this conversation as well as the the nomenclature in the document, we call it version two.

Version one was what was submitted by Prop A.

Uh, version two is what has been refined since.

Um, and that is that the document that Didi sent out to you uh earlier today, uh and you also received it this past December.

If we list it as resolved, we believe that it's taken care of within the the confines of the ordinance um already.

So uh for the purposes of brevity, I will skip over those.

If you disagree, please bring them up.

I'm happy to talk about them.

Uh so with AOF 1, uh develop a pathway to assist tenants in breaking lease leases due to unsafe conditions.

Um any issue provided or any commentary provided by the the city must be general in nature and should not amount to legal advice.

It doesn't mean that we can't point them in the right direction.

And so what we codify within, I believe 1-7, excuse me, 1770-177 is the tenant rights section and attendant advocacy section, and what we stipulate is that the building officials shall, in conjunction with police, public works, fire, Houston Health, and Houston Housing and Community Development, make information available on the city's website.

So what we're planning on doing is establishing a hub of information that we can point people to as well as developing enhanced collateral, exactly what Roger just passed out to y'all, but making sure that it's not just the perspective of the health department, but all other departments that have a part of this.

So we believe that we satisfy that with the plan for that.

That is something that's codified and ordinance or is going to be an ordinance, but more importantly, it's gonna be developed operationally as this committee convenes and begins to do their work.

Uh AOF AOF.2 is designated contact within the health department to connect tenants to resources.

They currently have the health department currently has one FTE, a community involvement coordinator assigned to this role.

We're gonna monitor this during the pilot.

It could very well be that we scale up on that type of employee based on the work and the need.

Um the thing that I want to uh talk a little bit about, uh that's the comments that have been made around 311 uh 311 cases.

311 cases are really important for us.

It's a data driven, uh it's a data-driven perspective to have.

But the thing that I noticed during Hurricane Barrel and Direccio, uh, we had an apartment complex off of 45 go uh four or five days without power.

Um, there were a whole bunch of medically fragile individuals who lived there.

Apartment management just up and left, and we we came across people getting really, really close to being medically critical.

And when we went to 311, there weren't any more than normal calls that went there.

And but but when we went to Google reviews, you can go and see 10 years of updated information from tenants from residents of tenants saying rats and mice and mold and electrical wiring exposed and all the things that would activate any department with they received a service request like this.

And to y'all's point exactly, one of the points that you made is that 311 obviously isn't known well enough, or people don't feel comfortable calling 311.

And so that's one of the charges that we're gonna have uh with this committee is how do we work through that?

How do we make people more aware of 311?

But also, how do we diversify the information stream?

Uh it's difficult to uh to regulate and be punitive on things that are not data-driven data sets, uh data sets and have data-driven decision making, but it doesn't mean that we can't be informed by Google reviews.

So, how do we do that in a way that's healthy and helps drive the ultimate goal of this forward?

Um that's resolved.

So I'm gonna jump to AO AOF uh.6 moving costs.

So this ordinance doesn't expressly contemplate the expenditure of city funds to cover moving costs.

I know that the housing department um there's a lot of federal regulation around relocation costs uh that occur.

Um so for the purposes of this, we want to ask that we monitor this during the pilot.

Um it could very well be that there doesn't need to be um moving costs allocated.

The city of Houston, as you know, is in a very tough financial situation, but it doesn't mean that we can't pull from other funding streams out there as we see the need arise.

But the idea here was to get I'm gonna use tech language because that's what I come from, but we call it a minimally viable product, right?

An MVP of just getting this off the ground starting it, and let's learn from it and grow on to it.

And so the the thought here was we heard from the community that this is important to them.

We recognize that there are certain situations in which relocation costs are required uh for folks like this.

For example, if you have uh a housing voucher and the apartment is uh unavailable to you, they have to find you a new place, or the voucher has to become portable to you.

So there are certain scenarios, but we want to continue to monitor it and see where the need is and whether or not we can move the needle on that.

Um, before you move forward, just at the very least, in terms of consideration um for our high risk, because I think it's important just to reiterate this is not a fix-all.

We will still have apartment complexes where the gates are broken, there's some issues, the roof will leak, there will be mold, this is not a band-aid.

