2019-029 Municipal Rental Inspection Program UpdateDate: February 22, 2019 Report No. 2019-029
INFORMAL STAFF REPORT
TO MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL
SUBJECT:
Update on peer city Rental Inspection Programs
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
The purpose of this report is to provide City Council with a general update on Rental Inspection
Programs within the City of Denton and other comparable cities.
BACKGROUND:
During Concluding Items at the December 20, 2018 City Council meeting, Council member
Meltzer requested that the City update the rental inspection program research that was previously
submitted to Council in December of 2016.
DISCUSSION:
Throughout the past several years, the City Council has discussed the scope of property
maintenance standards and inspections. More specifically, over the past 4 years, the Council has
discussed rental property inspection programs for both single- and multi-family residences. To-
date, the Council has decided to maintain the current program (described below) which has been
in place since September 2014.
Current Approach
Community Improvement Services (CIS) has been the lead department when addressing and
responding to rental property maintenance issues (both single- and multi-family properties) since
September 2014. Currently, interior inspections are only conducted when a tenant files a
complaint. Exterior inspections are conducted regularly by CIS. When needed, other City
departments (Building Inspections, Health, Police, Fire, etc.) also become involved in cases that
are outside of the scope of a CIS officer. A few examples would be fire alarm and/or egress
system(s) that may not be properly installed and questions about construction techniques. Since
the program’s inception, 31.5% (197 out of 625) of the reported complaints by tenants have
resulted in no violations found. Of the remaining complaints, 99.5% (426 out of 428) of the
violations have been brought into compliance voluntarily, and the remaining 0.5% (2) have
resulted in actual citation(s) being issued due to non-compliance. Approximately 80% (124 out
of 155 per year) of all rental complaints have historically come from multi-family complexes and
the remaining (31 out of 155) from single family residences. Since the current program is
complaint driven, the CIS officer assigned to these duties only spends a portion of their time
conducting rental inspections.
Interior Inspections
As mentioned previously, CIS currently conducts interior inspections when a tenant files a
complaint. In almost all instances, prior to being able to conduct interior inspections, CIS must
obtain written consent from the tenant and the tenant must accompany the CIS officer during the
inspection. In some rare cases, CIS is granted permission to inspect the interior of a property
Date: February 22, 2019 Report No. 2019-029
through a court order. A recent example would be a multi-family building that has several
suspected substandard conditions that required CIS to access the entire building and not just one
unit.
Peer City Processes
Below is a graph and corresponding footnotes describing rental inspection practices for some of
our peer cities across the Metroplex. The data was initially compiled in 2016 and has been
updated as additional information is made available from peer cities. The original report was
presented to City Council on December 13, 2016.
Multi-Family Rental Inspection Programs
*Areas of missing data were not supplied by responding City
** The COD also uses McKinney for comparisons on occasions, but they were not part of the 2016 surveys, so they were left out again.
CONCLUSION
There is a significant amount of diversity in the inspection programs from across the state. Data
provided to the City of Denton from other cities indicates that the majority of programs are close
to being self-funded once the program is up and running through the fees that they charge. These
fees are basically a pass-through type of fee billed to the property owners and ultimately down to
the residents. At this point, staff needs direction on if we should continue our current complaint-
driven rental inspection program or if Council would like to investigate the possibilities of a
more comprehensive rental inspection program. If Council would like staff to further investigate
City Complexes # of
Units
~Yearly
Inspections
Exterior Interior FTEs Budget Base
Program
Fee
Update
Arlington 322 47,313 477 Regular Varies % 4 $615,000 $13.80
per unit
2018
Carrollton 89 18,107 3,700 Regular Varies % 3 $209,790 $13 per
unit
2018
Dallas 2,600 250,000 25,000 Varies Min every
3yrs.
Based on
score.
24 $2,700,000 $6 per
unit
2018
Frisco 67 15,101 4,050 Regular Varies % 1 $5 per
unit
2018
Fort Worth 1100 86,000 Varies Varies Varies %
& Age 7 $794,467 $25 1st/
$10 add
2018
Garland 227 21,358 2,137 Regular Varies % 4 $378,011 $13 per
unit
2018
Grand Prairie 119 18,223 5,500 Varies Age &
Score 5 $12.60
per unit
2018
Irving 300 54,649 Regular Varies % 5 $13.60
per unit 2018
Lewisville 82 15,717 1,174 Regular 1 Unit per
Building 5 $50 per
building/
$75 per unit
2018
Mesquite 63 13,489 400 Regular Complaint
Only 1 $13 per
unit 2018
Plano 149 38,691 Varies Regular 10% 4 $418,138 $11 per
unit 2018
Richardson 82 16,801 62 Complexes Regular Varies %
& Age 2 $13 per
unit 2018
Denton 400 20,753 155 Regular Complaint
Only 1 $0 2018
Date: February 22, 2019 Report No. 2019-029
a more comprehensive rental inspection program again, then it will likely come forward for
approval and input as a supplemental budget program.
STAFF CONTACT:
Brad Lahart, Assistant Fire Chief and Fire Marshal
(940) 349-8860
Brad.Lahart@cityofdenton.com