ORANGE COUNTY VOICES : Program Dwells on Renters’ Safety : Owners are signing up for a self-policing plan that puts the interests of customers first. Voluntary inspections ensure properties are well-managed.

According to the 1990 Census, just over one-third of Orange County’s total 875,072 housing units are renter-occupied.

Not all of them are safe. Not all of them are managed professionally and fairly. But that situation could be improved as rental property owners here and elsewhere in the state continue to sign up for the nation’s only self-policing program for apartment houses.

With the need for security and personal safety all too apparent these days, the private sector must share some of the responsibility for providing security for our citizens.

Rental housing owners and managers participating in the California Apartment Assn.’s Industry Standards Program (ISP) want to protect the well-being of their customers--and help relieve the public burden of crime abatement for a financially strapped county that can use all the support it can get from the private sector. As participants, they agree to voluntary association inspections to ensure that their properties are not only safe, but well-managed.

When the Orange County Apartment Assn. and CAA launched the program here last January, 150 concerned citizens joined state Sens. John R. Lewis (R-Orange) and Rob Hurtt (R-Garden Grove), Assemblyman Jim Morrissey (R-Santa Ana), Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly, and Bill Brennan, deputy secretary of the state Department of Business, Transportation and Housing, at the Hampton Pointe Apartments in Anaheim to demonstrate their support for this effort to provide quality housing in Orange County.

Since then, owners of more than 25,000 rental units here have applied to be participants in the ISP--about half the total number of participants in the entire state.

The apartment industry is ready and willing to provide our citizens better places to live--voluntarily. I mention this because in such Orange County cities as Santa Ana, Anaheim, La Habra and Fullerton, ordinances have been proposed to force rental property owners to take corrective actions. Enforcement of some of these new local laws would be funded through business-license surcharges, levied on a per-unit basis, regardless of whether an owner was one of the numerous “good guys” who have been willingly trying to make a difference for their residents and their industry.

Quality housing opportunities for low- and moderate-income residents are limited in Orange County. Though our population continues to grow, the production of affordable housing has declined dramatically. From a high of 15,330 multifamily building permits issued in 1987, production dropped off to 1,903 units in 1993.

With few units being built, the quality and safety of existing units becomes more critical by the day.

We all decry overcrowding and criminal activity, both of which can put residents at risk. So participants in the ISP agree to abide by standards of practice designed to separate the dedicated professional from the perennially aloof or emotionally absent rental housing owner. They agree to:

* Work with neighbors and police officials to develop crime-abatement programs.

* Perform walk-throughs with tenants and complete inventories of a unit’s condition when they move in and move out.

* Change the locks on a unit before each new move-in.

* Utilize and disclose to the tenant community policies and house rules.

* Use a written rental agreement.

* Abide by all federal and state housing laws.

* Screen potential residents, as allowed by law.

* Distribute a California Apartment Assn. Bill of Rights to the residents.

* Keep units up to existing state and local health and safety laws.

* Submit the property to annual inspection--and, of course, pass that inspection.

Renters deserve some assurance that the owners of their new home have respect for their tenants and concern for their safety.

As savvy business people, growing numbers of Orange County rental housing industry professionals, through the Industry Standards Program, are reaching out to their customers, hearing their concerns and responding to their needs for personal security.