Akron resident Coty Frazier didn’t vote in Tuesday’s election, but he’s thrilled that voters approved a pair of housing issues that could make it easier for him to move out of a halfway house and find his own home.
Fatima Rida, who lives in Bath, couldn’t vote on Issues 11 and 12. But as a landlord who owns dozens of homes in Akron, Rida was upset by their passage. She said she is concerned about what eliminating application fees, allowing security deposits to be paid over as many as six months, and treating criminal history as a protected class would mean to other landlords, and to Akron.
Issue 11, which governs application fees and security deposits, was approved by voters with more than 57 percent of the vote. Issue 12, which deals with criminal history, passed by a closer margin, with 50.9 percent of the vote, according to unofficial totals.
The measures were approved despite opposition from real estate organizations, the Greater Akron Chamber and Mayor Shammas Malik, who said he thought the problems Freedom BLOC was trying to solve by taking the issues to voters were real, but changing Akron’s charter, its governing document, was not the way to solve them.
On Wednesday, Malik and the GAC said in statements that they expected to work with City Council to write clear, workable rules and implement the amendments.
“I hope that I’m wrong about some of the concerns that I have,” Malik said in an interview Wednesday. “Our job is to diligently implement it and try to make it work.”
Issues 11 and 12 go into effect after 30 days, legislation may take 120
Charter amendments go into effect 30 days after they are passed, said Imokhai Okolo, a lawyer and Freedom BLOC organizer who was involved in writing the ballot measures. Additionally, the issues that voters passed give the city 90 days to write language implementing the new rules.
Amending the charter operates as a value statement, he said, but a comprehensive piece of legislation written by City Council will allow what voters approved to be part of the city code.
While Okolo urged landlords to immediately begin to follow the new rules, he said that, in effect, it could be 120 days before legislation with “teeth” obligates them to do so.
But, Okolo said, “It should not take City Council that long.”
A spokesperson for the city did not manyone from the law department available to talk about how they see the process working. GAC’s president and CEO, Steve Millard, said in a statement that the Chamber intends to be a “constructive partner” in writing the legislation.
“We said before the election that we wanted everyone at the same table,” he said. “That offer stands. Akron’s housing challenges will be solved by people working together, and the Chamber is ready to do its part.”
Voters chose what they wanted in approving the measures, said City Council Member Bruce Bolden, who chairs the council committee on Housing & Neighborhood Assistance and who opposed the measures. As such, he said he does not expect to add additional guardrails to what voters approved.
“It’s obviously what people wanted,” Bolden said. “Maybe they understood it, maybe they didn’t. … Our job is to do what people elected us to do.”
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Malik said he intends to work toward legislation that is true to both the spirit and the letter of the issues voters passed, calling it his responsibility to respect their will. He said he had nothing but congratulations for Freedom BLOC.
Bolden said it’s clear that the changes will help some people, but it remains unclear if landlords will raise rents or take other measures in response to the issues passing, as some have threatened to do.
“It’s a wait-and-see,” Bolden said.
Landlords, real estate agents worried about effects of housing issues
Rida, the landlord, mused in an interview about what her response might be. Now that she might have to take partial payment for security deposits, she said, “I’m going to raise my rent. I’m going to raise my rent a lot.”
If she charged no deposit but raised rents to $1,200 a month, from $1,000, she said, she’d break even over five months and be ahead if tenants stayed.
Rida also floated the idea of charging a deposit for something else, like water; charging a parking fee; or charging a credit check fee instead of an application fee. She said she’d probably start eviction proceedings sooner if she didn’t have a full security deposit from tenants. And she could make all her single-family rentals rent-to-own properties, with a nonrefundable option fee for people who think they want to buy.
“I have to think of some cockamamie way of doing that,” she said of replacing income. “There’s going to be some ways to get around this, I think.”
Rida donated $5,000 to the Akron Affordable Housing PAC, which opposed the measures, and said she was shocked that they were approved. Julie Stoll, who runs that and the Akron Canton Real Estate Investors Association, said in a statement that she “simply ran out of time” to adequately inform the public about the potential real-world consequences if Issues 11 and 12 passed.
