University Heights committee: short-term rental ordinance enforceable but staffing and software delays slow rollout

The University Heights Building and Housing Committee on Jan. 21 was told the city’s short-term rental ordinance is enforceable, but officials said staffing shortfalls and unfinished work on the CitizenServe permitting system are keeping the city from enforcing it.

Councilwoman Win Weizer, chair of the committee, opened the meeting by revisiting an ordinance developed after resident complaints about short-term rentals. “I was comfortable with [the Law Director’s] decision that this was an enforceable ordinance,” Weizer said, citing a recent conversation with Law Director Brad Bryan.

Mayor Michael Dylan Brennan told the committee he had not been enforcing the ordinance and said he had been awaiting a legal opinion. Brennan also said the Housing Department was short-staffed: offers for new positions have been extended but new hires had not yet started.

Law Director Brad Bryan told the committee the ordinance can be enforced and that similar programs exist in other communities. “They had written it so it could be enforceable,” Bryan said, noting enforcement requires staff time to review applications, inspect properties and verify listings advertised online.

Housing Director Markell Davis told members she did not have the staff to carry out the workload now. Davis described administrative complexity in the city’s CitizenServe system — noting that a seemingly small task such as a special pickup requires many internal steps — and said CitizenServe currently lacks the specific fields and workflows for apartment registrations and short-term rental tracking the city needs.

Committee members urged Davis to consult other cities and CitizenServe for templates and training. Vice Mayor Michele Weiss and others encouraged Davis to visit nearby municipalities that already use the platform to learn best practices; Davis said she was attending monthly housing committee meetings with other cities and would follow up.

The meeting also turned to apartment registration fees after Davis provided data showing 31 apartment buildings in University Heights, including several large complexes. The committee acknowledged that a flat $500 registration fee per building was inequitable, since it charged the same amount for a 94-unit building and a four-unit building. Bryan and members proposed tiered fees with a minimum and stepped rates for larger buildings so fees better align with administrative work.

Bryan said the committee should separate registration from inspection scheduling: owners would pay and file registration materials to be placed on the roster, while interior inspections would follow on a staggered schedule (roughly one-third of units each three-year cycle). That separation would simplify initial registration while preserving inspection oversight, Bryan said.

The committee agreed to return a revised ordinance to Council that would: set tiered apartment registration fees, separate registration from inspection procedures, and account for CitizenServe configuration and staffing needs. Davis said registration mailings were scheduled for March but that staffing delays had complicated that timeline; Brennan and Davis indicated hires were expected within about a month.

Councilman Christopher Cooney moved to adjourn; Councilman John Rach seconded. The committee agreed by voice vote and the meeting ended.

Next steps: the committee instructed staff to work with CitizenServe for the necessary modules and to bring a clean, amended ordinance to the next Council meeting that separates registration and inspection processes and establishes tiered fees.