Carbondale staff reports on proposed Title IV changes; rental security deposit rules draw concern

City staff on April 10 briefed the Carbondale City Council on proposed amendments to Title IV of the Carbondale Revised Code, a package of landlord-tenant provisions that staff said had been the subject of a public information session on April 3.

Staff told the council that 31 people (excluding staff) attended the April 3 session and that attendees who requested notifications had received an annotated PDF of the proposed code changes in advance. The distributed draft included hyperlinks to current code language, relevant state statutes and other municipal codes used as sources.

A central staff recommendation discussed at the meeting was to adopt the state security-deposit statutory language while adjusting coverage thresholds. Staff proposed changing the thresholds so that security-deposit rules and interest-payment requirements would apply based on the total number of units a landlord owns, manages or operates (for example, 25 or more units), regardless of whether those units are in a single building or on contiguous parcels. Staff said the current statutory language, which can treat contiguous parcels and single-building counts differently, presents a loophole that lets some large owners avoid requirements by parceling holdings.

Councilmembers raised process and sequencing questions. Councilmember Doherty and Councilmember Ry Sanders said they prefer the city consider rental licensing together with the Title IV amendments; Doherty said licensing “started this whole process” and recommended stakeholders be given more opportunity for input. Several councilmembers said they would like to see stakeholder feedback integrated into a revised draft and returned to council for additional review.

Members of the public at the meeting urged more extensive outreach and additional forums. Ron Diedrich of Illinois Realtors told the council the April 3 session was a useful first step but said his table alone generated many additional issues that were not captured in the draft; he recommended several more forums. Other speakers asked for clearer draft language on access times and lockout fees — staff said lockout fees may only be charged up to the actual cost under the present draft and that the council could choose to set a maximum fee instead.

Staff asked council for direction to bring a revised ordinance back at a subsequent meeting incorporating amendments suggested during the public session. Councilmembers were split on sequencing (piecemeal adoption of some provisions versus bundling licensing and Title IV changes), and staff said the next step would be incorporation of feedback and an amended ordinance for future council consideration.

No formal vote on the Title IV amendments was taken at the April 10 meeting.