Apartment owners and city officials are in accord on new inspection requirements established to address apartment safety.
As part of a series of new ordinances, owners must register with the City of Houston to be scheduled for routine inspections.
Registration began this month for owners with as few as three residential rental units, with inspections starting in April.
Some 2,000 apartment owners with 10 or more units who signed up with Houston as part of a security ordinance passed in 2006 will need to update their information as part of the new registration process.
Under the new system, each property will be inspected once every four years, or sooner if the city receives a complaint concerning safety issues.
Many of the city’s previous inspections were done as a reaction to reported problems. The new program, which is supported by the Houston Apartment Association, is designed to be proactive instead of reactive.
“We worked really closely with the city for over a year trying to craft this,” says Andy Teas, a spokesman for the Houston Apartment Association.
Property owners will be charged $4 per unit with a minimum of $100 for the inspections.
Andy Icken, deputy director of the city’s public works and engineering department, estimates there are 3,500 to 4,000 complexes in Houston, so roughly 1,000 complexes will be inspected each year. Townhomes are not included in the program.
Icken says no new personnel will be required for the inspections, although some staff members may be reallocated to work on the program.
“The goal is to get people to live in safe places,” Icken says.
Kim Small, president-elect of Houston Apartment Association, says the new program won’t be a major change for owners because the city has always done inspections.
“We feel it’s going to be more effective and efficient,” says Small, senior vice president of the Morgan Group Inc.
Property owners who are required to make repairs based on an inspection will only have six months to bring their property into compliance, not two years like it was before.
Says Small: “That really makes sure everybody gets up to speed pretty quickly.”
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