By Sarah Stultz, AlbertLeaTribune.com

The rental housing task force gave its informal approval Thursday of a second proposed rental housing fee schedule, formulated by city staff, which would go hand-in-hand with a new rental housing ordinance if it is approved by the Albert Lea City Council.

The schedule, which divides all rental housing into five categories, rewards property owners with good properties, while giving property owners of poorly maintained properties more incentives to fix their places up.

Albert Lea Fire Chief and Building Inspector Paul Stieler discussed the five different categories with task force members present.

At the top would include the buildings that are 100-percent inspected by the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency with 24-hour staffing.

This would include buildings such as Shady Oaks, Senior Court and Senior Towers. They would have a city inspection every five years, as proposed.

The next group of buildings, the MHFA guaranteed-loan buildings that are subject to annual inspections by the MHFA, would be inspected by the city every four years, the proposal stated.

Then would come rental units with less than 10 points of violations after the initial inspection &8212; which the city estimated is around 89 percent of the rental units &8212; that would receive city inspections every two years.

Rental buildings with 11 to 20 points in violations &8212; about 7 percent of rental units &8212; would receive inspections every two years and properties with more than 21 points in violation &8212; about 4 percent of rental units &8212; would be inspected every year.

&8220;Those that we&8217;re having trouble with, we would be back there more often because those are the units that need the most watching,&8221; Stieler said.

Landlords raised concerns over the prices of the fees, though they have not been passed yet. They asked that the initial inspection of a rental property and possibly

a follow-up inspection be free of cost to help them with the transition of the program.

Stieler and Inspector Mark Roche said they would consider something like this. Their point of requiring the fees, however, was to assure that problems would be fixed quickly and the city inspectors would not have to keep coming out to the same property time and time again.

If landlords have any problem with the inspection results, they have always have the opportunity to take the decisions to the city&8217;s board of appeal, too, they said.

Landlord Steve Kurth said he liked the concept behind the schedule, which would help save the landlords time and money if they met the requirements, compared to if they did not.

Roche said the initial inspections would cover major life and safety issues, along with nuisance issues, including aspects such as molds, leaks, handrails, bad steps, flooring, house numbers, extinguishers.

&8220;We&8217;re looking at it in a multiple-step process,&8221; he said. &8220;Nobody wants to get hammered right off the bat.&8221;

The discussion was formulated after, the Albert Lea City Council voted in April to table the ordinance that would have established a method of registering landlords and enforcing the already-in-place minimum housing standards to the living conditions of people who rent apartments and houses.

The ordinance would have required that before receiving a license, landlords would be required to have an inspection of their properties prior to renting them. Then, subsequent inspections would be conducted every few years, depending on the results of the previous inspection. More than a dozen landlords showed opposition to this idea at that council meeting.

During Thursday&8217;s task force meeting, the group also talked about the impact any licensing and inspection fees would have on them personally and as business people in the community.

The landlords indicated that if something like this ordinance were to pass, all of their rents would have to be raised to cover the costs of inspections and any repairs.

The group also looked at a proposed rental property inspection form, which helped give the landlords a clearer idea of what would be expected of them.

&8220;What I see here today is realistic,&8221; said landlord Mike Carstens. &8220;What I&8217;ve seen in the last few weeks was not.&8221;

Task force members also discussed whether it should be required to provide trash pickup to tenants, and what the impact would be on the housing market if an ordinance like this were to pass.

The landlords requested that the next task force meeting not be held until after the Responsible Landlord Association of Albert Lea&8217;s next meeting on June 10. That way, they could discuss the most recent two meetings with the other landlords and then bring back their discussions to the task force.

The next meeting was scheduled for 6 p.m. June 26.