In an effort to reward landlords who maintain their rental property in accordance with Jackson law, city officials will change their rental inspection fees to an hourly rate beginning July 1.
Currently, landlords within the city of Jackson pay $175 per unit every two years for city inspectors to review their rental properties for the health, safety and welfare of Jackson residents. Beginning July 1, non-owner occupied property owners will pay $208.88 per hour of inspections in their rental properties.
“If you’re a landlord or investor and maintain a good, clean apartment that will pass inspection every two years, you may have an inspector there for 15-20 minutes,” Jackson Mayor Bill Jors said.
Jors, along with the rest of City Council, voted to change the pay structure at their council meeting last month. “If you don’t maintain your property, it’s not unheard of for inspectors to be there multiple times, and often for multiple hours,” he said. City officials calculated the hourly rate by taking the total amount of money used to fund inspection related expenses within a two-year cycle and divided it by the total number of billable inspection hours within that two-year timeframe.
“The program isn’t intended to make the city any money,” Public Information Officer Will Forgrave said. “All registration and inspection fees pay for is the costs associated with conducting the program in the first place.”
Part of the resolution passed by City Council maintains that no part of the funds derived from inspection fees can be transferred to the general operating fund for any purpose.