Landlords Not Loving New Conshy Rental Ordinance

Several landlords spoke out against Conshohocken’s newest ordinance.

Conshohocken Borough Council on Wednesday night approved the Conshohocken Residential Rental License Permit Ordinance. As its name implies, the ordinance requires all owners of rental properties in the borough to apply annually for a rental license. There are also a slew of other changes to the existing rental ordinance, according to borough solicitor Michael Savona.

“The existing ordinances are kind of disjointed,” Savona said after the meeting. “We had an existing rental ordinance requirement that didn’t have any inspection component to it and there was a special license component … Ultimately we decided to go back to the drawing board and rewrite everything more coherently.” 

The new ordinance also calls for bi-annual inspections of rental properties by the code enforcement department, to be paid by the applicant, and the ordinance requires properties to have a “resident agent,” or a contact person, for landlords who don’t live within a 12-mile radius of the borough.

“The whole program is designed to be more proactive,” Savona said. “In all likelihood, we’re going to know if there’s a problem, and we’re going to be on top of things.”

Landlords seemed to have a problem with the section of the ordinance that allows the borough manager to revoke license permits on “nuisance” properties. And the “nuisance” aspect doesn’t just relate to the property itself … but the property’s tenants.

From the ordinance: “A nuisance property shall be … any property which is occupied by any tenant who has engaged in any or all of the following conduct…” That conduct includes drug possession, sale or use; underage drinking or possession of alcohol; illegal possession or discharge of firearms; possession of fireworks or noxious chemicals and untimely or excessive noise.

And any property that has its license permit revoked, is not eligible for a new or renewed license permit for three years.

Tammy East a Conshohocken real estate agent called the section “vague.”

“I don’t have the time to babysit properties,” she said.

Jamie Ridge, with the Suburban Realtors Alliance, of which 20 to 30 of its members do business in Conshohocken, also said that he thinks that that particular section of the ordinance is vague.

“What if there’s a single incident — a barking dog, a teenager with loud music … it seems to our members that stripping away the ability to do business for three years is very strong punishment,” Ridge said. “I am not here trying to protect bad landlords; we agree there should be a strong ordinance, but the vagueness [of the revocation section] is very scary for landlords.”

Savona said the ordinance isn’t vague.

“Nothing about this is perfunctory or draconian,” he said. “It’s pretty specific about what it would take to get you to have a problem with the borough.”