The Portland City Council is poised to create a housing safety office in an effort to move toward conducting annual inspections of all rental apartments, including occasional rentals such as Airbnb.

The council on Monday also is scheduled to vote on a proposal to create a citywide minimum wage, as well as a proposal to rezone most of the Catherine McAuley High School to allow for a senior housing project. Deering residents previously turned out against the senior housing proposal, prompting the developer to scale back the project by about 25 percent.

Mayor Michael Brennan said he hopes that councilors will approve the proposals, especially the housing safety office, which was recommended by a task force assembled in the wake of a fire that killed six young people last fall.

“I am very supportive of it,” Brennan said. “There’s been a lot of thought that has been put into it.”

After the Nov. 1 fire, it was revealed that the property at 20-24 Noyes St. was in foreclosure and several complaints were made by area residents, including about improper storage of flammable material on the front porch and a possibly illegal unit on the third floor. Fire investigators later determined the blaze was caused by improperly disposed smoking materials on the front porch, and that the smoke detectors had been disconnected and an emergency exit was blocked.

It was also revealed that two-family houses are not part of any proactive inspection program run by the city. And a Maine Sunday Telegram investigation found that the city’s inspections program suffered from poor record-keeping and spotty follow-up.

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More recently, in April Donald Stain, 53, fell to his death from a second-story porch at his apartment at 563 Cumberland Ave., when the railing he was leaning on gave way, prompting a renewed call for a more proactive inspection program for rental units.

Roughly half of Portland’s 66,000 residents live in rental housing, much of which is old and in need of repair.

The housing safety office would include three new inspectors who would be cross-trained in fire safety and building codes, as well as an administrative assistant who would maintain a registry of landlords and an online database of inspections and complaints of rental properties. The new office would be overseen by a top-level official, who would coordinate inspections across various departments and report directly to the city manager.

Inspections would be prioritized by buildings that pose the highest risk. A risk score would be assigned to each property based on the number of previous violations, complaints and type of construction, among other factors. That information would be available to the public online.

City staff estimates the new program will cost $335,000, which is $165,000 less than the original estimate of $500,000. The program was included in the city’s $225 million budget, but would be funded by a $35 per unit fee assessed on landlords when they register their rental units annually.

Currently, firefighters and code enforcement officers inspect rental properties. However, code officers only respond to and investigate specific complaints and firefighters only inspect businesses and rental properties with three or more units.

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An ordinance change that will be presented to the council would expand the fire department’s authority to include single- and two-family rentals, which make up much of the rental buildings in the city.

While there is no proposed requirement for the city to inspect each rental unit annually, City Councilor Edward Suslovic, who chairs the public safety committee, which endorsed the proposal 4-0, hopes the ordinance change involving firefighters will move the city closer to that goal. He estimates that each fire company in the city would only need to conduct eight inspections a week to inspect all rental housing on an annual basis.

Suslovic said firefighters could then refer “suspicious” situations to the housing safety office for follow-up and possible enforcement action.

“I think it’s very reasonable to have each company do one inspection a day and two on Sunday,” Suslovic said. Such inspections would allow firefighters to educate renters about ways to prevent fires. “It really is all about getting out and doing proactive inspections and using those inspections for public education.”

City staff is expected to report back to the council in September with additional details about the inspection program, including financial incentives for landlords who strive to have safe buildings. Registration discounts could be offered for buildings that have a no-smoking policy, functioning fire alarms and sprinklers, or independent inspections that meet the city’s safety standards.

Brit Vitalius, president of the Southern Maine Landlords Association, said the group supports the proposal, including the fee, even though it is $10 a unit higher than what the task force recommended. That support is contingent on the continued involvement of the association as the program begins to take shape, particularly around the discounts for landlords that demonstrate a commitment to safety.

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“We want to stay involved as a stakeholders group,” Vitalius said. “The devil’s still going to be in the details. We want to make sure it’s in line with our vision.”

Landlords who fail to register with the city would be fined $100 a day and those who provide false information would be fined $1,000. Those facing fines would be able to appeal before the city manager and ultimately a judge. Inspectors also could issue citations for safety violations that are not addressed in a reasonable amount of time.

SENIOR HOUSING

The council is also set to vote on a proposal to rezone 13.5 acres of McAuley High School’s 17.5-acre campus at 605 Stevens Ave. to allow for the development of senior housing in buildings up to 60 feet tall.

The council held a public hearing about the proposal June 15. Neighborhood residents turned out 2-1 against the project, which would have allowed construction of more than 300 units of senior housing. Since then, the developers, Sea Coast Management, have agreed to eliminate 85 of those units, for a total 249.

Residents who organized the Preserve Deering Neighborhood group have said they support the new proposal. Brennan hopes the council will follow suit.

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“I’m very pleased by the fact that the developer was able to sit down with people from the neighborhood and they were able to reach an agreement,” Brennan said. “I hope the council is very supportive of the compromise that will be presented.”

MINIMUM WAGE

The council also is expected to vote on a proposal to create a citywide minimum wage that is higher than the state minimum of $7.50 an hour.

The proposal recommended by the Finance Committee would set a citywide minimum of $8.75 an hour on Jan. 1, 2016; $9.25 an hour on Jan. 1, 2018; and $9.75 an hour on Jan. 1, 2020.

The committee pared down the wage out of concern about the effect it would have on small businesses.

Tipped workers would continue to be paid half of the state minimum wage.

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During a public hearing in April, the proposal for a city minimum wage was opposed by the Portland Community Chamber of Commerce, the Maine Restaurant Association and the Maine Retailers Association, but was supported by progressive and pro-labor groups such as the Maine People’s Alliance, the Maine Women’s Lobby and the AFL-CIO.

Several councilors are expected to offer an amendment that would restore the original proposal put forward by Brennan, who advocated for a citywide wage in early 2014. The amendment would set a wage of $10.10 an hour on Jan. 1, 2016; $10.68 an hour on Jan. 1, 2017; and set automatic annual increases that would be tied to the Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation, every July 1 beginning in 2018.

The council vote comes against a backdrop of other efforts to increase the minimum wage.

The Portland Green-Independent Committee has collected enough signatures for a November referendum that would establish a $15-an-hour minimum wage in the city, while the Maine People’s Alliance is currently gathering signatures for a statewide referendum in 2016 to raise the wage to $9 an hour in 2017, with $1 a year increases until it reaches $12 in 2020.


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