Title
An Ordinance to Amend Section 8:530 of Chapter 105 (Housing Code) of Title VII of the Code of the City of Ann Arbor (Ordinance No. ORD-08-01)
Memorandum
The attached amendment to Chapter 105 (Housing Code) comes to you with the unanimous recommendation of the City Council-Michigan Student Assembly Committee at its October 9, 2007, meeting. All five landlords present at the meeting also supported the following amendments to Code Section 8:530 of Chapter 105.
The proposed amendment makes three changes to the current ordinance, which requires residential landlords to wait until the passage of the first 90 days of a lease before showing the leased premises to prospective tenants and before entering into a lease of the premises to another tenant for a subsequent lease period.
First, subsections (1)(a) and (1)(b) are amended to shorten the waiting period to 70 days. Landlords felt 90 days was too long and noted that it forced students to begin looking for apartments just before the final examination season. The student members of the Committee agreed to shorten the period to 70 days.
Second, the amendment deletes subsection (2)(d), which allows landlords to ask tenants to sign a waiver of the waiting period if the tenant does not intend to renew the lease. Committee members explained that this provision caused much confusion and many student tenants felt pressure from their landlords to sign such waivers.
Third, the amendment deletes subsection (6), which called for a review of the ordinance to commence in April 2007 to be followed by recommendations as to appropriate changes. The Council’s committee has now completed that task, rendering subsection (6) moot.
It is recommended that these ordinance amendments be adopted to improve the implementation of Code Section 8:530 for both students and landlords.
Staff
Prepared by: Kristen D. Larcom
Sponsored by: Councilmember Christopher S. Easthope and Councilmember Leigh S. Greden
Approved by: City ...
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