Houston's AIR Recap

Houston's Apartment Inspection Ordinance Recap

What is the Apartment Inspection Ordinance?

• Will establish an online registry for all rental properties that receive ten or more code violations in a given year -- so that renters know about which properties have declining conditions
• Will require multi-family rental buildings (a building with 3 or more units) to register with the city as a “High Risk Rental Building”, fix all violations within a timely manner (a “reasonable” amount of time, usually 7 days), or be subject to fines, legal action, or potential revocation of certificate of occupancy

Registration trigger: 10 or more habitability citations in 12 months

Mandatory inspections: initial and follow-up inspections by city departments

Enforcement:

• Misdemeanor fines ($250-$2000 per violation, per day)
• Possible revocation of certification of occupancy
• Civil action if violations persist

What is the Apartment Inspection Ordinance?

• Will re-establish the creation of ASEC (Apartment Standards Enforcement Committee) to coordinate responses to habitability issues across city departments

What is the Apartment Inspection Ordinance?

• Will give the department of public works the option to establish a tenant advocacy program
• Will require property owners whose rental buildings are registered as high risk to complete a training program on best practices for keeping their property up to code
• Will require that senior facilities have a generator on site during natural disasters and a refrigerated storage for medicine

What's good about the ordinance?

• Adds accountability for property owners to have their properties up to health and safety standards
• Ordinance as written has teeth -- actual enforcement provisions such as fines, revocation of the certificate of occupancy, etc.
• Tenants will be more aware of properties within the city with poor conditions
• Tenants will have an intermediate step to accountability before filing a repair/remedy case -- can actually see results

Where are we now?

Timeline of Events

• 2021: Apartment Inspection Ordinance introduced during the Turner administration. Stuck with the legal department
• May 27, 2025: Prop A Committee passed AIO unanimously
• June 13, 2025: CM Plummer was accepting suggestions from the community until this date
• Aug..Sept..Oct: Promised it would be back on the city agenda

We have been told that:

• ASEC (made up of internal government staff) has been meeting
• The document is still stuck with the legal department
• It was expected on the agenda this week, at the latest
• Unsure why Mayor Whitmire has not placed it on the agenda (strong mayor system)

So what do you want to do?

You have options to get engaged:

• Call your city council member
• Show up to City Hall for public comment
• Call the tv news outlets to cover a story
• Organize an action
• Talk to your neighbors about it
• Call 311 and start reporting problem complexes
• Make a list of problem properties / landlords

Reporting to Code