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Housing back on city council agenda
BY TED NORGAARD
STATESMAN STAFF WRITER
iISSUE: 78/24
Graph informatirmation from the City of Duluth
The map demonstrates the proposed area for
the moratorium that was temporarily removed,
Monday night, from the city council agenda.
The proposed moratorium would have halted
new rentals around the campuses of UMD and
the College of St. Scholastica.
TYLER SWEENEY / STATESMAN
A house in the proposed moratorium area.
Monday at the Duluth City Council meeting a moratorium that would have suspended new rental properties for one year in the UMD area was axed. However, the city council still wants to change the city’s current rental ordinance so it only affects neighborhoods that are approximately three miles in any direction from UMD, potentially leading to higher rent for homes in this area.
“This is an economic question, and I don’t see this as a benefit to students,” said Ray Peterson who owns and rents properties in the UMD area. “If you are shrinking the supply of rental homes, then theoretically it means that the rent will go up by creating more demand for housing.” At the end of last summer, the Duluth City Council passed the 300-foot rule, meaning that a rental license would not be issued for any given property if it’s within 300 feet of an existing rental property. The rule was enacted to try to alleviate Duluth’s rental problems. However, before the 300-foot restrictions were enacted the city was flooded with requests for rental licenses, theoretically from homeowners that had been already been renting, just without a license.
To curb the high amount of requests for rental licenses from homeowners trying to beat out the implementation of the 300-foot rule, the city council passed another ordinance that put a halt on these activities last November. The ordinance states that whenever the city council proposes a new moratorium (like the 300-foot rule) the city immediately stops issuing any new permits, building or rental, until the proposed moratorium is voted on by the city council.
Now the city council, particularly President Roger Reinert, feels that requiring all of Duluth to abide by the 300-foot rule may be asking too much. In reaction to this Reinert introduced the idea of getting rid of the 300-foot rule and replacing it with a new rental moratorium that only restricts rentals in the UMD and College of St. Scholastica (CSS) area.
Because of the implications from the previous ordinance mentioned above, the city council withdrew its proposed rental moratorium to prevent any negative effects caused from the stop of issuing any and all building and rental licenses, as was provisioned for in the ordinance. Rienert told the Duluth News Tribune Tuesday about a new proposal that involves shrinking the 300-foot rule so it only affects neighborhoods surrounding UMD (similar to the proposed moratorium that was disbanded earlier in the week).
“This ordinance is very short-sided,” said Peterson. “The issues aren’t necessarily related to property ownership. I think if they (city council) went to the root of this, they’d say we need this ordinance because of parking issues, or we need this because of noise complaints.” Peterson said that this problem has been unfairly portrayed as a problem created soley by students. He also fails to see how taking property rights away from homeowners is going to get current tenants to change their behavior, especially when it’s not their rights being violated.
“It’s a real drastic thing to affect one’s property rights,” Peterson said. “The only people I see this benefiting are current landlords.” Currently, the city council is planning on voting on the new ordinance Monday, March 24 at 7 p.m. in the Duluth City Hall. The Statesman was unable to reach Rienert and Mayor Don Ness for further comments.
