CUMBERLAND — Renters and landlords may be required to step up their housekeeping if a proposal for random housing inspections presented at Tuesday’s mayor and council public meeting is approved.

The proposal involves a change to Section 307 of the Cumberland Housing Code. A paragraph would be added giving the director of the Department of Community Development the authority to randomly inspect housing units and requiring the owner or agent of the units to make them available for inspection at all reasonable times.

Originally, inspections were performed based on changes in occupancy. This was later changed to inspections based on complaints.

The proposal will provide for 30-day advance notice for inspections and will also give unit owners and renters up to 30 days to make repairs if necessary.

“That would depend on the seriousness of the issue,” said Director of Administrative Services Jeff Rhodes. “If it’s a heating issue in the wintertime, it might be a shorter time frame than a cracked window in the summertime.”

Rhodes said that the initial plans involve inspections at five units in two locations per week. “If we’re inspecting a building that has 20 units, we would randomly select five,” said Rhodes. The proposal is silent about the exact number of inspections, however, allowing for adjustment as necessary to account for circumstances such as which locations are being inspected, how many units they contain and the performance of the proposal as a whole.

Jeff Hutter, president of the Associated Landlords of Cumberland, was present at the meeting to speak about the proposal. “Some landlords were concerned by the fact that there were no inspections, as were some tenants and some members of the mayor and council,” said Hutter. “What we’ve figured that we need to do to make sure we have integrity is to have some sort of random inspection program.”

“The city used to perform inspections on rental units when the occupants changed, but we eliminated that a couple years ago,” said Rhodes in an interview prior to Tuesday’s meeting. “However, now we are proposing limited random inspections to have some checks and balances in the system for rental units only.”

No action was taken on the proposal at Tuesday’s meeting.

Contact Cory Galliher at cgalliher@times-news.com.