Committee adopts amended rental-registration fee schedule, forwards Ordinance 101024 to council

The Evanston Planning and Development Committee on Jan. 27 voted to amend and approve Ordinance 101024, which updates Title 5 (Housing Regulations), Chapter 8 (Registration of Rental Residential Buildings), changing annual renewal and inspection fees and moving the amended ordinance to the full City Council.

The ordinance matters because it establishes a new fee schedule and inspection-fee structure that will affect rental-property owners across Evanston, from single-unit “mom-and-pop” landlords to institutional owners, and clarifies inspection frequency tied to unit-level violations. Committee members and staff said the change responds to stakeholder feedback and an inspection program that the city says had not had a fee update since 2008.

Public comment opened with Eric Passett, who identified himself as a North Shore Apartments and Condos manager and a 4th Ward resident. Passett said he has no objection to inspections but raised concerns about how violations are counted and how inspection frequency would apply to larger buildings. “So if we have 10 violations in a 100 unit building, that’s not too many,” Passett said, urging clearer, objective thresholds and more time to…