Landlords decry ordinance forcing them to clean up lead paint

Doug Guthrie / The Detroit News

Detroit --Child advocates are hailing a new ordinance that will require the clean up of lead paint inside rental properties before getting annual certificates of compliance.

But landlords are complaining that the sweeping new rules adopted Tuesday by City Council will cost them thousands.

"This is going to dramatically increase the cost to the good landlords," said Phillip Neuman, legislative chairperson of the Detroit Metropolitan Apartment Association. "I can tell you our membership isn't happy about this."

The ordinance takes effect Jan. 1 and will affect landlords throughout the year as the specific dates of their annual registrations come due. The costs of new inspections could top $500 apiece even before considering the price of rehabilitating an apartment found to contain poisonous lead paint.

Abatement of lead-painted surfaces including walls, windows and woodwork can cost from $2,000 for a small apartment to $20,000 for a full house, according to Mary Sue Schottenfels, executive director of ClearCorps Detroit, an organization dedicated to protecting children from lead poisoning.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy was among the new ordinance's supporters. She established a special unit to prosecute lead-poisoning cases in 2004. Assistant Prosecutor Mary DuFour Morrow, head of the special unit, said the city's new law is essential in moving away from the current practice of waiting to take action only after discovering violations. Morrow said the new law is designed to "stop using our children as human lead detectors."

The law currently calls for proof that a child got lead poisoning at a residence before a landlord can be prosecuted. The prosecutor has in five years negotiated the clean-up of 185 rental properties where injuries were shown to have happened before laws that make it a criminal offense to knowingly rent a lead-infested residence to families with children. There are 58 cases pending, and with funding from the Kresge Foundation, investigators are looking at 1,000 rental properties in Wayne County known to have housed children with lead poisoning.

"Exposure to lead in early childhood causes irreversible and irreparable harm to children in the form of brain damage, reduced IQ and a whole host of learning and behavioral problems. There also is a direct correlation between lead poisoning and juvenile delinquency," Morrow said.

Programs to train landlords in methods of fixing lead hazards and link with grant programs to help pay for the work are being offered through ClearCorps Detroit.

"We aren't just hanging landlords out to dry," Morrow said. "It shouldn't be cost prohibitive to meet the requirements of this law."

However, the Detroit Metropolitan Apartment Association, which represents many of the area's larger apartment complex owners, points out that with only a third of the estimated 80,000 rental units in Detroit properly registered, the new law will miss most of its targets while punishing law-abiding landlords with new inspection fees.

"For an apartment complex that has up to 600 units, the cost of the inspections alone will be astronomical," Neuman said. "We think this was aimed at the single family units that are more likely to not be in compliance, but it is still going to cost complex operators who are largely in compliance. We think this new law was far too broad-sweeping and expensive."

Lead-based paints were used before 1978, and the vast majority of Detroit's housing was built and painted long before then. Neuman said the plan should have been phased in to allow large apartment complex operators time to absorb the costs.

While proponents of the law say grants are available to help landlords rid their buildings of lead paint, Neuman said there are no programs to help pay the new inspection fees, and no program that he's aware of to help apartment complex owners pay for large-scale abatement.

dguthrie@detnews.com (313) 222-2548