Responding to a growing number of conversions of single-family homes into rentals, Mounds View is broadening its licensing and inspection requirements to include all rental properties.
Previously, the city had licensed only multi-unit rental properties. But in recent years, more single-family homes are being rented out -- a result, city officials said, of increasing home foreclosures.
The City Council unanimously amended the licensing requirements at a meeting Monday. The city's housing code and enforcement inspector, Jeremiah Anderson, said licenses will be issued in September, contingent on successful inspections this summer.
About 50 homes in Mounds View are expected to be affected by the change. The city doesn't have an exact number because it has not monitored single-family rentals.
"This is a new thing for us," Anderson said Tuesday. "There's a lot of homes out there that are for sale, and they're being purchased by entities that probably are not going to be occupying them. They end up being sold to an investor and rented out until the market picks up again and they can find a qualified buyer."
Problem renters have not been a widespread issue, he said, but on a couple of occasions last year the city had trouble contacting absentee owners while investigating repeated complaints about noise and parking problems.
The issue of increasing single-family rentals cropped up in late 2005 and escalated in 2006 and '07.
Mounds View, with a population of just under 13,000, has about 5,000 housing units. Anderson, who has done inspections for the city since the late 1990s, said he used to be able to count the number of foreclosed properties on one hand. Now, he said, there are about 50 in the city.
Many suburbs, including Hopkins, St. Louis Park, Blaine and Shoreview, have started licensing single-family rentals in recent years.
Educational seminars for "accidental" new landlords -- people who have trouble selling their homes and end up renting them out -- is one service provided by the Minnesota Multi Housing Association, a nonprofit trade organization.
Tina Gassman, the association's director of public relations, said hard numbers on such accidental landlords are difficult to find. Anecdotally, she said, "There's a lot more single-family rentals out there that are inflating the rental stock."
Mounds View officials said Monday that the city received only two e-mails about the change in licensing.
One e-mail favored the move and one opposed it on the grounds that it was "overgoverning," Mayor Rob Marty said at the meeting.
Council Member Carol Mueller said the change should be seen as "a really big win" for property owners as well as the city.
Council Member Joe Flaherty agreed. "We don't want to get into people's business and govern their lives," he said, but expanding licensing requirements helps protect owners from problem tenants, too.
Eric M. Hanson • 612-673-7517
