City attorney briefs council on Durham tenant ordinance and Raleigh’s existing tenant protections

The city attorney briefed council on Durham’s tenant protection ordinance, which prohibits rent collection for units deemed imminently dangerous and contains misdemeanor penalties for noncompliance, and compared it to Raleigh’s existing regulatory framework.

City legal staff said Durham’s ordinance focuses on conditions such as unsafe wiring, structural instability, lack of potable water and no winter heating and that Durham adopted remedies including rent prohibition and criminal penalties for landlords who knowingly fail to remedy dangerous conditions. The city attorney noted that Raleigh’s minimum housing code already regulates nearly 800 specific housing conditions (structural safety, sanitation, weatherproofing, pest control) and that state law provides tenants a private right of action under the North Carolina Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act for knowingly renting unsafe units.

Staff reported current Raleigh resources: an online tenant information page maintained by Housing and Community Development, a tenants’ rights handbook from the fair housing board, legal assistance partnerships (Campbell University Blanchard Community Law Clinic, Wake County Legal Resource Center) and eviction prevention funding programs. The city attorney said staff will review the minimum housing code for potential revisions and coordinate with communications to develop an outreach campaign so tenants better understand available resources.

The briefing did not propose new ordinance language; it was framed as a comparison and an update on staff actions to audit code language and outreach.