jonetta rose barras: Drilling down in the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs

Whew! Folks who sat through more than eight hours of the recent session of the DC Council had to have come away wondering whether anyone really knew what was happening. Surely they questioned what would be the potential impact on the city of the various pieces of legislation approved during the marathon meeting. Chairman Phil Mendelson may have asserted that the crush of bills and push for passage were typical of what happens when a council period is about to end, but I don’t remember such a frantic pace at previous December meetings.

I won’t discuss the campaign finance omnibus bill of 2018, which I’ve written about previously. I take some solace in the fact that several changes were made to the measure before its final approval on Tuesday — although, in my view, it remains seriously flawed.

There also are reasons for concern about the sports-wagering legislation making its way through the council. Ward 2’s Jack Evans, who chairs the Committee on Finance and Revenue, has bought some members’ support by promising that profits will be used to fund anti-violence and early childhood education programs. Decades ago, to get residents to support creation of the lottery, a similar pledge was made that profits would be used to fund public schools; we all know how that went. Opponents of government-sanctioned online betting in DC rightfully have questions about whether monopolistic elements, favoring owners like MGM, Monumental Sports and the Nationals, will make it difficult for local businesses, including minority-owned operations, to get in on the action.  

What’s your wager?

I won’t go there just yet. I have decided to follow the advice of a friend who suggested I accentuate the positive, which may be a tad difficult for me. Still, I am opting to focus on the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs Omnibus Amendment Act, introduced by DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson.

The bill, which still must receive a second vote before becoming law, would amend the Rental Housing Act of 1985 to provide that a property owner shall not have more than 30 days to abate a housing code violation. That’s just one provision in a far-reaching law. The legislation would also:

• allow the mayor to grant an extension only if the housing provider has made reasonable, good-faith efforts to abate a violation;
• limit the enforcement discretion of DCRA inspection officials for repeat or unabated housing code violations;
• mandate that certain fines be deposited in the Nuisance Abatement Fund;
• reduce the amount of time that alleged violators of the city’s housing code would have to request a hearing;
• establish new types of infractions for housing code violations that have not been abated for six months or more; and
• require notification to the Office of Attorney General of any class 1, 2, 3 or 4 infractions that have not been abated within six months.

These portions of the bill may not go as far as I have advocated — for instance, I’d like to see slumlords stripped of their licenses to do business in the city. The bill does, however, provide stronger weapons for District renters, particularly those in low-income communities who have been preyed upon for years by scofflaws.

Further, under the legislation, the mayor would have the “discretion to reclassify a blighted vacant building no longer than 12 months, if the building has met certain conditions and is undergoing renovations.” The move would help developers who are trying to improve property avoid the higher tax rate for blighted properties without having to meet the current hurdle of installing windows and doors. That provision of the bill was incorporated from the Blighted Property Redevelopment Amendment Act of 2018, introduced by at-large member Elissa Silverman.

Equally important, the masquerade appears to be over for bad actors and others who hide behind limited liability corporations (LLCs). The bill requires disclosure of the names and addresses of any person who has at least a 10 percent ownership interest in a business, control of the financial decisions or is involved in daily operations. Currently, LLCs are required only to provide information about the registered agent, who often doesn’t have ownership in the business or who may not be directly involved in the operation of the company.

Even for journalists that’s exciting stuff. When we want to know who actually owns a company, we’re sometimes confronted with a half dozen LLCs before finding the name of a real person.

“It shouldn’t be a battle to find out who is responsible when a home is damaged by a developer or neglected by a bad landlord hiding behind an LLC,” Silverman said in a prepared statement. She introduced the Real Estate LLC Transparency Amendment Act of 2018 over the summer, and Mendelson incorporated it in the omnibus act. “By lifting the corporate veil, this bill will enhance consumer protections and allow the city to go after bad contractors and slumlords more strategically.”

The problem with all this is the lack of funding for it. Funds are not sufficient in the fiscal year 2019 through 2022 budget, according to DC’s chief financial officer, Jeff DeWitt. In his financial impact statement, he said DCRA would have to hire additional personnel in “housing inspection and administration, legal, corporate registrations, civil infractions and information technology.” That would cost $2.4 million this year and $27 million over the four-year budget and financial plan. Mendelson scoffed at the estimate, which originated with DCRA’s claims that it would have to hire 88 new employees — a 20 percent boost to its current staffing — to fulfill the legislation’s mandates. “I find that estimate shocking,” Ward 3 Council member Mary Cheh said during the council’s discussion. “I’ll say, ‘Fantastical,’” Mendelson replied.

Nevertheless, the council, once again, has approved legislation without identifying money for its immediate implementation. By next March, when the council starts deliberations for the 2020 budget, who knows what programs or plans will catch members’ fancy? The promise of better enforcement under the DCRA Omnibus Act could be a thing of the past.

See why it’s hard for me to accentuate the positive?

jonetta rose barras is a DC-based freelance writer and host of The Barras Report television show. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.