We're talking about our high risk in the city, which will continue to inform how we do everything else.

But we're talking about the worst of the worst.

Um, during that time, if there's some type of way where rents are not increased during that time where people are penalized while living in poor conditions, right?

Where the structures literally falling apart, the patios collapsing, the elevators not working.

I follow a uh Instagram influencer, and he's always at apartment complexes highlighting the deteriorated conditions, trash, mice, like literally putting on front street, and I'm always in the comments because I don't want them to be in District F.

I'm like, well, where are they going?

Um, but I do think for those who may not be able to afford to move, um, are not on a voucher where they have that federal guidance, uh, where we're not in a financial position, at least during the time of their lease for there not to be uh increase in their rent so they can at least maintain whatever housing while we um cure whatever those issues are with the owner.

I think there has to be some consideration about that um for our very worst.

Okay, thank you.

Uh AOF.9, identify which properties accept housing vouchers.

Fully agree with this.

Um this is something that we're coordinating with the housing authority on.

Um I know that at one point, this is uh a couple of administrations ago, there was an attempt by the housing authority to develop a platform in which it was exclusively available apartments for vouchers uh for voucher holders, as well as where they had their own voucher uh with the unit.

So we're gonna continue to work with them.

There could they continue to be partners at the table on this.

Um AOF.10 is Can I pause you right here?

So, in terms of your broad guidance, I think it's important to put the guidance of the housing authority because they have federal rules that they have to abide by, and and most people don't know the difference, right?

Because you shouldn't know if I'm on a voucher or not, right?

So I think it's important be so we can continue to educate Houstonians on what's available to them if they are um receiving subsidy, um, that they have an opportunity to move to another unit.

And and and so that's publicly communicated, so they are in the right channels and they're not stuck in between departments and us navigating that for them.

Okay.

You thinking like on the website?

No, just in that same deal.

Like if you, you know, if it's a housing authority and you have a voucher, here's your process, this is how you do that.

Um, so they're not stuck in 311, and then now we're diverting them somewhere else when if they were informed, they know to just go straight.

You know, people come to public session all the time and talking about the issue, and it's like, oh, it's the authority.

Yeah, we could just have started there.

So just including that because nine percent properties, when we do that, it's different than a property that's on the mark, a market rate property.

The housing department's able to inspect when we have dollars in it from the city when there's a resolution involved.

Otherwise, it's back to our default system.

So I think the more we communicate all of our partners involved in housing, it's just people are more informed and we could be more efficient.

Yes, ma'am.

I promise to stop and let you finish talking.

AO I'm happy to be interrupted.

AOF.10 forced property sales.

So chapter 214, the local government code grants us broad uh powers to be able to regulate and uh require a vacated building to be vacated, repaired, secured, removed.

Uh, it does not give us the authority to compel a sale.

However, it's one of the reasons why we are forming this committee.

It's one of the reasons why we are creating a naughty list because we want to be able to move people and give them an extra special bear hug.

I think um Roger was the one who talked about, I mean, it was probably uh Chris as well.

Um, our our ordinances, at least in this avenue, are not meant to be punitive for the sake of being punitive.

We want compliance.

And so this I the idea behind this is you we cannot force you to sell your complex, but we can make we can make you aware that we care very much, and we're going to up it upwards of the civil service, excuse me, the civil fine resets every 24 hours, so we can continue to find you, but the goal here is compliance.

Uh with AOF.11 transfer to vetted management companies.

Um, this is sort of a similar uh a similar response to the one previous, but the ordinance doesn't compel property owners to transfer properties to veteran approved management companies.

The question that I have is who do we consider approved?

Does the city step into the screening process?

But I do think that the ability of being able to say you're on the naughty list, we gotta have a conversation with you, property owner for the purposes of citation, as well as you property manager or management company for the purposes of doing everything in the way that you should be doing it.

Um again, AOF 10 and 11 uh are likely unlawful.

Um so AOF.12 assistance with tenant relocation or move out fees.

Uh, this is a similar conversation as before with regard to uh with regard to moving costs.

Uh it contains a tenant advocacy component.

