As St. Paul prepares to rewrite rent control, last-minute amendments loom

Concerned by a dramatic slowdown in housing construction St Paul Mayor Melvin Carter has called on the city council to adjust the city s rent control ordinance to fully exempt residential buildings constructed after Council President Rebecca Noecker Council Members Anika Bowie and Saura Jost have signed on as sponsors of a major amendment that will do that and a supportive vote from at least one more council member looms likely giving the seven-member council the majority it requirements to make fundamental changes Wednesday to the cap on annual rent increases approved by city voters in That hasn t stopped two council members who favor rent caps from proposing last-minute amendments of their own with the goal of salvaging what they can of one of the nation s strictest municipal rent control policies They ve noted that housing construction has also slowed in a great number of cities that did not institute rent control including Minneapolis and Denver I won t be supporting either of them and at the moment it doesn t seem like they have majority assistance but you never know until the vote commented Noecker on Tuesday Council Member Nelsie Yang has proposed an amendment to drop the permanent exemption from rent control for buildings built after and replace it instead with a -year exemption effectively mirroring the timeframe of a construction mortgage In other words years after being issued its certificate of occupancy a new building becomes subject to the city s rent control mandate That exemption lengthens an existing -year exemption for new construction which was approved by the council with the mayor s encouragement in Her proposal s chances of passing are unclear Prevailing wage amendment Council Vice President HwaJeong Kim plans to introduce another amendment Wednesday requiring developers to pay prevailing wages on construction of multi-family buildings that benefit from the new rent control exemption The prevailing wage mandate will apply to properties with at least residential units that are newly constructed or had a change in occupancy classification from commercial to residential Landlords would have to verify that all construction workers on a project had been paid the prevailing wage as defined by the city s administrative code The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry lists hourly prevailing wages before fringe benefits around for landscapers for general laborers for boom truck operators and for pipe-layers The prevailing wage amendment has been a longstanding goal of the Laborers International Union of North America or LIUNA which represents general laborers on construction projects It s unclear if it has the votes to pass but LIUNA spokesman Kris Fredson noted they ve repeatedly approached the council and mayor s office and received hard commitments from individual council members since August The goal in part is to have subcontractors certify their payroll classifying each worker by their job role in a manner that a prime contractor or employee union later verifies That would cut down on misclassification fraud cash payments and other forms of wage theft Fredson reported without necessarily increasing the overall cost of improvement as the contractor or developer in those instances tends to pocket the savings anyway It shouldn t be controversial to have prevailing wage attached to a rent control exemption announced Joe Fowler business manager for Local the state s largest general laborers union for workers on private projects Major developers like the Ryan Cos the Franas etc already pay prevailing wages That is not what is holding up growth I d push back against anyone saying it could be an impediment to progress Raising wages for laborers typically translates to them spending the money here increasing the tax base and paying payroll taxes Fowler added Noecker explained she did not think the amendment will be approved For me it s not about the timing Noecker announced It s more about the content of the amendments themselves We re in a situation where we need to send a strong clear message to the area that St Paul is open to enhancement and both of the amendments would muddy that message and set us back in what we re trying to do which is to build more housing in St Paul New tenant protections In addition to changes to rent control the city council is expected Wednesday to approve sweeping new protections for residential tenants All seven council members have signed on as sponsors reviving an effort that was approved but later rescinded by the previous council in June in light of legal pushback Council members are hopeful that the new package of retooled protections will pass muster with the courts if landlords press their affair again Among the proposed new tenant protections Safeguard deposits will be limited to the equivalent of a single month s rent unless the tenant s application might otherwise be denied because of criminal history credit history or rental history A landlord must make their screening criteria readily available to any prospective tenant A prospective tenant could not be rejected because of a conviction for a crime that is no longer illegal in Minnesota a petty misdemeanor a gross misdemeanor older than three years and majority felony convictions For certain crimes such as first-degree assault arson or murder a landlord can look back years Landlords can not reject tenants based solely on their credit sum insufficient credit history or insufficient rental history Landlords will not be allowed to consider pending evictions evictions more than three years old and evictions that have not resulted in an order to vacate Evictions for nonpayment of rent will require advance written notice to the tenant specifying the total amount due as well as their right to seek legal help and a phone number and web address for legal and financial assistance If affordable housing is sold the new landlord may not terminate or fail to renew a tenant s rental agreement without just cause raise rent or rescreen existing tenants during a three-month period of time known as the tenant protection period without providing relocation assistance Within days of the transfer of ownership a new landlord must give written notice to tenants in an affordable unit that the property is under new ownership and explain whether the new landlord will require them to re-screened whether they will be terminated without cause and whether there is an increase in rent If approved by the council the new tenant protections still require the mayor s signature and take effect a year later Two community hearings held April drew sizable numbers of advocates for and against the changes to both rent control and tenant protections Related Articles St Paul Council appointee to League of MN Cities missed of meetings Letters Let s not make it harder to learn Walz wrote A private school principal responds St Paul elections mayoral candidates citations question Ward race St 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