This ordinance should have never passed council if it includes owner-occupied properties. License and inspect rental properties if you must, but citizens have the right to privacy in their own homes! Thank you to Mr. Kuhar, my new council person, for supporting property rights in this instance. All citizens still have the right to refuse city employees entry to their homes, right? At large council, don't expect an invitation to my living room if you show up on the doorstep campaigning (sorry, nothing personal...).

This ordinance is all backwards. Children and the elderly in private homes are subject to the health and safety dangers moreso than tenants living in rentals. Tenants have recourse via the State of Ohio Landlord/Tenant Law and City of Kent ordinances. My tenants have those protections. ALL tenants have those protections.
Children and the elderly in private homes cannot leave a home where the person in control can't even bother to buy smoke alarms which are only about fifteen bucks apiece. They are stuck! Where are they to go? Out on the street?
Privacy be damned! ALL private homes should be licensed and inspected at the very least once a year. Take the lead, city council! Make Kent safe for EVERYONE.

What is wrong with you people! Here we go again, with City Council sticking their nose in where it doesn't belong. Pretty soon we will have to have a license to walk on the sidewalk! Every time you let the city into our lives they take away another right. This potential new ordinance will eventually let the city worm their way into non rental homes. Is that what you want? Not in my backyard! City council stop thinking of just the almighty $. I for one have had enough of the city telling me what to do. If renters have a problem with the home or apt. they rent, then they need to complain. Not all landlords are slumlords. City Council stop micro-managing our lives!

Shaffer said she believes safety outweighs privacy in this situation.

WRONG safety never outweighs privacy. privacy in the home is a right not a privilege.

Deborah,

Yes if this passes, we will all need a license to poop on our own toilets in our owner occupied properties.

According to the reports, the interior maintenance ordinance HAS passed. The third reading and vote was Wednesday night (the rental licensing ordinance is the next to be considered and eventually voted upon). There was "brief" discussion about removing the private residence clause from the ordinance at the 1st or 2nd reading; that consideration was not acted upon. So far as I understand, the interior maintenance code includes private residences.

>>>Deborah said, "This potential new ordinance will eventually let the city worm their way into non rental homes. Is that what you want?"

It has already happened because the ordinance is a done deal. If we wanted the ordinance stopped or re-written, we had six weeks (during the period of the three readings in council chambers) to contact our council-person and the three at-large council persons. I recommend we all keep the council members' phone numbers in our phones and their e-mail addresses in our contacts and make our voice heard the first time we hear something we cheer or jeer :). Here's how: http://kentohio.org/gov2/council.asp.

It's not too late to appeal for a repeal of the ordinance; just arrive at council chambers 15 minutes before the meeting to sign up to address the council personally.

What is the matter with some of you people? Don't you understand that private homes can have health and safety issues the same as rental properties; things over which children and the elderly have no control? I would think homeowners would welcome mandatory inspections at, say, a meager cost of fifty bucks a year, for peace of mind.
Why didn't people know about the far-reaching implications of the international code? Because as far as I can recollect the Record-Courier never mentioned that private homes were involved.
The next snowfall I am going to tour the city and turn in private homes where the walk is not shoveled. I am going to turn in private homes where there is a beer can in the front yard. I am going to turn in private homes with peeling paint, corroded gutter or peeling paint, or an uneven sidewalk. I am going to turn you in until you storm council chambers. You are like sheep walking to slaughter. Hate me if you want, but if you wake up to what the utopian society council members have in store for you, it will be worth it.

R-C editorial this morning did not mention that this VERY intrusive ordinance applies to private homes. It further states that it is nothing radical. But I guess if nosing around in people's homes was good enough for the gestapo, it is good enough for the citizens of Kent. I mean, why not? Right?
Please tell everybody you know about it and urge them to read the ordinance. Maybe people don't care.

I am wrong, The banner headline story in Friday's R-C mentioned that the ordinance applies to owner-occupied homes.