City Council Ordinances

On March 12 at 2 pm at 1718 Farnam St, the City Council will have a hearing for three different ordinances pertaining to changes in how the city handles housing and code enforcement. If you are interested in testifying, please call us at 402-344-4401 or email at [email protected] for more information.

Summary of Ordinances

OWH Article about the Ordinances: Three proposals to regulate rentals head to the Omaha City Council. Here’s what each would do

OWH Article: Housing advocates push for more inspections of Omaha rental properties; landlords push back

Resources from OTOC

Action Steps: 2.18.19 

Solutions- talking points and policy proposals

Frequently Asked Questions

Read: Op-ed from 2/13/19

Read: OTOC Fact Sheet about LB 85 & Solutions- talking points and policy proposals

 https://www.changelabsolutions.org/sites/default/files/Healthy_Housing_Proactive_Rental_Inspection_FINAL_20140421.pdf

Issue Cafe: Where are we now?

40 people gathered at the Urban Abbey for an issue cafe about the current status of code enforcement and efforts for proactive policy change. OTOC leaders and housing coalition partners presented how the current code enforcement system works (and doesn’t work), the proactive registration and inspection policy we promote, what ordinances and policies are being drafted and discussed by local and sate policy makers, and how we as citizens can a raise a voice to be a part of that policy decision. Attendees heard from Beth, a tenant recently displaced from her home because of substandard conditions. If Beth’s rental home had been inspected regularly and the landlord keeping up the property, Beth and her daughter would still have a home and fewer major health problems due to mold and cockroaches. Erin Feichtinger of Together explained the politics of the current situation- LB 85 still sits waiting for a vote in the legislature, with Omaha City Council and the Mayor drafting various ordinances. Until the ordinances become public, we still encourage community members to call their city council member and their senator affirming the need for rental inspections, so that as proposals are brought forth, all policy makers know what Omaha needs. The city council will be hearing several ordinances on March 5.

Debut of #WeDontSlum

All of the local Television stations and the Omaha World Herald covered our press conference today with our allies to launch the website www.wedontslum.com

Leaders from OTOC, Restoring Dignity and Family Housing Advisory Services led the press conference and challenged the City to come up with a solution.

Press Coverage about #WeDontSlum

• Video of press conference from KMTV on Facebook
• Omaha World Herald Coverage
• KETV Channel 7 story
• KMTV Channel 3 story
• WOWT Channel 6 story
• Fox 42 Becka’s Beat story

WeDontSlum.com is a tool for tenants to share their stories and pictures of rental conditions across Omaha. If you or someone you know has slum conditions, submit your pictures.

To SUBMIT PICTURES (and videos) of slum conditions:

• Post pictures and videos on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag: #wedontslum. Please add the area where you live (ie. “I live around 70th and Blondo.”) Pictures and videos will be posted anonymously and shared with our Mayor and City Council.
• Message on Facebook with pictures and videos and they will be shared on the website.
• Email pictures and videos to us at: [email protected]

Op-Ed in Omaha World Herald

OTOC leader Dennis Walsh and Restoring Dignity Executive Director Hannah Wyble published an op-ed in the paper outlining what an effective housing policy should have to prevent the furthering of substandard rental housing.

Read the article here: Midlands Voices: Omaha needs to provide effective, affordable reform of rental oversight

And in case you missed it, here’s the editorial cartoon from Omaha World Herald from Sunday, Feb. 9:

Call your council member today!

The City of Omaha is currently drafting a City ordinance to head off action by the Unicameral on Sen Wayne’s LB 85 which requires the City to register and periodically inspect all rental property in Omaha.

The Mayor and Council will make decisions over the next two weeks that will affect the health and safety of families and vitality of our neighborhoods for years to come.

Tell Mayor Stothert and your City Council member you want a strong ordinance requiring both Registration and Proactive Inspection. See below what OTOC believes  the city needs to adopt.

Talking points- What OTOC believes must be in place for real rental property reform:

• Require registration of all rental properties.  The city tracks who owns cats and dogs but does not track who owns rental property.  Omaha should emulate Council Bluffs, which uses stiff fines for non-registration to attain an estimated participation rate of 85 percent.  Registration data must be online, easily accessible and include records of code violations and all names of LLC owners.
• Inspect all registered properties periodically to identify unsafe and unhealthy conditions.  If the city conducted 13,000 inspections per year, that could cover all rental properties in three years if random sampling was used within multi-unit properties.  Landlords with good track records should be inspected less often than landlords with poor ones.  City staff testified at the public hearing on LB 85 that eight to 15 new inspectors would be needed for inspections on a three-year cycle.  That is effective and manageable.
• Use modest registration fees to fully fund the system.  An annual registration fee on landlords averaging $2.55 per unit per month would generate $2.1 million per year devoted to proactive code enforcement, at negligible cost to either landlords or tenants.  That is affordable.
• Make the education of tenants and landlords about their rights and responsibilities an essential function of code enforcement.  Start by requiring each rental property to display a poster in appropriate languages with contact numbers for code enforcement and supportive agencies.  Education plus inspections are needed to ensure health and safety, just as in the food industry.  Health impacts of poor housing can be worse than consuming bad food.  We have rules for inspections of food producers that serve public health quite well.
• Go back to court to get the changes needed to run proper code enforcement.  City staff says that, because of a 2015 consent decree, sometimes they spend one hour conducting an inspection, but then two hours at the office filling out paperwork.  In contrast, Council Bluffs inspectors spend almost all day in the field, and support personnel complete paperwork.  The consent decree allows the city to seek changes to accommodate “changes in circumstances, or administrative operating efficiencies.”  Now is the time to gain these efficiencies.

