Lindsay Barna, a William & Mary law professor, hears housing horror stories from her students.
Barna, speaking to Williamsburg City Council in June, said students have arrived to tour an off-campus rental to find the landlord wants more than the listed monthly price; some houses have rodent or roach problems.
“I’ve even heard of open sewage running through crawl spaces,” Barna said.
After years of hearing issues – and students’ fear of addressing them with landlords in a competitive housing market – Barna wants the city to prioritize regulations that ensure Williamsburg’s rental stock is safe and habitable and that renters and landlords understand their rights and responsibilities.
City officials want improvements as well. That’s why Williamsburg is working to adopt its long-planned Rent Ready program before the end of the year.
The city wants to get more eyes on the voluntary certification and education program and has two more input meetings scheduled. The next is Thursday at the Sadler Center on campus. The last is at the Stryker Center on Sept. 30.
“There will be some landlords who choose not to participate because demand is so high they know they’re going to be able to rent those houses,” Mayor Doug Pons said.
“But hopefully, as the product of rental property increases, then those that are substandard will be forced to – because of market conditions – improve their properties.”
The program has been on the city’s priority list since 2021, but the idea originated from discussions that began in 2019. It was one of several identified by a committee looking into the balance between owner-occupied homes and student-focused rental properties in neighborhoods around campus.
Rent Ready, if approved, will work like this: landlords can opt to have their property inspected and graded. They’ll be scored on an internal and external inspection and amenities such as including utilities with rent, grass cutting, on-site washer and dryer units, online rent pay options and others.
Properties that score average or better qualify and can be marketed by Williamsburg and the school as quality-certified. Landlords will also be required to have lease provisions that closely align with best practices in the program’s guidelines and take courses through the program’s academy, among other requirements.
The program will also require prospective renters to enroll and complete a course about their rights and responsibilities as tenants.
Students are looking forward to being heard in the process.
Zoe Wang, student body president, said experiences such as those shared by Barna represent some of the worst cases. More mundanely, students grapple with affordability and early timelines for securing an off-campus lease near the college.
“The past two years, I think I secured my housing for the next year in October,” Wang said.
The student government generally supports the Rent Ready program, Wang said. She said, for example, its academy could help first-time renters learn how to keep good relationships with their sometimes multi-generational resident neighbors.
Wang, though, takes issue with the way the program would incentivize exceptions to Williamsburg’s residential occupancy limits.
City code allows three unrelated people to live in a single-family home, or up to four with approval if the home meets certain space, parking and other requirements. The Rent Ready program proposes approving rentals to exceed the three-tenant cap if landlords maintain a quality score in the highest tier for four years. Properties already approved will be able to retain their approval and transition into the program within two years, provided they also maintain an excellent score.
Wang wants to see the wait time for landlords to get approval for four tenants shortened. Several students, including Wang, live in homes with four-person approval. But not all landlords get it before renting to more than three people, in some cases, leaving tenants off the leases.
They’re called ghost tenants. Students can find out about the arrangements by word of mouth. In some instances, they work similarly to any other rental. But sometimes the arrangement leaves students hesitant to complain about housing issues with their landlords or the city.
That’s why Wang wants to ensure the Rent Ready program doesn’t extend the process for landlords to get approval the right way.
“If this slows it down, that kind of goes against what we’re trying to do here,” she said.
