As part of its focus for next year’s budget, the City of Jefferson has formed its own housing committee to address some of the priorities by the City Council.

Two of the top four budget priorities selected by the City Council were housing rental inspection and code enforcement.

City Administrator Mike Palmer says one of the goals for the committee is to establish criteria for housing rental inspections.  He points out that right now, the City has no authority to handle complaints from renters if something isn’t getting repaired.

What he would like to see happen is to have some maintenance codes created so that when a renter files a complaint, the City could go back to the owner and request that repairs to the inside as well as the outside of their rental property is safe for the occupant.

However, Palmer notes, they don’t want to be too heavy-handed with any regulations.

“Like to establish this housing rental inspection on a complaint basis only.  We’re not going to notify all the property owners that we’re going to inspect the entire property every year of every five years.  It’s just going to be a complaint basis only to begin with.”

The housing committee includes several city staffers and council members Lisa Jaskey and Gary Von Ahsen.