The Housing Strategic Plan is the most recent update to the City’s adopted housing policy with a vision that everyone has healthy, stable, housing they can afford.

The HSP identified 7 “Greatest Challenges” to achieving the vision and prioritized 26 strategies designed to address one or more challenges. The proposed program aligns with Greatest Challenge # 7: Housing policies have not consistently addressed housing stability and healthy housing, especially for people who rent; and Strategy 20, "Explore the option of a mandated rental license/registry program for long-term rentals and pair with best practice rental regulations," was identified to address this challenge. 

Community comments throughout the Housing Strategic Plan engagement process indicated a range of concerns: a need to proactively ensure healthy, safe units; fear of retaliation or loss of housing if renters report substandard or unsafe units; concerns about discrimination; and lack of choices and affordable options because of the current restrictions on occupancy. Rental registration was a common suggestion for addressing these concerns.

The complaint-based system will continue to operate in tandem with the proposed rental housing program should City Council adopt it. The complaint-based system will remain a valuable tool for addressing off-cycle violations, and it will also leave opportunities in place for renters in multi-unit buildings whose units are not selected for inspection to report concerns.  

Under the City's current complaint-based system, City inspectors respond to reports of building code violations for rental units. 

Violations have been recorded in all housing types (single family detatched, multi-unit, etc.) in all six City Council districts. Types of violations most frequently identified are electrical issues and lack of smoke/carbon monoxide alarms. A range of other types of violations also occur, including problems with windows, plumbing, HVAC, pests, and general maintenance, among others.

Enforcement checkpoints have been built into the proposed Rental Housing Program’s design to ensure compliance at each stage.

Staff intend to partner with property owners to achieve voluntary compliance with the program requirements whenever possible. A critical task of the start-up phase (and beyond) is education and outreach to landlords, property owners, property managers, and tenants to increase awareness of and compliance with the proposed program. If Council chooses to adopt the proposed program, staff expects that there will be some situations that may require enforcement to address violations that have not been successfully resolved through voluntary compliance. 

Staff has proposed a range of penalties for failure to comply with the requirements of the Rental Housing Program that include fines, civil penalties, and, upon several repeated instances of noncompliance, misdemeanor charges. If property violations are found upon inspection, property owners will receive a notice of violation with a specified amount of time to cure the violation(s) that is dependent on the severity and implications for renter life, health, and safety. Properties with violations upon inspection will require subsequent reinspection to ensure compliance. If unpermitted work is identified during the rental housing inspection that presents a life, health, or safety concern as defined in the Building Code, a violation notice and enforcement actions would follow the current Building Code processes and codes. 

On Dec. 1, 2022, staff presented initial estimates of the proposed rental housing program’s initial and ongoing costs and anticipated fee structure, which has been designed to make the program self-sustaining upon full implementation. The cost to fund the first two years of the program in its start-up phase is estimated to be about $1.6 million ($750,000 in 2023 and $850,000 in 2024). After the first two years, the program will become self-sustaining based on its fee structure.  

The research that Staff has conducted to date indicates that rental housing programs – particularly those that include proactive inspections for health/safety concerns – are an effective way to improve both renter health/safety and housing quality.

Without proactive inspections, rental programs are less effective at ensuring health/safety but do have other positive benefits including better communication with renters, landlords, and property managers and more up-to-date information on rental housing. Ultimately, whether the City will adopt a rental housing program and what components it includes is a decision made by City Council.

No, these rental regulations do not affect the City's occupancy restrictions, like U+2. However, City staff is exploring changes to occupancy regulations later in 2023.

Information about occupancy is available on the City's occupancy webpage.

Learn more about occupancy

No, these proposed regulations are separate from the Land Development Code (LDC). 

Information about the Land Development Code can be found at that project's webpage. 

Learn more about the LDC

More than 40 percent of housing units in Fort Collins are rentals and close to 50 percent of our population rents rather than owns their home. It is important that all rental housing consistently offers basic health, safety, and habitability to residents. 

The Housing Strategic Plan adopted a vision of everyone having healthy, stable housing they could afford.  It also identified one of our challenges is that housing policies have not consistently addressed housing stability and healthy housing, especially for people who rent. 

The expectation is that many landlords and property managers, especially those who already prioritize providing healthy and safe housing for tenants, will be able to meet the program guidelines with minimal effort or administrative burden.

Education, outreach, and resource sharing will be a part of the program and is designed to support all landlords and property managers to meet the program guidelines. 

Working to keep costs as reasonable as possible has been a critical component of designing the proposed rental housing program.

These administrative costs are minimal and may increase rent proportionally. The greater risk for increased rent comes when properties do not pass the inspection and incur costs for required repairs that may be passed on to the next renter.

Discussion of rental licensing and regulation has been a topic in discussion in Fort Collins several times over the years, including in 2005, when the City made changes to the enforcement of the occupancy ordinance. 

The most recent community discussion about occupancy and rental housing strategies occurred in 2020 as part of the development of the Housing Strategic Plan. In December 2020, the Council Ad Hoc Housing Committee expressed interest in exploring rental licensing to support healthy, stable housing for people who rent their homes. The Committee encouraged consideration of a pilot program for rental registration or licensing. 

Building on the dialogue and recommendations of the Housing Strategic Plan, City staff used a variety of outreach and engagement strategies to explore and ultimately propose these rental housing regulations.

This process included, but is not limited to, the following:

• Rental Industry Questionnaire, February/March 2022: This online questionnaire was primarily focused on
  soliciting feedback from rental owners, property managers, and landlords to better understand how
  potential rental programs (e.g., registry and occupancy regulations) might impact the industry, and to
  explore specific elements of program design. Assessor’s data was used to identify and mail flyers to nearly 9,000 likely owners of rental property within Fort Collins to ensure wide awareness of the questionnaire. A total of 1,912 people responded to the questionnaire: 68% identified themselves as rental owners, managers, or landlords, 20% were residents who live or work in Fort Collins but do not own or manage rental property.
• Rental Housing Task Force, March-August 2022: In early 2022, the City convened a Task Force to support deeper exploration of the three strategies and to work collaboratively to propose modifications to current rental housing policy for consideration by staff, the broader public, and Council. A total of 76 people applied for 20 spots, and applications were reviewed by a committee of staff. The top scoring applications for landlord/property managers, renters, and others were invited to participate. Staff consulted with the City Attorney’s Office on the criteria utilized for selection and the information shared with the selection team.
  Demographic information was collected from applicants but was not used in the selection process; it was
  considered in aggregate for the entire application pool to evaluate the task force’s representativeness. A panel of applicants was selected to represent a diversity of perspectives, including rental housing
  tenants, property owners/landlords and property managers, and people who fit neither category.The total composition of the group was 19 members, and all meetings were facilitated by a professional third-party facilitator. 
• Community Questionnaire, August 2022: This questionnaire sought opinions about how much the City’s
  approach to rental housing regulation and occupancy should change, if at all. The questionnaire also asked respondents their opinions about a range of potential next steps for rental registration/licensing and occupancy ordinance revisions. Additional “pop-up” engagement utilizing the Neighborhood Services
  lemonade stand was conducted to increase awareness of the community questionnaire and encourage
  participation; particularly in areas where changes to occupancy and extra occupancy have been raised as a concern. A total of 1,739 responded to the questionnaire: 64% indicated that they owned their home,
  31% of respondents indicated that they rented their home, 19% of respondents were landlords

More detailed information on community engagement is available in a City Council work session report from August 2022. You can find that information below.

Read the Work Session Report