Merced council adopts ordinance creating repeat housing code‑violators program

Merced City Council on June 15 adopted Ordinance 2591, adding Chapter 8.53 to the Merced Municipal Code to establish a repeat housing code‑violators program. The ordinance passed unanimously after residents urged faster repairs, reinspection timelines and tenant protection measures.

Advocates and tenants told the council they were frequently left in unsafe housing and wanted stronger enforcement tools. “This program will hold them accountable,” said Lata Rashard, who urged adoption and asked that the council include 30‑day repair timelines and six‑week reinspection clauses. Leadership Council policy advocate Ashley Marie Suarez said extending the rebuttable‑presumption period from six to 12 months helped prevent retaliatory evictions and was a welcome improvement.

City staff and council described the ordinance as a new enforcement chapter that creates referral and penalty mechanisms targeted at landlords with documented, recurring violations. Staff said fines and penalties will be returned to the council as a separate resolution establishing the fine schedule; council member questions about timing were answered with a commitment that the penalties schedule would return at the next meeting.

The council emphasized that the ordinance does not itself create a tenant‑relocation fund, but several public speakers and some council members urged the city to pair the code with funding for tenant relocation assistance and an eviction‑prevention pilot. Those funding proposals were discussed separately during the city budget hearing.

What happens next: the ordinance was adopted and becomes part of municipal code; the council directed staff to prepare the implementing resolution for fines and the administrative procedures that will govern inspections and penalties.

Speakers quoted in this article are drawn directly from the meeting record and include members of the public who identified themselves during the public‑comment period.