Mayor Stothart: [email protected] 402-444-5555

First Step made towards proactive City practice

Jan 29 Press Release about City Council TIF decision

OTOC leaders attended the Jan. 29 City Council Meeting where the city decided to postpone their vote for TIF funding for local landlord who has substandard properties. In another unprecedented decision, the Council found that they are able to take in account a property owner’s other properties when approving TIF dollars for new projects. The council voted 4-3 to give Dave Paladino time to improve his current code violations and show he is making strides to improve all of his properties. 

OTOC appleauds City Council for taking a good first step towards recognizing the need for better housing code enforcement so that rental properties do not reach the level of deterioration of Yale Park and Dave Paladino’s properties brought to light in the Jan 11 TIF hearing at City Council (see below for more details). We need to continue to reverse a decades long deterioration of affordable housing and rental property in Omaha.

“City Council sent a message to developers and property owners they have to maintain their existing rental properties before coming to the city seeking tax payer funded handouts for new development,” said OTOC Housing Team leader Susan Kuhlman. “Now the City Council and Mayor must adopt an ordinance which prevents the deplorable conditions existing in way too many rental units” said Kuhlman.

OTOC leader Dennis Walsh said “I am glad to hear that two Council members have asked the law department to develop an ordinance based on LaVista’s model which requires both registration and periodic inspection of all rental property. That’s the only way we will stop the ongoing deterioration of rental property in our community.”

News coverage of the council’s decision: KETV and WOWT

State Hearing for Rental Inspection Bill (LB 85)

On Tuesday, the Urban Affairs Committee of the Nebraska Unicameral heard citizen testimonies on LB 85, which would require Omaha and Lincoln to develop a Rental Property Registration and Inspection Ordinance to ensure minimum health and safety standards are met in all rental properties. OTOC leaders testified in support of LB 85 along with tenants and other organizations like Restoring Dignity, Together, Family Housing Advisory Services, Omaha Healthy Kids Alliance, and others who submitted written testimony. KETV, Omaha World Herald, Lincoln Journal Star and 1011 Now all provided news coverage of the hearing.   

Community Survey

Using Taxpayer dollars for inspections

OTOC believes the fourth question is somewhat misleading because it suggest we might have to raise more taxes for inspectors. It reads: “Taxes for More Inspectors: I support more taxpayer dollars to be spent to fund a significant increase in the number of inspectors to inspect Omaha rental properties.” 

OTOC, working with 9 organizations active in housing in Omaha,  has developed a a proposal for a rental property registration and inspection program that is funded by REGISTRATION FEES paid for by the Landlords. These fees would amount to an average of only $2.50 a month per unit to be paid by the landlord, not taxpayers. 

Rental Property Code Violations are already costing taxpayers lots

OTOC has found that 75% of current code violations and city funded demolitions since 2015 are in rental properties. The City is already forced to spend significant tax payer dollars to condemn and demolish rental housing that landlords let deteriorate and then abandon. OTOC wants the City to shift to pro-active inspection to reduce the deterioration of rental properties and to maintain the stock of affordable housing in older neighborhoods. Click below to see the proposal that OTOC has provided to the City of Omaha.

City recognizes need for change at TIF hearing

OTOC helped organize testimony surrounding Tax Increment Financing for Omaha landlord, Dave Paladino. Paladino Development Groups has thousands of low-income units that rent to a wide range of tenants, including many refugees. In the unprecedented hearing, diverse testimonies from tenants, Omaha Tenants United, concerned citizens, and a variety of agencies shared stories of Paladino’s treatment of tenants and business practices, lack of maintenance and upkeep, and unsafe and unsanitary conditions. TIF cases tend to be automatically approved, but the city council, who listened for over an hour and a half to emotional, moving testimony, voted to postpone to vote for three weeks. They want to look into TIF approval laws, which currently do not allow decisions to be made based on the applicant’s other business practices. Click here for complete Omaha World Herald coverage of the TIF hearing.

Need for enforcement

OTOC testified neutrally (read Gloria Austerberry’s testimony here), saying that Paladino does have a bad reputation among tenants, but works well with housing agencies that have case workers to hold him accountable. He meets the standards that are enforced, but when there is no enforcement, he gets away with neglecting properties and using a business model that seems to exploit tenants (read Hannah Wyble of Restoring Dignity’s testimony at the hearing for examples), proving again that proactive inspections of units will keep properties up to code when landlords don’t do it themselves.
Several testifiers called for inspections on all of Paladino’s properties if he is to qualify for tax dollars on his new development project, and guarantees that rent will remain at market rate (read testimony by Jack Dunn from Policy Research Innovation and Rosalyn Volkmer).

OTOC continues to call the City of Omaha to adopt a rental registration AND inspection ordinance so that all rental properties are routinely inspected. The testimony at this hearing showed city council and city staff that Yale Park is not the only substandard property in Omaha. Council member Pete Festersen said in his remarks that the City Council Planning Committee, which has been meeting regularly since Yale Park last September is getting ready to release it’s recommendation on what the city can do to address substandard rental housing. It is clear the tides are turning in the city, and that there is growing attention to substandard rentals and city code enforcement. The question is, when the committee’s plan is released, will it prevent another Yale Park?