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More than three years after the creation of a program intended to monitor rental properties in the town of Orono, several area landlords are questioning the legitimacy of the ordinance’s aims and accomplishments.
Some go so far as to conclude the measure was a way to restrict areas where college students are able to live.
First arriving before a town committee in November 2006 and being enacted in January 2008, the Rental Unit Registration Program was created to “monitor trends in rental properties within the town,” according to the ordinance.
Each year since, landlords have been required to register each of their units and pay a yearly $25 fee. The money was intended to fund the creation of a database of these properties that could be used to study changes in the town’s rental landscape.
A crucial part of this program was the creation of a rental property-town advisory committee composed of several landlords, residents, and officials from the fire and police departments. This committee was intended to educate landlords and tenants about the town’s rental laws and to act as moderator in the case that anyone should complain about a property.
During the two-year period in which leaders discussed the ordinance, an amendment was made to the land-use codes that changed the number of unrelated individuals who may live in a single unit from five to three across the majority of the town’s neighborhoods.
Town officials have stated this was intended to bring the town’s laws closer to state standards for boarding houses while also mitigating issues with parking and noise arising from the spread of rental properties into neighborhoods traditionally populated by single-family homes.
Three years and four months later, the town has created a $5,000 interactive map and Excel spreadsheet of rental units from the nearly $30,000 collected in annual fees.
The advisory board was disbanded by statute in June 2010, never receiving a single complaint and only formally meeting one time during its tenure.
According to Orono Police Chief Gary Duquette, the raging parties of yesteryear no longer plague the neighborhoods. He attributes this to another ordinance already in place before the first discussions of the registration program and alterations to occupancy allowances.
The annual fee structure
In order to achieve the goal of maintaining a database of rental properties, a fee structure was enacted alongside the registration program that charges landlords $25 per unit each year. According to revenue estimates in the 2008 budget, the town pulls in roughly $30,000 a year from the fees. The money is transferred to the General Fund.
With this money, the town paid the Old Town-based James W. Sewall Company $5,000 to create a geographic information system map, with another $1,500 paid each year for maintenance, according to Orono Code Enforcement Officer Bill Murphy.
The disparity between the total earned by the town and the amount expended for rental-related uses has become a bone of contention among some area landlords.
Dennis Cross of Cross Properties, who rents more than 50 units in Orono, said he would rather see money generated from this program be used to improve his apartments, especially since perceived inadequacies were a driving factor behind the move for registration.
“I would look at it that money generated from [the registration program] ought to be used somehow for the betterment of rental properties,” he said. “If there’s things you want to improve, work with us and don’t just fatten your coffers in the General Fund.”
Chad Bradbury of KC Management, which leases more than 100 apartments in the area, echoed Cross’ sentiments.
“So we said, ‘OK, here we are trying to upgrade our apartments,’” he said. “Maybe that money could be used for low-interest loans or something, but I think the town has just gotten used to spending it.”
According to Murphy, the situation may not be as simple as merely setting up an account to grant landlords money to improve their apartments.
“Just like any other license or permit, [the fees] get added to the general account for the town,” he said, adding he did not believe it “would even be legal” for the money to be used for a specific purpose.
Legal barriers aside, these landlords feel the fees collected under the registration program are simply an unfair additional charge to a group that pays a substantial portion of the town’s tax revenues.
“The part that can be bothersome to landlords is that we really are the biggest industry in the town of Orono,” Cross said. “I mean, Orono doesn’t have other industry, and we are a major contributor to the tax base.”
While KC Management and Cross Properties pay hundreds of dollars in these fees each year, stipulations in the leases these companies use would seem to suggest it is not hurting their businesses as much as their owners let on — close inspection of both companies’ lease agreements reveal fees are passed along to tenants.
This may come as a surprise to some who rent from these companies, especially students who Murphy characterized as notorious for only giving a passing glance to a lease before signing.
He said the majority of calls he receives from renters come at the beginning of the school year as students move in and realize what they have agreed to pay for.
“Parents will call and say, ‘My child has rented a place we do not feel is habitable,’” Murphy said. “I ask them, ‘Did you look at the place before you rented it? Did you know the place had no windows or broken windows before you rented?’”
A recent posting to the UMaine Forum on the FirstClass email server by student Jack McCabe would seem to confirm Murphy’s assessment of the student population’s attention to detail. On March 14, he wrote that he received a $25 bill from the town of Orono in relation to this fee.
“Anyone have any info on this or anything related any help would be grand,” McCabe wrote.
The Rental Property-Town Advisory Committee
When the ordinance was enacted, a 10-member advisory committee was created to act as both an information resource for landlords and tenants alike as well as helping to mitigate any complaints about rental units the town received.
According to the ordinance, the board was to be made up of three landlords, two tenants, one representative each from the fire and police departments, a member of UMaine’s administrative staff, and two individuals to speak on behalf of the town’s neighborhoods in which rental units are numerous.
As this “is just an informational ordinance,” as Town Planner Evan Richert explained, the creation of an advisory committee was seen during the initial talks as an integral part of the strategy to reduce problems with rental properties, something reflected in the ordinance’s language — more than a third of its 1,822 words are devoted to this body.
Despite the committee’s stated purpose, it would seem little came out of its formation. Several members of the body confirmed only one formal meeting was ever held throughout its tenure and no complaints were ever received.
Today the committee stands disbanded, as the ordinance’s sunset provision states the body “shall expire on June 30, 2010, unless, upon review of the effectiveness of and need for the committee, the town council extends it.”
When asked if his office ever received any calls about problematic rental properties, Murphy said, “Not really, no” and stated the town’s “landlords are willing to resolve issues” usually without official intervention.
Barbara Smith, a staff associate for Student Affairs at UMaine, said while most of the landlords leasing multiple properties generally comply with the law, the advisory committee was created with another group in mind.
“It’s the person who has an apartment above their garage and built it themselves who don’t know the codes,” she said.
Murphy said he has spoken with Orono’s new town manager, Sophie Wilson, about reviving the committee. However, no official action has yet been taken to that end.
Despite the stated efforts to inform and educate those involved in Orono’s rental process, minutes from town meetings paint a somewhat different picture.
The minutes from the Nov. 3, 2008, Community Development-Finance Committee meeting, 10 months after the ordinance was enacted, state that Murphy reported on the status of the registration effort. He also spoke about an inspection he carried out on a rental unit with six occupants.
Immediately thereafter, the written record states that Terri Hutchinson, then-chair of the Community Development committee, “encouraged Mr. Murphy to minimize the information given to tenants,” also noting “she did not want him to take abuse from people.”
Unfortunately, officials at the Orono town office could not locate an audio recording of this meeting and Hutchinson did not respond to requests for comment by press time, leaving this record without context.
If the record’s literal context holds, it would constitute an explicit instruction from a public official to the code enforcement officer to withhold information about a program formed in order to educate the public.
Bradbury described the program most succinctly.
“It’s really become a joke,” he said.
Michael Shepherd contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: Check Monday’s issue for part two of this story, detailing how stricter enforcement of existing policies has curbed disorderly property cases and how occupancy restrictions have affected Orono’s rental landscape.
