Many University students will have some kind of interaction with a landlord during their time in Champaign-Urbana. Later this year, the Urbana City Council is slated to consider a measure that would make these landlords more accountable to their tenants and to the government.

“This would be primarily to ensure that rental housing is safe, making sure all the appropriate wiring is in place, that kind of thing,” said Robert Lewis, D-Ward 3. “It devolved out of a need for more inspections.”

Currently there is only one building inspector for Urbana and the average time between inspections is seven to 10 years. The proposed ordinance is a step in the right direction, but it is not enough, said Jason Webber, graduate student in Business and vice president of the Illinois Student Senate.

“Landlords who are found to be in violation of the building codes can dick around for up to five months with no financial penalty to bring their unit into compliance,” Webber said. “This roughly represents half of the typical lease for most students and is way too long a period of time for landlords to get away with not fixing a violation.”

The solution, Webber said, is to enact legislation that would cut this five-month period down to thirty days and impose $500 fines on landlords who failed to meet building codes after that time. The ordinance under consideration by Urbana city officials initially included such provisions, but they were stricken from an early version of the legislation.

“Urbana has currently gutted the proposal,” Webber said. “(They have) moved the actionable date on the proposal to sometime over winter break so that students cannot influence the decision. We want the fines back in the proposal and we want it acted on before winter break.”

Urbana city officials claim that the removal of the fines came after their legality was challenged by members of the public, not because of any personal or political opposition to the measure. Lewis indicated that he has not yet looked at the proposition, and could not say that he either supported or opposed the fines.

“It’s still under review for legality,” Lewis said. “I would reserve my comments until I’ve looked thoroughly at the whole document.”

In the face of lobbying from landlords and the postponement of a city council vote, student senate members have taken matters into their own hands. At last Wednesday’s meeting, the senate unanimously passed a resolution urging the city of Urbana to include the fines and compliance deadline in the final legislation. Webber said that this is the first time ISS has taken this type of action.

“We have people who monitor Champaign and Urbana city councils, and we’re concerned with any law change,” said Ryan Ruzic, student body president. “We advocate the best we can for students … currently, this (proposal) is not taking our concerns into account.”

Whatever the outcome of this effort, senators are confident that they are serving their constituents, Ruzic said.

Sophie Doroba, chair of the government affairs committee and junior in LAS, told senators that the resolution would let Urbana aldermen know that students want their landlords held accountable.

“This will make certain things more urgent for landlords,” she said. “It’s holding them accountable when students are already held accountable for taking care of their apartments and paying fines and rent.”