However, uh, this is one of those things where and a good example is to look back to uh the fifth ward cancer cluster and the difficulty, it has to become general fund money to be able to pay for people to relocate.

And a general rule of thumb for cost is that on the federal side, it varies by the size of your family, but a relocation cost per unit is gonna be anywhere between 30 to 50,000 per unit.

So this gets in stacks very expensively very quickly.

And the city of Houston taking on a financial burden like that could be quite a problem.

Uh on AOF-13 uh pre-inspections uh of properties across the departments.

Uh the thing that I wanted to make sure, and this is a shout out to uh Roger and to Chris, both of them said we wouldn't need more staff to be able to do that, um, which I think is a fair comment.

The question that I would ask uh from the perspective of the administration is uh how much, how many um we are gonna be doing a pilot?

This pilot is going to contain 12 apartment complexes, six of which um have certificates of occupancy and six of which do not have certificates of occupancy.

And the idea is we want to create a diversity of field here to be able to understand who does compliance.

Do we see uh CO having COs uh allow you to be more compliant versus not?

So this next year is gonna be a learning phase, and I want to add this into that learning phase of how many people do we think we need to increase by and how much and where we're gonna pull it from and all the the normal conversations we have during budget time.

We need to move that from 12 to like 20, 25, because what is 12 based on what?

Like just the occupancy.

12 is based on what we think that we can do in a year to be meaningful.

Um we recognize there are a ton of complexes that need to go into it.

Uh but what we know is off the gate, there are 12 that are the most egregious violators across the city.

And what we wanted to be able to do was as you can fully recognize this, the staffs of these teams, which are already overburdened, aren't growing just because this ordinance passes.

We have to learn from this.

So when how are you how if you're doing 12, what's phase two?

What's the next round?

So finish year one, learn from it, bring ordinance changes back that we think are going to be reasonable based on that.

Grow budgets that we think are gonna be reasonable, and then we add what we then we open it up and have the conversation about how many can we do per year.

I still think the the the top 25 should still be known.

I don't disagree.

To give people, if I'm on that list and and if I have a heads up, I'm next, let me get my house in order.

Okay.

Right?

So while we work on our 12 occupancy, those who don't have occupancy, I think the fact that our the city's eyes were on the top 25.

Yeah, then they can work it on top 12, the rest of the 13 are in the wing.

Get ready.

Okay.

Right.

And so people will know, and I think also leaseholders know, property managers know that okay, we need to close our ranks by the time the city does visit us, we are at least able to say on our own good faith efforts, we've addressed this before y'all officially came to us.

And so I think it sends uh uh the right type of chilling effect of we take we're taking this very seriously while waiting on the recommendations after the pilot to come back to say this is how we do this long time.

Okay.

Umteen expansion of inspection staff, uh it was the same as AOF 13.

Definitely don't disagree, right?

We think like generally they all need to they need bigger teams, but we need to wait a little bit.

Uh number 15 is suggested funding mechanism, $50 per unit assessment of property owners.

Uh so we currently have a multi-family rental building inspection base charge of 135 bucks, and that covers anything that's 25 units or less.

Anything above 25 units is 536 uh per unit according to city code.

Um I think the important thing here is if it is a recommendation of the legislative body to increase to 50, I think that's something we discussed, but I the request is that we put it towards the end of the pilot.

I'd like to understand how much cost we need to recover to be able to do it.

As you know, we can't just be a profitable uh thing.

We've got to be able to pay for it.

So if we're having conversations about staff increase at the end, let's talk about rev uh fee increase as well.

The rest are uh AOF 19 tenant rights.

So I we believe that the tenant rights section is addressed by the the first three, one, two, and three.

Um, but we're we're gonna be developing that.

I think uh my request would probably be to get feedback from council offices based on the documents that we put together, the website that stood up, whether it reads well to y'all and understanding your constituents.

Uh and then the last two that I'll go over are 21 and 24 uh on 21 language accessible materials, absolutely support this.

Um as you know, uh Herb and the Department of Neighborhoods has a really important language access program.

We've actually tested out um AI for the purposes of translation in this chamber, I believe it was during a BFA committee.

Um they're gonna be out tomorrow with a new QR code that will allow people to listen in in their preferred language as live uh translation occurs.

