CITY SHOULD TAKE ITS TIME IN DECIDING CODE CHANGE

The Cape Girardeau City Council has decided it won't adopt a proposed minimum property maintenance code without first carefully analyzing the measure. The council this week took its first look at the Building Officials and Code Administrators (BOCA) minimum property maintenance code that has been proposed by the city's Board of Appeals.

Some council members expressed reservations about the code and said it would be wise for the city to weigh carefully the measure before taking action. We concur.

This newspaper also will take a close look at the issue through a series of upcoming articles. Proponents of the code have defended the measure by pointing to other cities with similar codes. Through interviews with officials, landlords, tenants and contractors in those cities we hope to better grasp whether a minimum property maintenance code achieves what it intends without unnecessarily burdening property owners.

The impetus for such a code in Cape Girardeau has come primarily from tenants and their advocates who claim some landlords rent housing that is unsafe and unsanitary. The code, they say, would force such "slumlords" to bring their buildings up to basic health and safety standards or raze the property.

But the code would affect all property from residential to commercial and it seems prudent to confirm first that there is a "slumlord" problem and, second, that the minimum property maintenance code is the best solution before adopting a measure that will affect every property owner and add to the growing city bureaucracy. The track record among well-intentioned government programs is dubious, albeit city programs tend more to necessities than do state and federal government.

A new division of the city's inspections and code enforcement office would increase the cost of local government and clearly should first be justified. The crux of the issue, then, is whether there is sufficient cause for further regulating property owners.

Proponents of a minimum property maintenance code concede that most landlords already maintain rentals as well or better that would be mandated by the new law. But for the small percentage of property owners who don't, there is nothing the city can now do to compel them to upgrade their property.

But opponents of the measure don't like the idea of additional regulation. Also, because maintenance code violations would be inspected on a complaint basis only, they fear that destructive tenants would report trivial code violations as a way to avoid taking responsibility for building damage.

There are good cases to be made on both sides of this issue. Let's hear them. In the meantime, we hope the city council will take pains to examine carefully the code and its potential effects on Cape Girardeau. Good intentions are not enough to bring on a legion of new regulations. If Cape Girardeau moves toward minimum property codes, we must be assured it is indispensable, effective law, and that the city has the staff and wherewithal to make it work.