The Madison Housing Committee discussed a proposal to push back lease renewal signing for rental properties at its meeting Wednesday night.
The ordinance currently states that the landlord may not enter into a new lease for the property until Nov. 15, after one fourth of the lease period has passed. The proposal presented at the meeting would push that deadline back to Feb. 15.
The proposal presented at the meeting was previously approved by the Housing Subcommittee.
Ald. Bridget Maniaci, District 2, sponsored the ordinance and said the changes will ""create a much more stable rental base."" Maniaci said education about housing still needs to be improved.
""The goal was to find a date where the renters have good time to understand and objectively evaluate the unit and whether they'd like to rent,"" Maniaci said.
Sam Polstein, representing the Associated Students of Madison, said the ordinance amendment would give students valuable time needed to make an informed housing search.
Alexandra Perraud, a freshman at UW-Madison, spoke about her problems finding housing at the meeting. ""I was pressured by my peers that there would be very little good apartments still available for second semester.""
Perraud said she received multiple e-mails from property managers around Madison that pressured her to find housing before it was unavailable. She said the pressure of rushing to figure out housing details was extremely stressful.
Jim Stopple, Madison Property Management owner, said he was concerned the committee's solution would worsen the perceived problem. Stopple said the lack of education about the rental process causes the problems, not the property managers.
""We have a monetary responsibility to our owners to do our best to regulate their property,"" Stopple said.
The ordinance change was referred to a different meeting.
