Office of Student Involvement : Attention, Students: Make sure you are renting a home which complies with city law.

Attention, Students:  Make sure you are renting a home which complies with city law.  If not, you could be evicted!

Here are relevant portions of Ordinance No. 842-93 and 973-01 of the Toledo Municipal Code which regulate group rental houses:

“’Family’ means either a ‘traditional family’ or a ‘functional family’ . . . a traditional family consists of one or more persons related . . . by birth or marriage.”

Several factors may be utilized to determine a functional family.  Currently, the law does NOT recognize a group of unrelated students as a functional family.

Therefore, a landlord who rents to more than three unrelated students living in a home which is zoned for a single family is violating the law.  Single-family zoning areas include houses in all of the neighborhoods surrounding the University of Toledo.

Duplexes and apartment complexes are NOT covered under this law – they are zoned for multiple families.

‘BUYER’ BEWARE – Some landlords may knowingly or unknowingly provide you with incorrect information:

According to the City of Toledo’s Housing Prosecutor, no landlords are exempt from the law, and none are “grandfathered” (exempt because they rented to numerous students before the law was enacted in 1993).

The law was NOT found unconstitutional.  The court did require removal of a small portion of the law which the city did in an amendment in 2001.  Read the amendment below.  The law was not substantially changed.

The City of Toledo has indicated it will remain “tenacious” on this issue.

What could happen?  Your landlord could be served with an order to comply with the law.  Therefore, the landlord would be required to remove any residents in excess of three.

ORD. 973-01         Amending Part Eleven, Planning and Zoning, of the Toledo Municipal Code relative to the regulation of group rental houses; and declaring an emergency.

    WHEREAS, the City of Toledo seeks to amend Part Eleven, Planning and Zoning, of the Toledo Municipal Code relative to the regulation of group rental houses to make such code section consistent with a recent Sixth District Court of Appeals case; and
 
    WHEREAS, pursuant to Resolution No. 752-01 said matter was submitted  to the City Plan Commission for its review and recommendation; and

    WHEREAS, said matter was considered and approved by the Toledo City Plan Commission on October 11, 2001, and all things required by law to be done, have been done; NOW, THEREFORE,

    Be it ordained by the Council of the City of Toledo:

    SECTION 1. Section 1103.64 of the Toledo Municipal Code, which reads as follows:

    "1103.64.  Group rental house.
    'Group rental house' means four or more unrelated persons who do not constitute a 'family' or a 'functional family' as defined in this Code, living as a single housekeeping unit in which individual sleeping quarters may be secured by the occupants thereof, and in which the relationship among the members of the group rests primarily upon a cost-sharing arrangement and in which the common living arrangement or basis for the establishment of the housekeeping unit is of transient, limited or seasonal duration."

be and the same is hereby repealed.

    SECTION 2. That a new Section 1103.64 of the Toledo Municipal Code, be and the same is hereby amended and enacted to read as follows:

    "1103.64.  Group rental house.
    'Group rental house' means four or more unrelated persons who do not constitute a 'family' or a 'functional family' as defined in this Code, living as a single housekeeping unit in which individual sleeping quarters may be occupied by the residents of the dwelling thereof, and in which  the relationship among the members of the group rests primarily upon a cost-sharing arrangement."

    SECTION 3.  That this Ordinance hereby is declared to be an emergency measure and shall be in force and effect from and after its passage.  The reason for the emergency lies in the fact that same is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, safety and property, and for the further reason that this Ordinance must be immediately effective in order to provide for the orderly regulation of group rental houses and to protect the land value in the area.

    Vote on emergency clause:  yeas 10, nays 0

    Passed: November 27, 2001, as an emergency measure:  yeas 10, nays 0.

ATTEST:
MICHAEL J. BEAZLEY                    PETER UJVAGI
Clerk of Council                                    President of Council

Approved: November 29, 2001
CARLETON S. FINKBEINER
Mayor