College Park council delays early-lease ordinance, schedules work session after student pushback

College Park’s mayor and council voted on Tuesday to remove a proposed early-lease ordinance from the night’s action calendar and to schedule a dedicated work session to continue revisions, after a heated public comment period led primarily by students.

The motion to postpone the ordinance — introduced by Councilmember Denise Mitchell — won on a 5–3 roll call. Council members Hill, Jordan, Simmons, Mackey and Mitchell voted to move the ordinance to the Feb. 3 meeting; Councilmembers Hernandez, Oates and Ranker opposed the tabling. The council then voted to add a topical work session to discuss the ordinance in greater detail.

The ordinance under discussion would set a timeline for when landlords may approach tenants with renewal offers and would establish a short statutory window for tenants to return a signed lease. City Attorney Stephanie Anderson, who recrafted draft language after stakeholder meetings, said she removed a proposed "good-cause" nonrenewal provision amid concerns that it could invite legal challenges and instead condensed the renewal process so an offered lease and any changes are returned within a 15‑day period. "I deleted that reference out of the ordinance," Anderson said when explaining the edits, and described other revisions that tighten timelines and add written-waiver mechanics.

Students and tenant advocates, who packed the meeting and provided testimony during public comment, urged council members not to postpone. "Please don't keep kicking it down the road when we just want our voices to be heard," Yonah Gross, a District 3 resident and student, told the council. Student liaisons who worked on the proposal told the council they support a rule preventing landlords from initiating renewals too early but pushed to preserve the 180‑day window counted from the lease end date rather than start date. "15 days is a long enough time," one student liaison said when asked about the proposed lease-return window.

Councilmembers raised competing concerns. Some said the draft’s timelines — as initially framed from the start of the lease — would create inconsistent renewal dates across 8‑, 12‑ and 18‑month tenancies and suggested basing the calendar on lease end dates so all tenants get consistent notice. Others said the 15‑day return requirement gives landlords necessary certainty about whether a unit will remain occupied.

Attorney Anderson and staff agreed to continue stakeholder outreach, incorporate council feedback and present a revised draft in advance of the Feb. 3 meeting. The council emphasized the goal of balancing tenant protections, legal vulnerability and clarity for property owners. The work session added by the council will allow a more detailed review and additional public input before any final vote.