{"id":766018,"date":"2026-05-01T13:33:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T13:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/766018\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T13:33:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T13:33:41","slug":"houston-city-officials-miss-30-day-deadline-for-apartment-inspection-ordinance-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/766018\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston city officials miss 30-day deadline for apartment inspection ordinance \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"Toro<\/a><\/p>\n

Dominic Anthony Walsh\/Houston Public Media<\/p>\n

Pictured is a grassy area where sewage had leaked at the Toro Place Apartments in Houston.<\/p>\n

Houston city officials missed a 30-day deadline this week to take a final vote on proposed rules to crack down on problematic apartment complexes \u2014 marking another delay in the long-awaited ordinance \u2014 but the matter is on the agenda for the city council’s next meeting on May 6. <\/p>\n

The ordinance would create a registry of “high-risk rental buildings” based on chronic health and safety violations. Those apartment complexes would be subject to ongoing inspections and elevated fines for unresolved violations. <\/p>\n

“I\u2019m very disappointed,” said former Houston City Council member Letitia Plummer. “We had a good, solid ordinance, and I think what we\u2019ve done is we just wasted a lot of time.” <\/p>\n

Sign up for the Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n

RELATED: <\/b>As apartment inspection ordinance faces continued delays, former Houston City Council member speaks out<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Plummer began work on the proposal in 2021. A finalized version of the ordinance faced delays last year after pushback from the apartment industry and concerns from other city officials about a lack of stakeholder engagement. During the second delay in December, the city council voted to reconsider the rules within 30 days of a committee hearing on the matter.<\/p>\n

After Plummer stepped down to run in the Democratic primary for Harris County judge<\/a>, council members Tiffany Thomas and Martha Castex-Tatum \u2014 the respective chairs of the council\u2019s housing and economic development committees \u2014 held community engagement sessions about the proposal. The committees held a joint meeting on March 30 to go over the feedback and review a revised version of the ordinance. <\/p>\n

That joint meeting kicked off the 30-day timeline, setting April 29 as the deadline for the city council to take up the final ordinance. Houston Mayor John Whitmire’s administration did not add the item to the agenda this week, but it is on the agenda for the next meeting on May 6. <\/p>\n

RELATED: <\/b>After delays, apartment inspection ordinance progresses at Houston City Hall<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Whitmire’s office did not comment on the delay. <\/p>\n

On Wednesday, before the agenda for next week was posed, Thomas said legal review was ongoing. <\/p>\n

Over the past two weeks, the city’s legal department was engaged in high-stakes negotiations with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office over how the Houston Police Department interacts with federal immigration authorities<\/a> after Abbott threatened to revoke public safety grants. <\/p>\n

“I think with the focus of the previous ordinance and public safety funds, that\u2019s where all the attention was from city legal to make sure that we were doing our due diligence around that,” Thomas said. “But this has been in process. We have continued to follow up to get this across the finish line.<\/p>\n

“It’s just the nature of council \u2014 you never know what is coming in the air,” she added. <\/p>\n

Under the proposed program, apartment complexes that receive 10 citations for health and safety issues within six months would be placed on the high-risk registry, and they would be subject to $250 to $2,000 daily fines for each unresolved violation.<\/p>\n

According to Steven David, an executive within Whitmire\u2019s office, the city has already identified 12 properties it expects to list on the registry as part of an early pilot program \u2014 a sliver of the 4,800 known apartment complexes in the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are creating a naughty list because we want to be able to move people and give them an extra special bear hug,” David told city council members on March 30. “Our ordinances, at least in this avenue, are not meant to be punitive for the sake of being punitive. We want compliance.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dominic Anthony Walsh\/Houston Public Media Pictured is a grassy area where sewage had leaked at the Toro Place…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":561944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5130],"tags":[245940,10882,7065,4345,166465,51079,75977,425,50,358,3187],"class_list":["post-766018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-apartment-inspection-ordinance","tag-city-of-houston","tag-housing","tag-houston","tag-houston-apartments","tag-houston-city-council","tag-letitia-plummer","tag-local","tag-news","tag-texas","tag-tx"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116499579484412986","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}