'We Did Not Weaken Anything': Worcester Rental Registry Reduced By Councilors

WORCESTER, MA — Worcester city councilors thinned the rental registry law they passed unanimously two years ago, and will allow an unknown number of rental properties to be exempt from registering and undergoing some safety inspections.

The changes made Tuesday follow months of protests by landlords and some councilors — including councilors who are either landlords or work in real estate — after the city officially launched the rental registry at a landlord summit in March.

Members of the council's Economic Development Committee held hearings over the last two months on several changes to the registry, and those changes were brought to council Tuesday with the backing of City Manager Eric Batista's administration. Some of the key changes include:

• Exempting any building newly built after September 2022 from the registry for five years
• Exempting all two and three-family owner occupied rental properties from the registry
• Also exempting all two and three-family owner occupied rental properties from state sanitary inspections, also called "110 inspections"
• Making any fines related to the program accumulate monthly instead of daily
• Allow third-party inspectors to conduct inspections required under the program

The exemptions for two and three-family owner-occupied homes proved to be the most controversial change to the program. District 5 Councilor Etel Haxhiaj — who along with At-Large Councilor Thu Nguyen were the sole "no" votes against the changes — said there's no evidence to support that owner-occupied properties are safer than ones owned by out-of-town landlords.

"Our job is to protect tenants from unsanitary conditions," Haxhiaj said. "We have zero evidence and zero data that homeowner-occupied units are in compliance with the law. And the reason we don’t have the data is because we’re not collecting it."

RELATED: What The Worcester Rental Registry Means For City

At-Large Councilor Moe Bergman, who along with his wife manages rental properties in Worcester through limited liability corporations, said landlords who live in their buildings are not "foolish enough to maintain a property in a dangerous way." He also said exempting two and three-unit properties would help the city conduct health and safety inspections faster.

Lee Hall, the city's chief inspector, told councilors she regularly sees owner-occupied properties that are in poor condition.

"My years of experience tell me that I see a lot of deferred maintenance in this city in owner-occupied properties," she said. Everything from bad experiences with tenants to family disputes prevent homeowner-landlords from making key upgrades, she said.

The rental registry is an expansive law that city officials say will modernize the rental landscape in Worcester. The law requires landlords to register their properties for a fee, and establishes a system for deeper rental inspections. Those inspections are outside the required state 110 inspections, which only require inspectors to view rental property common areas. State law requires 110 inspections for any building with three or more units.

City officials have said a lack of basic information about the number of rental properties and their owners has prevented critical health and safety inspections from taking place. The city's Department of Inspectional Services mostly relies on tenant complaints to find safety issues — but even those don't always prevent hazards, like in the case of the Gage Street fire in 2022 that killed four renters. The city doesn't even have basic contact information, like phone numbers, for many landlords, officials have said.

Since Gage Street, a married couple died in a fire in a triple-decker they owned along Hancock Street, and three people were injured and more than 30 people left homeless after a fire at the Washington Heights complex.

Several speakers at Tuesday's meeting asked councilors not to exempt two and three-family buildings from the registry, citing renter and firefighter deaths in recent years.

"Not only do inspections improve the quality of life of tenants, it’ll help save lives. Since 2010, the Worcester Fire Department has lost three firefighters in triple-decker fires," resident Benji Kemper said, referring to the deaths of Lt. Jason Menard, Christopher Roy and Jon Davies Sr.

Arthur Mooradian, owner of Mooradian Real Estate, told councilors that landlords should be trusted to take care of their tenants, and alleged the rental registry is more about collecting revenue than safety. Each rental unit costs $15 to register, and $5 annually after that.

"This is really all about taxes and nothing more," he said.

In a followup statement Wednesday morning, Haxhiaj also highlighted that inspections could help protect children from hazards like lead paint, asbestos and asthma triggered by environmental things like mold and cockroaches.

"By exempting these units, the Worcester City Council has made it harder for property owners to access information the City would have been able to share about deferred maintenance resources and rental assistance. The exemptions will also prevent our City from collecting critical property owner contact information in case of fire and other emergencies," she said.

District 2 Councilor Candy Mero-Carlson — chair of the Economic Development Committee, and whose district encompasses the Gage Street building where four renters died — said the changes are a way to reach a compromise between retaining the law and calming landlords surprised by the registry.

"We did not, and let me repeat, we did not weaken anything," she said. "I believe as leaders in this city, there are times we as councilors need to compromise. And one of those compromises is for the three and under owner-occupied [rentals]."

Councilors voted unanimously twice in 2022 to approve the rental registry ordinance. Councilors will have to vote to approve the new changes again this summer. Tuesday's vote was technically only to advertise the changes in a public notice.