At the City of Elkhart council meeting on Nov. 17, resident and landlord Jack Siedadine used the public-comment period to criticize the city's recent rental inspection ordinance and urged the council to revise or suspend it.

Siedadine, who identified his decades of local development experience and said he had met with the mayor, building commissioner and city attorney, told the council the ordinance would require inspection of what he described as "10,000" apartment units and argued the city’s current approach raises constitutional concerns. "You have enacted an unconstitutional law," he said, arguing that inspections of tenant-occupied apartments require tenant consent or probable cause and a warrant. He added that giving notice to tenants is "not the same as getting permission."

Siedadine also questioned implementation details and fees. He said the city told him it would inspect 25% of units (which he calculated as 2,500 of 10,000), and he objected to a per-unit fee structure that he said could amount to $100 per unit after tiered charges, calling the total cost burdensome for larger apartment owners.

Siedadine pressed the council on what inspectors would look for; he referenced standards under the International Property Maintenance Code and Indiana Code and said the building commissioner told him inspectors would look for "life threatening issues." He said the building commissioner reported a 45% failure rate from recent inspections, and Siedadine questioned whether many of those failures were for non-life-threatening items, citing an example of a bathroom ventilation fan issue being marked as a failure.

Siedadine recommended several changes, including pausing enforcement until clarifications and amendments are drafted, creating an anonymous tenant complaint line, narrowing the inspection scope, using random sampling by floor plan instead of blanket sampling, and clarifying fee application so only inspected units would be charged.

Council members and staff later confirmed that Siedadine had met with the city attorney and building commissioner, and the city attorney said he would draft amendments (as referenced by Siedadine). Councilmembers indicated a desire for follow-up with administration outside the public-comment time limits.

Provenance: Extended public comment and Q&A by Jack Siedadine during the privilege of the floor; meeting transcript records his statements and questions to the building commissioner and city attorney.