In October, the Collier County Board of Commissioners approved an ordinance requiring landlords to give tenants 60-day written notice upon increasing their yearly rental rate by more than 5%. Landlords could face a fine of up to $500 if they fail to give their tenants the proper notice.
Now, the ordinance is up for repeal upon request by newly elected Commissioner Chris Hall. Also appointed Tuesday as the commissioner liaison for the county’s Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, Hall said the ordinance involves too much government overreach.
“It’s an attempt to ease tenant relationships by government mandate, so I’m bringing this to the county attorney to take a look at this and bring back a public hearing so that we can have a discussion,” he said. “This is a burden on landlords by the government. This is not a place for government to act and demand landlords to give a 60-day notice if they want to increase rents by 5%.”
Joe Trachtenberg, chair of the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, said this ordinance promotes more positive interaction between tenants and landlords and is beneficial even though it won’t solve the affordable housing crisis.
“I totally agree with Commissioner Hall. This ordinance has nothing to do with affordable housing. This has only to do with human decency,” Trachtenberg said. “We have people, not a large number, but whose landlords are not willing to have that conversation. We have people whose leases do not contain any renewal clause, who are continually finding out within a mere number of days from the expiration of their leases that their rents are going up beyond the level that’s affordable to them.”
The 60-day notice was discussed multiple times by the board this year before it passed. Commissioner Rick LoCastro is one of the commissioners who spoke out against it. He said not enough action has been taken since the ordinance was implemented.
“Give me three examples of people whose landlords all of a sudden magically followed this ordinance and didn’t kick them out and gave them 60 days’ notice. I haven’t heard one example,” LoCastro said. “And landlords I talked to don’t even know yet that we passed this ordinance; so bad on a whole bunch of people but I think before you start pointing fingers or claiming victory, I don’t think this ordinance has done anything since it was passed.”
Commissioner Burt Saunders is the only board member left who voted in favor of the ordinance. He said the ordinance is an excellent way to show the community that the county is aware of the affordable housing crisis.
“This ordinance will go away and it’s not going to have any impact on the housing market or the amount of units that are available,” Saunders said. “But I think it was just an effort to say we care and we want to provide at lease notice.”
The county commissioners voted 4-1 in favor of holding a public hearing later to repeal the 60-day rent increase notice ordinance, with Saunders dissenting.
“I certainly would support bringing it back for discussion and I would encourage both sides to get organized,” LoCastro said. “Find out what we’ve done since the last time that we passed it, talk to county staff, talk to all the landlords who should have gotten the notice and talk to residents. Find out all the people that we helped and better educate us on this on does this ordinance do anything, could it do something or it wasn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”
