ALTON – With Alton receiving several regional and national accolades in recent months, Alton Mayor Brant Walker petitioned the city council to push for more regulations on landlords.
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Walker, a landlord himself, said recent regulations toward landlords has been done in order to increase the housing stock of Alton. Walker said positions on both Forbes magazine's and AARP's list of best places to retire as well as Alton being the focus of the third season of The Small Business Revolution has brought more attention to the city. With that attention comes having to take a look at some of the city's problems in much need of repair. One of those problems, cited by many during 2017's mayoral elections, is Alton's housing.
After requiring landlords to apply for licenses in much the same fashion as businesses at the end of the summer of 2018, Walker said the city is finally getting a clear picture of its housing situation. Walker said he thinks the rental rate of homes in Alton may be as high as 50 percent. He said hundreds of landlords have applied, representing around a thousand properties.
In the month of September alone, 75 landlords applied for licenses through the city. In previous interviews with Riverbender.com, former Alton Police Detective Gary Cranmer, who is now Alton's Director of Housing and Coding Enforcement, said the city is going to hold both problematic landlords and tenants responsible.
That message was echoed by Walker Tuesday afternoon when he said that new enforcement and rules will assist homeowners in Alton, because home values will decrease with both problematic tenants and landlords. Walker said he wanted to improve the housing stock of Alton through enforcement and regulation.
