By ADAM ATKINSON

CANTON — A new rental registration agreement policy proposed in the village has made little headway following more comment from rental owners.

With concerns of potentially perjuring themselves after signing off on the policy's optional self inspection form present in their minds, rental owners who attended a public hearing tonight voiced more opposition to the proposal.

After the public hearing, during its regular meeting, the village board opted to hold off taking action on a law approving the policy to consider the comments voiced by the rental owners earlier. A committee and village attorney Gerald Dusharme have been working on the proposed rental registration agreement for months, taking input and comment from the public during earlier hearings and meetings to gradually edit the proposal to the current policy under consideration. The policy would pertain only to single non-family rental property units.

Village board members have said that the policy is being implemented in part to enhance response to potential safety issues in the village by establishing a data base of names of landlords to contact in the event of a code or public safety emergency involving a rental unit. The policy would also give some assurance that the number of occupants in a rental unit was within legal limits and that the unit meets building code.

Following this latest hearing, the board has 62 days to pass a law approving the proposed rental registration policy.

The self certification process that rental owners seemed most concerned about tonight allows rental property owners to supply a statement verifying the number of occupants in a rental unit and whether or not that unit meets code. This “good faith” process allows the owner to avoid an on-site code enforcement inspection which requires a fee.

Under this latest version of the law, owners would garner a misdemeanor under municipal law for providing false information on a self certification form.

Rental owner John McKloskey, a local contractor said that he had read the uniform building code front to back, as well as the village code, and said he would be hard pressed to say that he understood everything about a building. “I cannot tell you that my property at 47 Riverside Drive meets building code . . . I can’t do it,” McKloskey said. The contractor described a variety of code issues which may escape notice. “Even though I have a great understanding of building code, I can’t sign the self certification form.”

Rental owner Tom Jenison said his issue with the law was the self certification process as well.

“It has to go back to signing your name at the end that you as an owner of a property believe that you are in compliance with uniform code and if a builder (referring to McKloskey) can’t certify what the uniform code is, I sure as hell can’t either,” said Jenison. “I still really truly believe that we need to get rid of this notarization and just go back to ‘to the best of my ability.’ Get rid of that whole thing and get the legal aspect out of it, so that I can agree that to the best of my ability I am in compliance.”

Rental owner Dave Bradman said he thought the current rules governing rental owners through codes and law enforcement was enough and that no extra law was needed. Bradman said he has dealt with a variety of municipal officials in the running of his rental properties over the last 17 years.

“All of those interactions seemed to be worked out pretty well,” said Bradman. “Any issues that come up, they get dealt with by the code enforcement or by the police who have to come in. I guess I don’t really see the need to put more [rules] in. I’m not in favor of that . . . The other thing is, if this is a safety concern, a major safety concern, why doesn’t it apply to all of the houses in town instead of just a rental property. . . It seems that singling out the rental properties on the safety issue is really targeting one group as opposed to really being concerned about safety.”

Canton attorney and rental owner Diane Exoo voiced several points in opposition to the proposed law as it currently stands. Exoo said she knew that the law was being crafted with “good intentions.”

“I think you really want to make the village a safer place. And I think you could do that with a registration law if you included all the residences,” Exoo said. The attorney said having contact names and numbers listed for properties in the village to be able to reach someone in the event of an emergency is a good idea. “To me that makes sense.”

The attorney however, felt that the information required by the rental registration agreement as regarding floor plans and number of residents was too detailed and could compromise tenant safety should that information be exploited for nefarious purposes.

She also questioned the self certification policy and doubted that rental owners could accurately sign off on such a form. She said she had read through building code as well and remarked on its complexity. “It is Byzantine.”

She commented that the requirement to sign a notarized statement swearing that a rental unit met code only to find out later during inspection or an incident that it fell short unbeknownst to the owner, would still put that owner at risk of being guilty of perjury in court. “All you need to do is say ‘to the best of my knowledge’ to comply.”

She said if the board passed the proposal as it is written that it would generate litigation directed at the village. “Is that how you want to spend village dollars?”

“I have to say that when I read the forms last night and saw what I had to sign, I felt intimidated. I felt scared,” said rental owner Linda Faye. “And I think if . . . it said ‘to the best of my ability,’ I could sign that.”

The new agreement would replace a policy dating back to at least 1975 that village Mayor Michael Dalton said was actually more “extreme than what is proposed.”

The proposed policy requires a rental property owner to register their single non-family rental unit with the village, have it inspected or self certify that it meets code, verify the number of occupants, and finally obtain a permit to rent it to tenants. The registration process will be done once only and could cost $25. There is no fee if the owner registers the property within 90 days of the law taking effect, or 30 days of taking ownership of a new property.

The inspection by the village code enforcement officer of the unit may cost as much as $50 for the first unit and $30 for other units after that. However the self inspection process requires no fee.

The permit fee for each unit will be $10.

To read more about the proposal in detail, click here.