“While we respect the decision of Akron voters, we remain concerned about the long-term ripple effects on our city’s rental housing market,” Stoll wrote. “We sincerely hope these new regulations do not lead to significant sales of rental properties, reduced investment, or independent housing providers choosing to invest in surrounding communities instead of Akron.”
It’s the smaller landlords who are going to be hardest hit by the changes, said Ralph McGreevy, the chief operations officer and executive vice president of the Northern Ohio Apartment Association.
But McGreevy isn’t sure they’ll ever go into effect.
“I’m sure there’ll be some challenges made,” he said, adding that the apartment association would likely participate.
McGreevy said he thought the issues likely conflict with the Ohio Revised Code, which lays out landlord and tenant obligations. He did not specify what he thought the conflicts might be but said it puts property owners in a predicament by minimizing their rights.
“I think this has a long road to go before it becomes the law of the land, even in Akron,” McGreevy said. “It’s going to be an interesting path this goes down.”
Malik said if a lawsuit is filed, the city will defend it. “We defend against all lawsuits,” he said.
The Akron Cleveland Association of Realtors, which also opposed the measures, said in a statement that “practical questions remain about how the amendments will work, including the specific procedures and expectations for landlords and housing providers.”
The group said it opposed the amendments because of concerns regarding their potential impact on housing providers, rental housing availability and the cost and complexity of providing housing.
“These changes could affect rental policies, leasing practices, and property management,” the group said.
Democratic wave brought out ‘more liberal voters’
Voters like Denia Martin praised the passage, which she said will help her 21-year-old daughter, Ariana Rush, find her own apartment faster.
Rush has so far saved a little over $2,000, Martin said, but would need more to be able to afford to move out. Both women are excited about the measures passing, Martin said. She also said she knows people through her church who could benefit from the new provisions.
“My hope and prayer is it’s taken advantage of in the right way and it doesn’t cause any hardship for the landlords,” Martin said. “I hope that it’s a step forward in the right direction.”
Frazier, who has saved about $1,000 as he tries to move out of the halfway house, said he’s spent about $300 in application fees in the five weeks since he was released from prison. He estimates he needs $600 more in order to afford to leave — a saving process that could take him months.
Not having to pay application fees, he said, would let him move more quickly and save money for food, clothes or other things.
“I feel so much better looking forward to the future,” Frazier said. “I’m happy that it passed.”
McGreevy said he thought the measures did as well as they did because a Democratic wave election brought out more liberal voters “who didn’t care what the ramifications were.”
“It was kind of a power-to-the-people night,” he said. “This was an anti-establishment issue.”
Okolo, though, called the passage “a definitive statement of community.”
“What this shows people in the City of Akron is they have the ability to change the future of this city,” he said.
Mayor plans to propose more housing legislation in coming weeks
While opponents of the charter amendments said they thought the legislative process was a better way to implement housing changes, Okolo said taking the issues to voters limits the ability to play politics with the process. Other organizations have more power through legislation, he said, but now, there is little room to maneuver as the implementing legislation is written.
Still, there are other housing issues that all groups agree need to be addressed. Freedom BLOC organizers said Tuesday night that they didn’t know what policies they would consider next, but that they would put something on the ballot in 2027.
Unify Akron has created its own list of housing-related priorities and sent them to the mayor. An update on the progress of those proposals is expected next week.
And Malik, who said before the vote that he would offer alternatives to the Freedom BLOC proposals if they failed, said he was ready to move forward with other housing legislation this year.
Ensuring that people get receipts for paying rent and mandating fair housing training for property owners are his next priorities, Malik said. And he said he plans to continue to communicate with Freedom BLOC in an effort not to stoke division — something that he said kept him from offering alternatives to what was on the ballot, even if he disagreed with the approach.
“We’re going to go forward on those expeditiously,” Malik said of the new housing priorities. “This month.”
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