photo by: City of Lawrence

The Lawrence City Commission discusses new regulations for rental property inspections as part of its meeting Nov. 9, 2021.

Lawrence city leaders have approved changes aimed at strengthening the inspection program that is meant to oversee the thousands of rental properties in the city.

As part of its meeting Tuesday, the Lawrence City Commission voted 5-0 to adopt an ordinance that includes several changes to the city’s regulations for property rentals. Commissioners previously discussed a draft of the regulations and agreed that the ordinance addressed their concerns.

“I don’t think that we’ll ever have a perfect system, but I do think this brings us forward in that system and is worth giving a try and seeing what tweaks we need to make in the future as well,” Commissioner Jennifer Ananda said.

The structure of the city’s inspection program has resulted in less than 1% of rental properties being inspected annually, and the new ordinance will increase inspections and generally be less permissive when it comes to violations.

Changes include increasing the sampling size of each landlord’s units from 10% to 20%; broadening what is counted as a violation; reducing the number of violations to qualify for a less frequent inspection schedule from five to three; and requiring that an additional 20% of a landlord’s units be inspected if more than seven violations per unit are discovered.

The new ordinance will go into effect on Jan. 1.