Meadville City Council this week gave final approval to an expanded rooming house ordinance that will now cover college dormitories and set the fees for the city’s recently approved rental registration and licensing program.
Previously the city’s rooming house and bed and breakfast ordinance had covered just a handful of businesses, each with a few rooms. By adding the term “dormitory” throughout the ordinance, council expanded the reach of the law to one more organization — Allegheny College — and more than 1,000 additional rooms.
The move grew out of council’s recent discussions and approval of a rental registration and licensing program and was approved 4-1. Councilman Jim Roha, who opposed the rental registration and licensing program, also voted against the update to the rooming house ordinance.
The update applies to “the entirety of Allegheny’s properties,” City Manager Maryann Menanno said during initial discussions last month, and covers traditional dormitories with communal restroom facilities, apartment-style housing and single-family residences that have been converted into student housing.
Allegheny’s dorms, along with its other structures, had previously been covered by the city’s commercial inspections. Under that program, firefighters conducting the inspections had only examined communal areas in dorms, not the individual bedrooms that will be covered by the rooming house ordinance. According to the college’s website, the traditional dorms contain approximately 1,060 bedrooms of varying capacities. Additional bedrooms are contained in an apartment-style complex and several converted single-family residences.
The rooming house ordinance, unlike the rental registration program, requires annual licensing. The minimum fee for rooming house inspections will be $125, according to Menanno. One license will be required per building. Buildings with up to 13 rooms will pay the minimum fee. Beyond that, the fee per building would be based on multiples of 13 rooms in each building, she added.
Council approved the fee in a 4-1 vote as part of a fee schedule including numerous city services. Roha was the lone dissenter and cited the inclusion of a fee for the rental registration program he opposed as the reason for his opposition.
The rental registration and licensing fee that covers rental housing other than dorms, rooming houses and bed-and-breakfast businesses will be $76 per rental unit and will cover a two-year licensing period. When required, re-inspections will cost $60. The fee to transfer a registration will be $9.
The only other significant change in the city’s fee schedule, Menanno said, was an increase to the cost of reserving a park shelter from $50 to $60. However, a $25 deposit that had been required was eliminated.
