Belleville occupancy permits allow city to illegally search homes, critic alleges

Rick Brown, a longtime critic of housing policies in Belleville, has raised new concerns about the legality of the city’s occupancy permit rules, and the city attorney said the complaints will be reviewed.

Brown believes the ordinance “forces people to consent to illegal searches of their homes” and allows the city to make a family pay for a new city inspection if they have a baby or adopt a child.

But city officials said families are not being required to pay for a new inspection and a new occupancy permit when they have a baby.

Also, Bob Sabo, director of the city’s Health, Housing and Building Department, said that the city had the occupancy permit rules revised in February 2013 because some landlords would get a person’s name on an occupancy permit and then let several other persons rent the place without paying for a new housing inspection.

When there is a “change in occupancy,” the owner is required to get a new occupancy permit, according to the revised permit rules. The code defines “change in occupancy” as a “change in possession of a dwelling unit by way of rental, leasehold, ownership or other manner of tenancy.”

Brown, who lives on Pennsylvania Avenue and is former owner of Mobile Home Supply on South Illinois Street, is concerned about how Sabo interprets the “other manner of tenancy” part of the code.

“There’s about 225 years of litigation on the Fourth Amendment,” Brown said at a recent City Council meeting. “People have the right to privacy.”

The Fourth Amendment protects U.S. citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures.

City Attorney Garrett Hoerner briefly told aldermen on Aug. 15 that the city’s Ordinance and Legal Review Committee will review the issues raised by Brown.

Ward 8 Alderman Roger Wigginton, who is chairman of the Ordinance and Legal Review Committee, said the agenda has not yet been set for the next scheduled meeting of the committee, but that the committee will discuss the complaint with Hoerner.

The committee normally meets on the second Tuesday of each month, so the next scheduled meeting would be at 6 p.m. Sept. 13. The panel meets at the fire administration building at 1125 S. Illinois St. because City Hall is undergoing renovation.

“This is a very important subject that we have to get right,” Wigginton said. “I’m not just going to jump into this and make a mistake. If we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it right.”

Wigginton said it might take two or three meetings to fully discuss the issue.

“These landlords were shuffling people through there, you know it was hard to keep track of how many were on the occupancy permits,” he said. “We’re certainly not going to go and make them have to have their property completely reinspected because of a new baby.”

This story was originally published August 27, 2016 at 1:34 PM with the headline "Belleville occupancy permits allow city to illegally search homes, critic alleges."