The city is taking steps to tighten up Corvallis' Rental Housing Code to give tenants additional protections and shorten the timeline for landlords to fix critical problems.

Several modifications to the code, which was enacted in 2002, have been proposed by the Corvallis Housing Division. At a noon meeting Tuesday, a City Council subcommittee voted to recommend the changes to the full council on Dec. 1. No public hearing is scheduled.

Noting that more than half the population of Corvallis lives in rentals, Housing Division Director Kent Weiss said the code was due for an update.

"We put the code together wanting it to be as inclusive as possible in areas we identified as shortcomings in the state Landlord-Tenant Law," Weiss said. "We knew up front there would be some things we'd want to tweak along the way."

The biggest tweak would drastically cut the amount of time landlords or property managers have to respond to repair requests from their tenants. For critical needs such as the complete lack of heat, hot water or any functioning toilet, sink or smoke detector in the rental unit, landlords would have to begin making repairs in 48 hours.

Other changes would include requiring landlords to provide rental units with working smoke detectors and locks or latches for all windows and doors.

Similar requirements already are part of the Oregon Landlord-Tenant Law, but the state provides no enforcement provisions short of going to court. Adding smoke detectors and locks to the Rental Housing Code would give firefighters and other city employees an enforcement tool to force landlords to act.

Under the current city code, landlords have 10 days from the time a renter gives written notice of the problem to begin repairs. With additional lag time for the city to investigate, property owners can take up to 24 days to act before sanctions kick in. Offending landlords can be fined up to $250 a day for each violation.

"What we've seen is - in a few cases - they'll play it out to the full 24 days and then begin to take action," Weiss said.

The shorter timeline applies only to the most pressing concerns, meaning that landlords would have the longer timeline for less-pressing matters, such as leaking faucets.

Jerry Duerksen, one of several rental property managers contacted by city staff to review a draft of the new code language, said he had no problem with the proposal.

"The reason it doesn't bother us is we've been doing it that way. That's our policy," said Duerksen, whose company manages about 750 rental units in Corvallis.

"It doesn't make any sense to put off maintenance issues," he added. "Once they get started, they only get worse."

Dolf deVos, president of Investors Property Management Group, said he also supports the changes.

But both men expressed concerns about the precise wording of the ordinance.

Would landlords be expected to complete all repairs covered by the new code provisions in 24 hours, even major operations such as replacing a broken furnace? And what about repair requests that came in on a weekend?

"Making sure that landlords are responding in a reasonable manner in a reasonable time, I don't have a problem with that. But the city can't tie a landlord's hands to the point of forcing them to make a bad economic decision with a spiked club over their head," said deVos, whose company has more than 700 Corvallis rental units under management. "It's Murphy's Law, but nine times out of 10, we'll get a call at 10 minutes to 5 on a Friday afternoon," he added. "It's not practical in some cases for a 24/7 response if it's not truly an emergency."

Weiss said the code incorporates city policies that provide some flexibility in enforcing the 48-hour time limit, especially when the issue arises on a weekend or holiday. At the minimum, however, the Housing Division would expect to see a genuine good-faith effort.

"What we would desire from that is a remedy within 48 hours, but we want them to at least be able to make the case that a solution is under way."

That said, Weiss stressed that there are relatively few serious conflicts between landlords and tenants in Corvallis.

"There are a lot of really good property managers out there who do a really good job of looking out for the interests of both their tenants and their clients, as opposed to the few who don't do a good job of that," Weiss said. "We just haven't had a huge number of those types of issues."

Bennett Hall can be reached at 758-9529 or bennett.hall@lee.net.