Rental Housing License

All residential rental properties are required to license their rental property annually by December 31 of every year for the next successive year.

Rental housing is any property that contains a building or division of a building that is rented or available for rent as a dwelling or habitation to any person or persons and includes rental of a house, home, apartment, room, or bed for a time period which may terminate upon a certain event, a specific term, or for a series of periods until cancelled, or at-will. Rental housing does not include owner-occupied single family dwellings or properties containing dwellings in a cooperative, condominium, or townhouse occupied by a family as defined in Chapter 280: Zoning, none of which are rented.

  • Non-rented, single-family and HUD Manufactured Housing are not required to obtain a license. 
  • Section 8, Housing Choice Voucher rental property must obtain a license.
 License application contact information is collected from property owner/manager for the purpose of:

  1. Scheduling inspections
  2. Emergency service contact
  3. Addressing tenant complaints with the property owner
  4. Outreach and education (in addition to code compliance, the program can help property owners with some leases disclosures such as State Law required Smoking Disclosure, and develop a lease addendum for disclosure for drug use and growing or manufacturing policy.)
License Fees to cover the cost of the program are per property fee according to the assessing category as follows:

  1. $100 for single family
  2. $200 for two family
  3. $300 for three family
  4. $400 for four to seven family
  5. $500 for eight plus family
  6. $100 plus $100 per dwelling unit up to $500 for mixed use properties

“Good Neighbor” Credit Program - Properties that are licensed on-time and pass an inspection in compliance with the program are eligible for a fee reduction of 50% per property in the following year. These properties will be inspected less frequently.

Properties recently constructed are exempt from the fee for a period of two years, but are required to get a license and automatically roll into the “Good Neighbor” Credit Program.

Rental housing containing owner-occupied units may deduct $100 per owner-occupied unit.

Failure to license on time may result is a civil violation and carries a civil penalty and is subject to a fine of $500 per property in addition to the fee for licensing. An appeal may be taken to the Board of Appeals to hear appeals of order, decisions, or determinations made to application and application of this code.

For further detail see the City Code Chapter 149, Article V: Rental Housing

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