Submitted by rhagp on Tue, 05/24/2011 - 16:25
Posted in
By Phil Owen, RHAGP President
From the February issue of the Update.
We recently participated in the city of Portland NITSAC (Neighborhood Inspections/Compliance Services) which is the stakeholder committee to work with the city of Portland housing inspections. Just a brief update, as you might know in this economy funding is tight for everyone including the City. To pay for the inspection program they have stepped up collection of fines that have been levied against property owners and made changes to the business license rules to include all Portland landlords including those with less than 10 units. As a large number of our members are owners of 10 units or less the changes in the Portland business license will affect them. There is a $ 50,000.00 gross income exemption which means that all landlords will have to file but the smallest will not have to pay a tax. However if they sell, the capital gains will be taxed.
Continuation of current enhanced capacity in the pilot area in East Portland will require continued on-going funding for a one- time General Fund funding of $604,000 & elimination of the business license exemption for 10 or less residential units. This will provide additional net general funds of $170-270,000 per Revenue Bureau estimates. In order to adopt the Enhanced Complaint Inspection Program throughout the City of Portland this would require additional funding of $442,500 (3 Housing Inspectors & one support person) for a total of $1,046,500 in Funding. In total, full funding would cost $1,870,000.
Business License Revenues received from Residential License Fees over the last several years:
Year # of Accounts Tax Liability
2007 2462 $2.03 million
2008 2467 $2.125 million
2009 2444 $1.45 million
2010 2180 $1.71 million
A per door tax on rental units has come up again but we have reminded everyone that we agreed to that when all of the provisions of the Quality Rental Housing Workgroup are being implemented. We are looking at revisiting the workgroup decisions since many of the baseline requirements have changed.
I am currently involved in a workgroup which has received funding to do a study on the health effects of the rental housing inspection program. This will be reported to the city council upon its conclusion, presumably to secure a more stable funding of the inspection program.
I hope this sheds a little more light on some of these changes and what the RHAGP is doing to represent its members. RHAGP had a very good year in 2011; we increased our membership, had record forms sales, and expanded our training classes to include the southwest Portland/Beaverton area. If you are a member of RHAGP, the board and staff are doing our best for you. If you’re not a member we would like to invite you to join and support the effort to improve the quality of the rental housing industry.