So we're working very, very hard on that type of stuff.

This will be included translation.

And then uh 24 ownership change compliance reviews within 30 days.

So section 10-175 establishes a period of 180 days for a new complex owner of the HRRB list to resolve all outstanding citations.

So if you buy an apartment complex and it has outstanding habitability violations, you have to resolve them within 180 days.

This is based on the determination of the experience of the City of Houston teams and the perspective of compliance.

Councilmember Alcorn, you asked the question, right?

Does the ability do the teams reserve the right to extend that 30-day window?

Yes, we're shortening it from 60 to 30, but if someone is making a meaningful thing, um, do we give them 45 days to fix a roof instead of the 30?

And I think that that's gonna be the perspective here.

If this body feels that there's a hundred 180 days is too short and you want to shorten it, I I think that that's fine coming from this body, but the perspective of the folks doing the work is that 180 is a reasonable perspective to be able to get the compliance that they're looking for out of these apartment or property owners and managers.

Can we just clarify if there's a difference in terms of timeline for something that's structural versus you know, like if this is a drainage issue or if this is about you know hot water, because they're all different.

Yeah, right.

And they're not, and there's supply chains.

We even experienced that in public works, fixing our own water leaks and sidewalks, supply chain issue delays, right?

So whatever the guidance is around the grace we're gonna give for structural versus something that's health related.

I think that will be helpful from council offices when we're communicating out expectations to tenants that gives us the best the better language to say, hey, this is structural, and here's the timeline you have between here and here and here.

There's a struct, you know, there's a uh a delay with the part, or they don't even make that elevator anymore, and they have to go out to bid or something.

We have to be able to do that uh because every issue is not the same.

And I'm gonna answer it in two different ways.

The first one is that based in uh within uh the citations that we issue, the violations that we do issue, there are time frames built in based on life safety already.

Um I do think it's important though that we communicate where those apartment complexes are in the in their compliance process because this dies by lack of information, right?

Everybody thinks nothing is happening when something might very well be happening, um, or vice versa.

So uh I what I'm hearing is that the preferences that we bake into whether it's I don't know if maybe it's something that we put publicly, maybe not, but uh some sort of update document that can be communicated out to the public of they're still in compliance, we're still giving them a little time, but this is how much time we've given them.

Okay.

And that concludes it, concludes the presentation.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Well, no questions, but Mayor Pro Chem was in the queue.

Just want to reiterate that um Casey and Ben brought to my um attention that some of the concerns they brought up weren't in the actual chart, and that we're gonna work with them to get those um.

That's right.

And there's also the housers gave us some uh points as well.

So what I'll do is I'll put together a document um also based on the public speakers that are here today of what we've heard, uh, if there's anything that's different than what is in the this particular document.

Um, I actually just communicated with them uh very quickly about the uh the owners and managers, and I think we need to better understand that.

Um so yeah, I'll have that to y'all by like tomorrow later.

Perfect.

And can you send it to the committee and then we can get it all out?

Yeah, I think that'll be helpful because they had lots of good feedback.

I agree.

This is a really good feedback.

Thank you much.

Thank you all.

Yes, now we'll have uh public speakers.

Is Camelia Joseph here?

Camellia Joseph.

Hello, Miss Joseph.

I'm Pastor Camellia Joseph with Kingdom Works Ministries and Congregational Land Development, Greater Houston.

Uh and I come before you today to really uh ask you to give priority for rental housing.

Uh the communities that we serve, many of our people, because of their earning capacity, they're not able to purchase a home.

And I know the city is doing a wonderful job of uh home buyer education and the 125,000 uh supplement that you're giving to people to buy homes, but unfortunately, many of the people we serve will um probably never be able to buy a home because of the their occupation, they're in the hospitality industry, working in the medical services, a food service, and they still need a place to live.

And so we're just asking that you would give uh some priority in that area.

Um, looking at the um Kinder Institute report, it says that the cost of medium cost of housing went from 794 in 2010 to 1362, and a person making $1,500, $15 an hour.

Uh that's about $2600 a month.

And that's like that's more than 50% of what they're so we're talking about severely um house.

