Overseeing the Landlords

We're back after at trip to Southwest Florida (more on that in a later post), but for now we're applauding Councilor Dean Tran's plan unveiled at last night's City Council meeting that would create new oversight on landlords.

Essentially, the plan would demand landlords file a permit for each unit ($30) and then update the permit everytime there was a change in tenant.

Tran has said he's already heard complaints from landlords' associations, which are trying to protect their members. While we have a few concerns, we overall think this is a good idea.

In many cases, problems in the city are housed in apartments where landlords rent units they are never at and they don't care what happens. In some cases, the city has no idea where people (you know, the bad guys) live in the city because they rent.

This gives the city a database of renters and with some inspection demands included puts some oversight on landlords.

Generally, we think the good landlords have nothing to worry about and the bad ones now have some hand-holding. We also think $30 is a pittance and finances are not an argument in this debate. We do have some privacy concerns. Let's say, for example, the cops are looking for Bad Guy X, and the database tells them where the bad guy lives and they arrest him. We don't have a big problem with that. But the database gives the city a list of every renter, bad guy or not. What will the city do with that list? Will the city begin some policy of reviewing tenants?

Those questions need to be answered, but this information is for the most part a valuable tool for Fitchburg, and we think Tran is on the right track.