Landlord fee plan is on hold The mayor wants to add a rental housing administrator and hire more inspectors
The Kansas City Council has put on hold a proposal to impose fees on landlords to combat substandard rental housing, after Mayor Kay Barnes suggested a different approach.
Barnes this week asked City Manager Wayne Cauthen to hire a rental housing administrator who would be responsible for significantly improving the city's rental code enforcement program.
"As many of you know, Kansas City remains behind our neighboring communities like Kansas City, Kan., and Overland Park in enacting a tough and thorough landlord rental program," Barnes wrote to council members this week. "It is a basic service of city government, and we should not fail this time to act."
For two decades, off and on, Kansas City has debated whether to create a landlord licensing requirement. The latest proposal, discussed this summer, was to seek voter approval in November for new landlord fees to beef up inspections and code enforcement.
On Wednesday, however, the Finance and Audit Committee put that measure on hold and agreed to try Barnes' idea instead. This week was the deadline for the council to approve any November ballot measures, so even if the fee idea comes back, it would not go to voters until next year.
Throughout this summer's debate, neighborhood leaders have generally supported the fee idea and said decrepit rental properties are a plague on their neighborhoods.
In her letter, Barnes asked Cauthen to develop a plan within 30 days on how the rental housing administrator could make the system work better between neighborhood preservation inspectors, the police and Housing Court.
She recommended that the city fill its 10 vacant code inspector positions, plus 20 new inspector positions, over the next six months. Those new positions are expected to cost about $450,000 over the remainder of this fiscal year, and more than $1 million over a full fiscal year. A funding source has not been identified.
Barnes wrote that if, after six months, the city decides it needs a licensing program or other improvements, those changes could then occur.
Cauthen said Wednesday that he did not have anyone in mind for the rental housing administrator and that the person would have to be recruited.