It looks like the city council will pass the contested ordinances that will reshape the way rental properties work in Winona. The council may be passing more than just new rules and regulations. They may also be approving an ordinance that has built into it the law of unintended consequences.
The ordinances that have been drafted admittedly have been written after hours of meetings and sometimes fiery feedback of college students, homeowners and politicians. The ordinances seek to fix parking problems, the number of students you can sandwich in a rental property and how many rental properties can sit on a particular block.
But will these new laws really fix the problem, or just create a couple more?
The problem goes something like this: Neighbors are fed up with loud parties, cars on their lawns and absentee landlords whose rental properties are candidates for some reality television show makeover. Surely, a case of a few bad apples.
However, the new ordinances seem to make an already uneasy situation more tense. It doesn’t address bad renters, it just forces them farther out into a city that is already plagued by a shortage of rental property. It doesn’t solve the issue of bad landlords who don’t take care of their property because the city has admitted it doesn’t have the staff it would take to enforce the ordinances it already has on the books. Moreover, it turns neighbors into narcs — waiting with the police on their speed dial to call in a violation as soon as two or more are gathered for drinking or dominoes.
These new ordinances also seem to give a favorable economic advantage to the current property owners: The houses that are grandfathered in are closer to campus. It’s a simple economic principle — fewer houses available close to campus, the more rent the landlords can squeeze out of the college students. Students who cannot afford the rent will move farther away and will have to drive to campus, exacerbating the parking problems that the neighbors already complain about.
Life in a college town means learning to live with college students. Coming to college means learning to live with your neighbors. It seems like we might already have the laws we need on the books. The question is one of enforcement.
Rather than adding more ordinances that might have some particularly distasteful side effects, why don’t we put the ordinances on hold? Why don’t we try a neighborhood-student coalition that one student talked about? Why don’t we let Winona State’s student body president try to forge a new relationship with the community?
There might just be one other unintended consequence to making ordinances like these: As we fight to attract students, as we fight for more state funding and as we argue that places like Rochester don’t need a state-funded university, we might be in danger of sending the message that we’re really not a community that values our students.
By Darrell Ehrlick, editor, on behalf of the Winona Daily News editorial board, which also includes publisher Rusty Cunningham, Jerome Christenson, opinion editor, photo editor James A. Bowey and sales and marketing manager Robin Erickson. To comment, call 453-3522 or send e-mail to letters@winonadailynews. com.
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