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Saturday, February 22, 2025

Alders hope to boost tenant aid

Some city officials have a message for students as final exam week approaches: Procrastinate. 

At least when it comes to signing new leases.

Ald. Bridget Maniaci, District 2, said students are too eager to hit the housing market before winter break, despite a recent surge in supply fueled by high-rise apartments. Student demand may be driven up, she said, by student tenants having just three months to decide whether to renew their lease before landlords may legally put a property on the market.

""It's sort of an arms race,"" said Maniaci, who proposed a city ordinance that would push the renewal date for most leases back to Feb. 15. 

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Maniaci said she hopes the ordinance will help first-time renters, especially freshmen, avoid committing to a roommate they hardly know, and others from renewing before seeing a winter heating bill.

According to Nancy Jensen, executive director of the Apartment Association of South Central Wisconsin, landlords are just reacting to the demand.

""The majority of students like to sign their leases before they go home for second semester, so our practices are driven by what our consumer wants.""

It wasn't always that way, according to Apex Property owner Bruce Bosben. 

""I started doing this in 1986, and at that time nobody was interested in renting any place until after spring break.""

He said students have been asking to rent sooner and sooner ever since.

""To me, it's a nuisance. It'd be nice to have the rental season concentrated in a briefer period rather than having it effectively run all year. If Bridget wants to make this proposal, it would be fine with me.""

Brenda Konkel, director of Madison's Tenant Resource Center, said students who wait out the rush can reap huge rewards, provided they are not dead set on the newest apartments. 

""We've seen apartments that could be 30 or 40 percent cheaper, and they may be right next to each other,"" Konkel said, adding that spring offers more than just leftovers. 

""Some of the nicer apartments downtown try to rent to the young professionals … so they'll hold them back until the student rush is over,"" she said.

Konkel said students are increasingly breaking their leases before they even move in, which can result in otherwise avoidable fees for advertising costs. 

Maniaci said the early renewal dates put intense pressure on recent and soon-to-be grads, like UW-Madison senior Luke Danzinger, who said he likes his apartment but did not renew his lease because he is not sure where he will be in nine months.

New maintenance and mediation proposals

Maniaci said she would also like to require rental properties to be unoccupied for two weeks once in every five-year period to address major repairs.

""If you have a neighborhood of houses with quite a bit of deferred maintenance … needing upgrades and projects from bathrooms and kitchens to electrical systems and plumbing, that absolutely cannot be done in a 24-hour turnaround,"" she said.

Bosben said the new rule would be counterproductive and punish responsible landlords along with the bad.  

""I think that is a real deep reach into the rights of private property,"" he said. ""If [landlords] don't want to do any work or they don't have any money, it's just going to sit vacant for two weeks for no purpose and effectively ... give us two weeks less rent to spend on property upkeep.""

Maniaci said she would still rather see landlords take more preventative measures to avoid having to work around and irritate tenants.

""I think there's a good opportunity here for the industry to be a partner in this and work productively,"" she said.

Ald. Bryon Eagon, District 8, agreed that landlord-tenant relations could use some maintenance. Instead of using new ordinances, though, Eagon said he hopes to work cooperatively with tenants and landlords within the university structure to resolve some issues through campus education and mediation. 

He said he hopes the Associated Students of Madison, which has budgeted $50,000 for student tenant resources next year, will help educate students about common renting caveats. Additionally, he suggested creating an outside mediator, possibly contracted by ASM, to offer an accessible forum to settle simple disputes that might otherwise require courtroom hassles. 

""There's just a few bad apples in the pool of downtown landlords, and trying to find ways to really target them instead of just a blanket approach is a lot more difficult, but I think that's the right approach,"" Eagon said.

Eagon said he hopes to implement his proposal sometime this spring, while Maniaci will discuss her proposals at the Landlord and Tenant Issues Subcommittee meeting next Thursday. 

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