There are currently no Carbondale city codes specifically dealing with tenant/landlord leases, but the Housing and Neighborhood Action Group is working to change that.

“We want to have leases that have transparency of cost,” said Mary O’Hara, a member of the action group that works through the Human Relations Commission.

While the group is working on several different ways to improve tenant/landlord relationships, their vision has to go through several steps before it could become a reality.

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“They are going to say, ‘Here’s the issue, and here’s how it will be solved,'” said Sam Goldman, Chairman of the Human Relations Commission. “It will come to the commission, and the commission will discuss it.”

The proposal will be reviewed by the HRC Dec. 6, and if approved, Goldman said they would then forward the issue to the city. The city would then look into the issue, and the council would have to vote on the proposed ordinance in order to make it a city code.

However, there are provisions under city code that already deal with some rental issues in Carbondale.

The city has a mandatory rental housing inspection program, which requires landlords to allow employees from the Division of Building and Neighborhood Services to inspect the dwellings. In addition, the city does not allow landlords to evict a tenant without authority of law.

Councilwoman Maggie Flanagan said while the inspection ordinance was not completely supported by landlords when it was passed, she now gets positive feedback from them.

But the action group is looking to accomplish lease standards, which they hope will improve the relationships between landlords and tenants. When deciding what would work best for Carbondale, the group looked at models from several different areas, including Chicago and Urbana.

Urbana Mayor Todd Satterthwaite said the city’s biggest problem stemmed from landlords’ unresponsiveness regarding repairs.

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“There were some landlords skeptical about it,” Satterthwaite said. “They didn’t want to be hamstrung by this thing.”

He also said when they created the ordinance, the city looked into things like the landlord’s right to enter the unit whenever they wanted.

“There is all kinds of scrutiny and privacy issues that come up,” Satterthwaite said. “The landlord has the absolute right to come in after a 24-hour notice. That’s worked pretty well.”

In fact, he said since the city passed the ordinance in 1994, there have been no violations he is aware of and to him, that is a sign the ordinance is working. The Urbana ordinance also allows tenants to deduct the cost of repairs they make to the unit from their rent if the landlord does not respond to the problem.

Furthermore, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign students have told Satterthwaite that they prefer to live in Urbana because of the ordinance.

However, the action group noted that there were several differences between Carbondale and Urbana, like zoning requirements and inspection programs.

“It is hard to compare,” said Sarah Heyer, who works with the action group. “We looked at Urbana, and they had codes we didn’t have.”