Um another area we'd like to address to you is um the faith-based community.

In our community, we own a lot of land that's been just sitting there for years.

And because churches bought land that was adjacent to their congregations, and they they were thriving at the time, and they thought they would eventually either make a church or more parking.

And so our job now is what we're doing is working with churches to help them put that land into commerce so that we can create affordable places for people that need it.

And we'd like to encourage you to think of us as partners and figure out how you can include this in your budget and for consideration of it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

And our housing directors here, Director Mike Nichols.

But I want to invite you're absolutely right.

We had a housing committee la last week where we talked about our a couple of NOFAs going on the street to support multifamily housing.

Um so we're excited about that.

And then tomorrow I want to invite you to uh the spring community meeting um where we are um uh requesting this type of feedback um related to our hood annual action plan.

So, you know, the things around multifamily development, uh other type of direct services that funnels through that department.

Um that's what we're doing tomorrow.

So I want to invite you to the west side at six o'clock, and we're having those similar conversations.

But I think today's ordinance discussion is a reinforcement of the city's commitment of quality housing and realizing that everyone may not be able to purchase a home at this time.

Um but while they are um in this city, they should have access to quality, safe, and affordable housing.

So I think that's what we're working towards, and this ordinance aligns with that our values.

So thank you for being here.

Again, I want to congratulate you on the work that you're doing with these apartment complexes and trying to get them upscaled or uh because there's there's so many, you know, as you drive around the city, you see so many that are in such terrible shape, and uh people should not have to live like that, but they do have to because that's what they can afford.

Thank you, Deborah Davies, Deborah Davis.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Hello.

Hi everyone, my name is Deborah Davis.

I am the center manager for the Center of Excellence Housing Community Policy Research at Texas Southern University.

I'm speaking on behalf of the research done.

First, we'd like to say thank you for the committee's continued work on the apartment inspection ordinance and the opportunity to comment.

We'd like to dive into our team's analysis of the Houston's 311 system as it relates to the housing complaints.

One finding deserves the committee's attention.

311 uses not equal at across sorry, the 311 use is not equal across neighborhoods, predominantly Hispanics track calls significantly less for infrastructure, utilities, and environmental health issues consistent with language barriers and distrust of government systems, black communities call more for nuisance and environmental complaints, but less for infrastructure.

This matters because we build our enforcement systems around complaint-driven 311 data.

We are already starting to see an incomplete and inacqua, an inequitable picture where problems actually exist.

We would like to propose five questions that we were able to extrapolate from the February 19th and March 5th meetings that occurred.

The first question is Is the 311 sufficient as your intake system?

Other cities with effective rental programs often use this dedicated housing portals with persistent case tracking, which is open until resolved.

Houston should examine this.

The second question, what inspection model actually finds violation, evidence consistently favors proactive and scheduled inspectors.

How do we protect routine inspection capacities so compliant volumes don't crowd out?

Third, will rental registrations fund itself and improve enforcement.

Registration create an unknown inventory of units, but the structure matters, especially for piercing LLC ownership layers to reach actual accountable owners.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

For what enforcement tools change landlord behavior, fine levels, problem property, databases, and rescissorships, programs, our track records in order for us to look into this.

And lastly, will stronger enforcement harm tenants?

The research that we have done is adamant to us discovering these matters and putting some light towards these five pronged questions.

So what the research that we have done, conducting research rigorly takes resources.

We are open to partnering with the council and committee and additional partners to resolve these matters to make sure the 311 is equitable.

So Ms.

Davis, thank you for your comments.

We don't disagree.

And we have all of the council members have always been on a quest to encourage people to call 311.

We are definitely working on the language barrier so that we can communicate with the folks in our city.

So you bring up a very valid valid point.

Okay.

Again, if you can send that to us electronically, we want to make sure that the work that you're doing aligns with the work that we're doing and any feedback that we can give you for your work and any um feedback that we may need, we want you to be a partner as well.

Thank you for your engagement.

Thank you.

Ben McFall.

Hey Ben.

Hello.

So I'm Ben McFall.

I'm the vice president of government affairs for the Houston Apartment Association.

Came with a list of things to talk about, and uh y'all have dealt with many of them before I get up here.

