Housing advocates push as Merced City Council OK’s rental inspection ordinance
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Council adopted ordinance to comply with AB 548.
- Advocates want timelines, fees, and city-handled notices and relocation aid
- Draft ordinance would list landlords with 3+ unresolved habitability issues in 12 months.
At Monday night’s Merced City Council meeting, housing advocates arrived early with signs that read “Protect Merced tenants,” “Invest in an anti-slumlord ordinance,” “Hold negligent landlords accountable,” “We need safe housing” and “Fund real housing solutions.”
Tenants and advocates turned out to comment on two housing-related issues. The first was an ordinance to codify the procedure for inspections of multi-unit residential buildings. The second was a discussion of the city’s “anti-slumlord ordinance,” which still is being finalized.
Among the crowd were members of two local groups, Faith in the Valley and the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, who came to express support for the anti-slumlord ordinance while pushing for what they see as more proactive protection for renters.
“Housing policy is not a matter of abstract rule and the economy,” United Methodist Church in Merced pastor Madeleine Guekguezian said during public comment. “Housing policy is a matter of life and death.”
Merced gets in compliance with state housing law
The council voted unanimously to adopt the ordinance establishing inspection procedures for multi-unit buildings — bringing Merced into compliance with state law. AB 548 requires cities to outline the process for inspections.
City Attorney Craig Cornwell explained that the ordinance would not change how the city’s code enforcement team and building inspectors inspect multi-unit buildings. Rather, it provides a list of issues that when identified require the officer or inspector to document the damage and inspect or make a reasonable attempt to inspect adjoining units.
One concern that both housing advocate Ashley Marie Suarez, of Leadership Counsel, and members of the City Council raised with the ordinance is that it does not establish timelines to provide notices of violations or to take corrective action.
“I … ask for the city to define ‘reasonable time,’ as it says that ‘upon the conclusion of the inspection and within a reasonable time, the code enforcement officer shall draft a notice of violation.’” Suarez said.
Cornwell warned that “any delay in the adoption of this resolution is further delay in compliance with the state law.”
The ordinance passed, but Councilmembers Mike Harris and Fue Xiong said they would like to see reasonable timeframes added to its language in the future. During public comment, Suarez also criticized the lack of community input before the ordinance came to council.
Council debates anti-slumlord ordinance.
Later in the meeting, Cornwell presented on the latest draft of the much-awaited anti-slumlord ordinance. The draft is now available to the public at tinyurl.com/codeviolators.
“The city’s rental unit stock is of significant importance to the city and of substantial government interest to ensure its habitability,” Cornwell began, “and the issue I was confronted with is how to address our more egregious offenders while not layering bureaucracy on the majority of rental owners that only come into contact with government when they’re renewing their business license (and are) great stakeholders in the community.”
The proposed ordinance would create the Repeat Housing Code Violators Program to punish landlords who consistently neglect their properties, resulting in unresolved housing code violations and unsafe conditions for tenants.
Landlords who have three or more unresolved habitability issues — things like mold, asbestos, malfunctioning locks, and lack of hot or running water — in a 12-month period would be added to a public list of repeat housing code violators. The landlord is also required to inform current tenants and post a notice of their designation as a repeat offender in a conspicuous location near the entry of the rental property.
Property owners would be removed from the list when no new or preexisting violations have occurred for a continuous period of 24 months.
One Merced resident shared her experience in a rental property and said a one-year evaluation period for landlords is too long. In 2008, the woman, who declined to share her name, said that she lived in a unit with pervasive moisture in the bathroom and that even after consistent complaints to management, her landlord only painted over the water damage.
Under the proposed ordinance, owners and tenants alike have defined rights and responsibilities. For the landlord, those rights include being notified of outstanding violations and properties affected, being given an opportunity to respond in a timely manner, and the right to appeal to the City Council.
Tenants have the right to know if their landlord is added to the repeat offender list and are eligible for relocation assistance if they must move out. Relocation assistance is defined as two months of the established fair market rate rent for the area, utility service deposits determined by the city, and any security deposit held by the owner.
The council won’t vote on the ordinance until May, but the discussion that followed Cornwell’s presentation gave insight into the issues on residents’ and council members’ minds.
Suarez criticized city councilmembers’ focus on the “worst of the worst” property owners, saying it meant “proactive inspection is not (on) their to-do list.”
Xiong raised the issue of what would happen to renters, under this ordinance, if their landlords lose their business licenses. The current draft’s language grants them eligibility for relocation assistance from property owners, but housing advocates recommend that the city pay those relocation costs and seek reimbursement from landlords rather than count on them to pay their tenants directly.
Advocates also urged the council and city attorney to consider the best way to protect tenants from retaliation. Councilmember Shane Smith noted that in the current draft, if a tenant-landlord dispute goes to court, the owner has to prove that any negative actions were not retaliatory.
The ordinance does not address all of the rental issues that housing advocates have raised. Suarez urged the council to attach a fee schedule to the ordinance, to place the onus for informing tenants of landlords’ designation as repeat offenders on city staff, rather than negligent landlords, and to work toward an eviction prevention program.
“This is the beginning,” said Blanca Ojeda of Faith in the Valley, “(and) I’m really thinking about this as the beginning of something that we’ll continue to work on, hopefully over many years to come.”
This story was originally published March 18, 2026 at 8:00 AM.
