Hot Springs leaders talk housing issues to state lawmakers

HOT SPRINGS — Deputy Hot Springs City Manager Lance Spicer told state lawmakers Tuesday the city has issued 550 notices of violations of the city’s property maintenance code since 2018.

But many violations go unreported, as some tenants are reluctant to inform on their landlord.

“Sometimes they’re a little apprehensive, because of this tight housing market everyone is experiencing,” Spicer told a joint meeting of the House and Senate City, County and Local Affairs committees Tuesday at the Hot Springs Convention Center. “If there was to be some type of issue that possibly the landlord was to remove them from that housing situation, a lot of times there’s not a place for them to go.”

Hot Springs Housing Authority Executive Director Nadine Jarmon said more than 2,000 heads of household are on the waiting list for a Section 8 housing choice voucher, including more than 1,300 who are waiting for a voucher at Mountain View Heights.

Formerly the city’s public housing stock, the 365 units were converted to project-based Section 8 units under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Rental Assistance Demonstration program. She said more than 100 heads of household who have been issued tenant-based vouchers are also waiting for a unit.

Renters earning up to 80% of the area median income, $72,500 for a family, qualify for the voucher program. Information Jarmon presented Tuesday showed a voucher for a three-bedroom unit will pay landlords $1,499 next year. The total includes utilities and the 30% of adjusted gross income tenants contribute to rent. Voucher holders are required to recertify their income levels annually. Increases in income have to be reported within a certain time frame.

The housing authority increased voucher amounts to 120% of fair market rent to attract more landlords.

“We have 113 people with vouchers in hand looking for housing,” Jarmon told lawmakers. “There’s been a lot of people who used to accept our vouchers that got one bad tenant or two bad tenants, and they don’t want anything to do with the program any more.”

She said some landlords like Section 8 tenants, particularly the consistent cash flow the tenant-based vouchers provide.

“You’re guaranteed that deposit in your account without fail,” she said. “It’s not late. It’s not short. It’s there every month. A lot of landlords really like that stability in their revenue source.”

The city waded into tenant-landlord issues this summer after the owners of Greenbriar Apartments began assessing tenants a surcharge for air conditioning. The Convention Boulevard apartments are in the project-based Section 8 program regulated by HUD, not the local housing authority.

The city learned that the 2021 International Property Maintenance Code the Hot Springs Board of Directors adopted by reference as the city’s premise code in February didn’t include cooling standards. City code requires dwelling units maintain a minimum temperature of 65 degrees but has no standard for maximum air temperature.

“The only thing I could find was in Plano, Texas,” City Attorney Brian Albright told lawmakers. “I plagiarized a section of their code section dealing with cooling.”

The ordinance Albright presented the board amended the heating facilities section of the International Property Maintenance Code to include air conditioning capable of maintaining a room temperature at least 15 degrees cooler than the outside temperature and no hotter than 85 degrees in at least one habitable room and each habitable room by Sept. 1, 2025.

It included an emergency clause waiving the 30-day period before local legislation becomes law, putting the standards into immediate effect. The ordinance was on the agenda of the board’s Aug. 1 business meeting but was pulled after area landlords expressed opposition.

“We learned of the concerns that requiring this would be detrimental to the level of folks we’re trying to protect,” Albright said. “If the rent goes up because the landlord has to provide cooling, they may not be able to afford that, so now you have no housing.”

State Rep. Richard McGrew, R-Hot Springs, chaired Tuesday’s joint committee meeting and was one of the landlords who signed a letter to the board that said it hadn’t considered the unintended consequences of the ordinance. He said legislation should be sensitive to tenant rights and landlord concerns.

“Hopefully through studying what different communities and organizations are facing, we can have a better understanding of the challenges facing both tenants and landlords,” he said. “Our goal is to help support both parties and not hurt either one for the sake of writing of legislation.”

Russell Thomas also signed the letter and is a member of the select committee that City Manager Bill Burrough formed to recommend premise code regulations palatable to both landlords and tenants. Burrough said the committee had its first meeting earlier this month.

“The cost of regulation is present in every bit of rent,” Thomas told lawmakers Tuesday. “Every time we pass a bill it affects affordable housing.”

Albright praised lawmakers for adopting habitability standards in 2021 but noted the law puts the onus on tenants to enforce it.

“The problem is it only allows the tenant to have a civil redress of the issue,” he said “In most cases you’re talking about folks, if they’re struggling making rent, going out and hiring a suit to sue a landlord may not be in their budget.

“What I think would be helpful is if that legislation gave the city or county the ability to enforce what’s there instead of relying on the tenant to take a civil suit against the landlord,” he said.