Good.

So uh I'd like to first thank Mayor Pro Tem, Cassix Tatum, and Councilman Tiffany Thomas for y'all's leadership on this, uh, along with members of the administration.

Um so thank you, uh Steven.

I think you said that y'all, you know, we did submit some comments that were not in this original table of feedback, but it sounds like they've committed to providing an updated document that um outlines some of our concerns um and how they will be resolved, which is very helpful.

Um, I do want to also thank you for addressing the manager liability section.

We think that is something that's very important.

It sounds like we're working towards a resolution.

Um, so that was one that we did really want to see resolved, you know, in section 10-159 of the current habitability, it only holds owners responsible, not managers, but in section 10-173, when we get into the high risk pool, it adds that that designation for managers as well, which we think is is not a good uh provision because you know we want to make sure it's targeting and uh gets to the people that can actually remedy the problems.

Um another one we had in there was the transfer of ownership clause.

Um we think that property sales often are cop kept confidential.

Um the deals are often not disclosed or made public until after it's closed.

Um, and we think that the shared goal of ours is for underperforming properties to be under new ownership or management in hopes of improving the property, and that this um section just disincentivizes the transfer of ownership.

Uh, one other that I'd ask that you take a look at section 10-174 is related to how uh a property would get would remain on the high-risk rental building list.

Um it says that if they complete all the uh remedies, but if they get one violation within a six-month period, that they would be extended onto that uh list.

So I'd like to ask that you guys take a look at maybe considering revising that one single property or one single violation so that we don't have an unintended consequence of someone getting stuck on that list for an extended period of time just because they were to get one you know, one additional citation that may or may not be related to what got them on the list in the first port.

Um and then one other kind of point of uh clarity we're asking for.

We have heard a lot about a pilot program, um, which is focused on 12 12 properties, I believe is what's been stated.

Uh but then on the other hand, we have before us an ordinance that could potentially be in uh imposed citywide and then you know impact a greater number of properties.

So I guess the question is is that 12 property uh threshold that we've been discussing?

Is that gonna be put into the initial draft of the ordinance or is it launched as a separate pilot program?

I guess we're just kind of trying to understand or reconcile those two.

We'll we'll let Stephen address.

You know, your way.

Uh so the intent is to uh preferences not to put a pilot period in the ordinance, um, just because there is an opportunity, and we we did talk about this a little bit.

What I'd like to be able to see is 12 is what they believe, what we believe the maximum that we can juggle at one time.

That doesn't mean if six fall off within three weeks because they're going, oh wow, I'm on this list now.

Do we add the next six um into that list?

And so we don't wanna limit ourselves for the purposes of of an ordinance.

The idea is that the the pilot would be operational, an operational limitation on ourselves.

Um just try to juggle what we can or can't do.

That answer your question.

That does.

Okay.

Yeah, and just to add to that, the pilot allows for this recommendation to come back to the body, lessons learned, budgetary implications, personnel, training, all of those things.

So pilot, because this is the first time they're deploying in this manner to come back so we can improve the ordinance as we go along.

And if I may, could I address the question that came from uh Council Member Huffman's office earlier about the member of the association?

So I think um the short answer would be we would welcome uh to for have to have an HAA member uh as the representative as a property owner in the city of Houston, um, with the caveat being we're not asking that it be a member like a staff member of the association, more so one of our very active and engaged property owner members that has gone through the education and the qualifications uh of the association to be that member of the ASEC committee that is the property owner in the city, if that answers your question.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

All right, thank you, Ben.

Our next speaker is Casey Morgan.

You good?

All right.

Julia Arduña.

I don't see Julia.

Hey, Julia.

Hi, good uh afternoon.

We are in uh Julia Arduña, Texas Housers for the record.

Um, I just wanted to continue showing my support and talking about the ordinance.

I think it is something that's very important.

I appreciate both of y'all's um commitment and continued engagement on these issues.

Um of the things I did want to say uh through the presentations, um, the zip code map that was shown as I looked at it.

The big thing that I saw in my mind was this is where we also see high evictions happening.

Um we do have a an eviction snapshot from last year's evictions that I have uh sent with everybody uh before.

