Canton City Council raises registration fee for rental units

CANTON – The Canton Building Department’s operations have more than tripled over the past nine years.

The department, which spent $871,237 in 2015, took over code enforcement duties in 2017 and became responsible for mowing high grass at nuisance lots in 2019. It added a litter team this year, which is half funded by the city’s sanitation department, and has been tasked with handling the mayor’s alley cleanup initiative and expanding its demolition program.

J.R. Rinaldi, chief of staff for the city Building Department, said the department is on track to spend $3 million this year. The department’s revenue, which includes money it collects in building permit fees and a registration fee for rental housing units, averages $2.3 million a year, said Rinaldi during a presentation to Canton City Council on Monday.

With a 7-1 vote, Canton City Council on Monday approved raising the rental registration fee from $80 per unit to $110 per unit. The fee does not apply to homes where the homeowner lives or to homes owned by the Stark Metropolitan Housing Authority.

Council had planned to begin charging SMHA $80 per rental unit, which would have cost the housing authority $183,120 a year in registration fees for its 2,289 housing units in Canton. But council removed that provision before voting Monday, at the request of the mayor’s office.

Council members Crystal Smith, D-at-large, J. Nate Cooks, D-Ward 6, and John Mariol II, Ward 7, abstained from voting. Ward 9 Councilman Frank Morris III was absent.

Ward 4 Councilwoman Chris Smith, whose ward has witnessed the most demolitions of blighted buildings, opposed the increased registration fee.

“I don’t think good landlords should be punished due to the bad landlords,” she said.

Based on the 10,017 non-owner-occupied homes and 402 vacant homes that Canton registered last year, the fee increase could generate an additional $1.1 million for the department, which is a 38% increase compared to 2023.

Rinaldi said the $110 unit fee is similar to what the fee would have been if council had included an annual automatic increase based on the consumer price index and cost of living when it raised the fee from $20 per rental unit to $80 per unit in 2015. The incremental increases would have made the registration fee roughly $106 per unit in 2024, he said.

Multiple landlords who spoke at Monday’s council meeting in opposition to the fee increase said the city would benefit more by working with landlords instead of charging them more fees. They also warned that they would be forced to pass the annual $30 per unit increase onto their tenants.

Councilman Louis Giavasis, D-at-large, said he has asked the mayor and law director to investigate potential ways the city can provide financial relief for landlords who have maintained their properties and abided by city property codes.

“I do believe (good) landlords should be given relief for their efforts,” Giavasis said.

Reach Canton Repository writer Kelli Weir at 330-580-8339 or [email protected].