Lucio Vasquez / Houston Public Media
Houston City Council Member Letitia Plummer on June 2, 2021.
In a blow further extending four years of work, Houston City Council member Letitia Plummer’s push to ramp up regulations of problematic apartments was again delayed in a 9-7 vote Wednesday.
After the vote, Plummer told Houston Public Media she was “incredibly disappointed.”
“We’re elected by a body of people,” Plummer said, “and it just seems very unbalanced when people come and tell us what’s going on, and then you have wealthy stakeholders that have financial gains in the situation, and their recommendations overshadow what people’s experiences are, and that’s just not why we’re elected.”
If approved, the ordinance would create a new registry of High Risk Rental Buildings, based on the volume of 311 complaints and habitability-related citations. Buildings in the registry would receive additional inspections and daily fines for continuing violations of health and safety standards.
Houston Apartment Association CEO Casey Morgan spoke out against the proposed rules on Wednesday and called for a delay so further changes could be made.
“Our biggest concern is if we unnecessarily rush this process now, we risk losing the momentum that you have built on this critical topic and ultimately pass a flawed proposal — one that the administration has expressed some enforceability concerns, and one that possibly would not yield the results that we want,” Morgan told the city council.
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City Attorney Arturo Michel raised concerns about the lack of an appeal mechanism, which he said posed problems around enforceability, and Mayor John Whitmire called for a delay.
“The challenge is get something that’s tough enough and that actually is enforceable,” Whitmire said.
Under the proposed law, five apartment complexes would be added to the program at a time — those receiving the highest volume of 311 complaints over six months while also racking up 10 or more health and safety citations.
Tenant advocacy groups argued the proposed measure lacks strength because of the narrow program size, while the apartment association argued that the process ignores size differences, potentially penalizing larger complexes.
Plummer began work on the ordinance in 2021, and she said it was made less stringent over the years after feedback from the industry — to the point that tenant advocates were unhappy with the proposed version. She said there isn’t much room for further compromise as the measure is reconsidered by the administration over the next month.
Plummer will soon be stepping down from the city council as she runs for Harris County judge next year.
“They’re going to water it down even more, and now I’m just worried that the ordinance won’t even look anything like what we … first put forward. It’s just going to get weaker,” Plummer said. “I’m not confident that whatever is delivered to us — I think the people that are living, actually experiencing the conditions, are going to hate it.”
The ordinance would also create an Apartment Standards Enforcement Committee consisting of municipal department staffers as well as representatives for landlords and tenants.
Council member Sallie Alcorn told Morgan she would prefer to pass the ordinance and have the group address any concerns rather than further delaying the program.
“We have the most poor people in the whole country, and those are the people that are living in these apartments,” Alcorn said. “I want to sit here and put some protections in place.”
The proposed law was placed on the council agenda by council members Plummer, Edward Pollard, Carolyn Evans-Shabazz and Joaquin Martinez though relatively new powers granted by Proposition A — the charter amendment approved by voters in 2023 allowing at least three council members to place items on the agenda, a power previously held solely by the mayor.
On Wednesday, Plummer sought a final vote on the measure. Her motion to call the vote itself fell short, and the matter was referred back to the administration. Council members Alcorn, Evans-Shabazz, Martinez, Pollard, Mario Castillo and Julian Ramirez joined Plummer in her effort to call a final vote. Several council members who voted against the final roll call expressed support for the intent of the ordinance but concerns about its enforceability.
The measure is set to be reconsidered on Dec. 10.