I'm happy to send them again, but you can see kind of where those trends are.

So if we're seeing poor conditions in an area, we're also seeing high evictions in an area.

Sometimes these are because of property sales, and then people are being evicted.

Um, but we're seeing some of these trends.

And so to the idea of a habitability, a place to live where you as a landlord are expect to collect your rent, but um tenants cannot expect to have a habitable place to live.

So, how are we ensuring that these things are working together and we're supporting our folks?

Um, also just listening to the 311 calls.

I remember reading something in an analysis of his of impediments from the city before the pandemic started, I believe it was 2019, that addressed that 311 calls were also slightly insufficient.

Um and I do believe that people are more scared to talk about issues that are happening inside of their units if they will be identified exactly uh specifically and fear retaliation, they are less likely to call and say, I have a mold or pest issue inside the property, but they may be okay sending an anonymous tip and saying there might be something happening outside of the property.

So continuing with that education part, I think is important, but also making feel people feel safe that these are systems that won't put them in harm's way as well if they're trying to advocate for themselves.

Um just wanted to raise those two points and also uh thank you all for this continued effort.

Thank you for your partnership, and we um you know we'll constantly seek your partnership and and your assistance in helping us to make sure that we are providing as much tenant engagement and tenant education that we can.

Glad to sit here.

We need help.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Laura Gallier.

Good afternoon, everybody.

My name's Laura Gallier.

I live in District C.

Um, some of you may know I'm running for public office, and as part of that, um I have canvassed thousands of people who live in the city.

And um the community universally supports the inspection of apartments.

When I say universally, I mean homeowners, apartment dwellers, and the unhoused.

Everybody sees a benefit to having apartment complexes that are kept in good repair.

And the unhoused people don't appreciate that that's the only place that they're likely to ever be able to afford to live.

So this is the conclusion.

I was surprised even when I canvassed property owners, landlords, that they support the inspection ordinance.

31, on the other hand, is almost universally disliked because cases they people are notified that cases are resolved when they can clearly and visibly see that they aren't.

So I'm taking time out of my campaign to explain to them that that means it's been transferred to another department, but I really don't see why that couldn't be in part of the email that says your case is closed and it was transferred to this other department.

Um I'm getting off topic.

And the community doesn't accept the idea that the city isn't enforcing these laws.

Inspection codes are laws.

Okay.

Um they don't accept that home can't be a respite for many.

If we feel like the issue is that we don't have enough money, which seems to have come up several times today.

Um thank you.

Thank you.

We appreciate you being here today.

Are there any other members of the public in the chamber who would wish to comment?

Any other members?

Going once, going twice.

Council members, any other council members there.

State your name for the record.

Hi, Mary and Wright.

I just really want to thank y'all for doing the public engagement and for listening for all the meetings and everything.

And this is how it's supposed to happen.

And it's really a pleasure to see what y'all have done.

So thank y'all so much for listening to everybody, because it's not always done, so we do appreciate it.

Thank you, Ms.

Wright.

We appreciate it.

It's not easy.

Again, thank you to all of the uh staff and the organizations that have participated.

Thank you to the council members who've also helped uh want to give a council member.

I can't believe you didn't have one question today.

I do want to again give a special shout out to the district F team and the district K team for all of your hard work and corralling all this feedback and making sure everyone had the information that they needed for our meetings.

Uh Councilmember Thomas, kudos to you and your team.

Uh kudos to the district K team.

Uh, we look forward to getting this on the agenda probably within the next 30 days.

Um, Steven, thank you and Josh for the work that y'all did with the feedback we all collected.

Um before we adjourn, I'd like to let everyone know the next scheduled economic development committee meeting is March the 18th.

No, can't be March the 18th.

When was this?

April.

April the 18th, 2026.

Uh, Councilmember Thomas, you want to make an announcement?

The Vice Chair gonna tell us when the next meeting.

Vice Chair, you do you know when the next housing committee meeting is?

They are having one in April, so just stay.

We do have one for the next housing and affordability committee meeting.

And if you are interested in receiving any information from economic development or housing, just reach out to our uh district K or District F offices.

And the time is now 3 19 p.m.

And this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you for your participation.