Proposed Ojai Housing Inspections Anger Brokers
A proposed law in Ojai that would require city building inspections of any home about to be sold has touched off strong protests from real estate brokers.
About 60 brokers attended a workshop Wednesday to lobby against the proposed ordinance, drafted after the City Council directed planners last April to come up with a plan to curtail the number of garages and guest houses being converted in Ojai to illegal rental units.
The conversions have been the primary method used by some Ojai residents to skirt the city’s notorious slow-growth policies, which only allow for the construction of 12 new single-family homes each year.
Although the proposed ordinance was initially intended to ferret out illegal rentals, it was expanded to include all building code violations to ensure that Ojai’s housing stock is safe, Planning Director William Prince said.
If passed by the City Council, the ordinance would not allow commercial or residential property to be sold before a city building inspector certifies that it meets all building code standards, Prince said.
The proposed law provides for misdemeanor criminal charges against buyers, sellers or real estate agents who do not comply.
“How can the Realtor be held accountable for what his client does or does not do?” asked Randy Dailey, a member of the Ojai Valley Board of Realtors.
“You’re holding the Realtor up to a misdemeanor penalty, and you just can’t do that,” Dailey said.
Ojai City Atty. Monte Widders said cities across Southern California have programs to guarantee that houses meet building code standards when they are being sold.
But according to officials in other cities, the proposed Ojai ordinance goes much further than most housing legislation.
In Thousand Oaks, two full-time residential resale inspectors check to verify that any building being sold meets health, safety and fire standards, said Buck O’Shea, building inspector supervisor.
Inspectors in Thousand Oaks do not hold up escrow closings, nor do they hold real estate brokers responsible for the repairs, O’Shea said.
Widders cited Santa Barbara’s inspection ordinance as similar to what is proposed in Ojai. But the vice president of governmental relations for the Santa Barbara Board of Realtors said there is little similarity between that city’s ordinance and the one proposed for Ojai.
Santa Barbara’s Zoning Information Report, required by city law, is solely intended to find illegal rental units, Janice Evans said.
“The report is strictly based on a violation of the residential zone. Building codes are not even a part of it,” she said.
Tom Weber, president-elect of the Ojai Valley Board of Realtors, said he studied ordinances across Southern California in cities ranging in size from 25,000 to more than 200,000, and said many are having trouble administering inspection programs.
“If cities of this size have had problems with this ordinance, how is a city of Ojai’s size going to pull it off?” Weber asked.
Ojai’s population is about 7,500.
Other Ojai real estate brokers said the proposed ordinance would not effectively ferret out illegal rentals. They complained that the only housing being singled out for health and safety inspections would be those put up for sale and successfully sold.
“If safety is your concern, you’ve got the wrong ordinance,” broker John Prian said.
“What you need is an ordinance that will let you go out and inspect the town, then we’ll all be safe,” Prian said, drawing applause from the audience, which was overwhelmingly opposed to the ordinance.
The meeting was the first of several workshops planned between real estate brokers and city officials, said Don Cutler, current president of the Ojai Valley Board of Realtors.
City Manager Andrew Belknap invited the group to appoint two or three representatives to work with city officials on a possible revision of the proposed ordinance.
