Local real estate agents met with the Meridian City Council on Tuesday to weigh in on a proposed rental property ordinance intended to give the city more options when dealing with poorly maintained properties.

Under the ordinance, owners of rental property will have to register their properties with the city and provide owner contact information that the city can use if code violations are found. Community Development Director Craig Hitt previously told the council that the city does not currently have any information on which properties are rentals or how to get in contact with the owners.

The majority of rental properties in the city are kept up, and code enforcement, which falls under his department, is not looking to cause trouble for those owners, Hitt said. The ordinance is intended to help the city address those few properties that are uninhabitable, he said.

Hitt said some examples the city has encountered include an apartment complex that was without running water for over a month and an instance where residents were dealing with raw sewage backing up into the street.

“The bottom line is we have some properties in the city of Meridian that are not suitable to be living in,” he said.

Using his department’s current enforcement powers, Hitt said addressing such issues takes a minimum of two months and likely longer as code enforcement must mail a letter to the owner, wait for a reply, set a court date, ask the court to enforce the rules and so on. Having a name and contact information of who to call to get problems addressed will drastically reduce the time and manpower it takes to handle these cases, he said.

City Attorney Will Simmons said ultimately the city could shut down a rental property if it is deemed uninhabitable and no efforts are made to correct the problems.

Malcom Martin, president of East Mississippi REALTORS, said the intention behind the ordinance is good, but he and other local real estate agents were concerned it will have unintended consequences for Meridian’s rental housing market. His organization learned about the ordinance roughly a week ago, he said, and hasn’t had time to study the proposed law.

“We haven’t had an opportunity to study the impact,” he said.

The agents making up the East Mississippi REALTORS manage roughly 300 rental units throughout the city, Martin said, and need time to speak with the property owners. The group can also reach out to the National Association of REALTORS for information and guidance gleaned from other municipalities, he said.

Steve Corey, of Pigford & Corey Realtors, said there are also a lot of unanswered questions about the ordinance that could scare off rental property owners. Violations can range from no water or power to something as small as a missing doorstop, and owners need to know what type of violation will result in a place being closed, he said. The city also needs to explain what the appeals process will be if an owner wants to contest the findings.

If the ordinance is too heavy handed, some rental property owners may decide it isn’t worth it and sell their properties. That could cause a shortage of available rentals and drive up costs for Meridian residents, he said.

Whatever ordinance council members approve, they should vote with the understanding that additional costs placed on rental property owners will be paid for by tenants, Terry Winstead of Winstead Realty said.

“This is going to result in rent increases,” he said. “These costs are going to be passed on.”

Martin said his organization would like to have several months to fully unpack the proposed ordinance and study the potential impact. The group will also share its findings with community development, he said, to help refine the ordinance further if needed.