FeedsInspection fees prompt verbal spat
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The Inkster Housing Commission listens to Councilwoman Wanda Harris-Foster, who spoke at the meeting Tuesday.A protracted row about rental inspections of publicly-subsidized apartments erupted Tuesday night at the regular meeting of the Inkster Housing Commission.
The verbal sparring occurred after city Building Director Ralph Welton asked the housing commission why it was not complying with the city ordinance that requires rental inspections, while all of the independent landlords in the city were in compliance.
“The ordinance does excuse the housing commission – which is by far the biggest landlord in the city – from paying for inspections,” said Welton. “The compliance is absolutely dismal. I do think the fees for multi-unit buildings may be too much, and we’re prepared to cut them by almost 50 percent to ensure compliance.”
The housing commission answer to that, apparently, is no.
“HUD (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) has told us we cannot pay for rental inspections by a contractor with the funds we receive,” said Tony Love, the director of the Inkster Housing Commission. “A corporate agreement was put into place in the 1950s. We pay a pilot fee in lieu of taxes. That’s how it’s done.”
Love also said that HUD inspects units independently, and that the city should accept the results of that inspection.
“The inspection we have is more comprehensive than the one the city’s contractor would do,” he said.
The fee schedule for rental inspections is $150 per multi-family structure, with $50 per unit, payable every other year, Welton said. Inspections of public housing units could yield $80,000 to $90,000 per year for the city within the same period.
Love said the fees are a money grab by city hall, which has experienced fiscal woes during the past five years.
“They think we’re a cash cow, and they want our money, but it doesn’t work that way,” he said. “We had a gentleman from HUD go to a city council meeting to tell them we can’t pay for their fees. They know that.”
Welton said he doubts that the situation is that cut and dry.
“I’m disappointed that they don’t want to work with the city,” he said. “We’re wiling to reduce the amount of the fees to make it easier for them. There are other cities that charge for public housing inspections.”
A contractor hired several years ago has previously handled rental inspections. Welton and other city officials said they are not happy with the performance of the contractor, and may bring inspections in-house.
Rental inspections that have worked well elsewhere in the city cannot be justified if the commission does not comply, said Welton.
“I can accept that landlords may have a problem with the fees, but non-compliance is unacceptable,” he said. “They’re bound by the ordinance.”
Love said he thought the pilot agreement, as a federal document, would supercede local ordinances.
The housing commission is a semi-independent body that is appointed by the city council. Since the 1990s, a debate has raged between the two camps about the appropriateness of the size of the city public housing program. Inkster has more housing units than many cities three times its size; Dearborn has 680 units versus 700 in Inkster. Inkster also has more units than nearby Westland and Romulus.
Two critics of Inkster Housing – Councilwoman Wanda Harris Foster and Councilman Ron Johnson – attended the meeting. Once the general discussion about the rental inspections concluded, the number of units issue was raised again.
After another argument, Harris-Foster walked out of the meeting.
“I didn’t come here to argue,” she said. “I came to address a few specific concerns.”
James Orr, a resident of the housing program, criticized Harris-Foster and Johnson Tuesday.
“This is about helping people,” he said. “When I became injured and couldn’t work, they gave me a home.”
The city council and the commission locked horns late in 2006 after a dispute between the parties about $4.4 million in loan dollars that the commission would like to apply for under a program offered by the federal government. The council voted 4-3 not to make changes to a city ordinance that would have allowed the commission to borrow the money.
The reason the council gave for not voting in favor of the changes is the long-standing dispute about demolishing HUD-subsidized apartment units, which the commission said they cannot do because of the number of residents in the city that need assistance.
The rental inspection program will debated during the next several weeks, Welton said.
