Belleville needs to get its housing in order

Had a baby in Belleville? Well, that’s a new occupant and you need a full inspection of your home. Welcome to Belleville: That’ll be $60, please.

Or maybe not. Housing inspectors would use “discretion.”

But if you get married, well your bride or groom, they definitely will need a $60 inspection to keep them safe. Babies, not so much.

It is interesting that the Belleville City Council is now discovering that there are new practices within the housing department. At the July 18 council meeting there was discussion of the housing occupancy rules, which were changed in February 2013 and enforced beginning about a year ago, that require a full $60 home inspection if it has been more than a year since the last inspection and you add someone to your home: Maybe the baby, new spouse, returning G.I. daughter, ailing elderly parent, your unemployed offspring who insisted on majoring in Elizabethan poetry.

It’s been more than a year since the practice began and most aldermen are just getting wind of it. Mayor Mark Eckert was unaware that it was a full inspection. The city is contemplating making the housing ordinance more specific so there’s clarity about what is done and in what circumstances.

Babies should stand by.

Also interesting is that this is coming up at the same time that the city cut enough slack to the owners of the Rob Nora Apartments, 7009 W. Main St., so that things hit a crisis point. The ceiling fell in on one woman and everyone must to be out by Wednesday.

Dale Helle is the property manager and his wife is listed as an officer for the company that owns the apartments, but they live in Springfield, Mo. Managing the apartments from that distance is apparently not working very well.

Eight months ago, city inspectors found fire code violations and rusted flue pipes, which could leak deadly carbon monoxide. The city kept after Helle, but the city also allowed residents to live with those threats for eight months and no one bothered telling tenants that their safety might be at risk — that is, until a month ago when they were told to move out.

Newlyweds. Babies. Tenants with carbon monoxide. Maybe the city needs to do a little soul searching about their priorities as they look at revamping the occupancy permit rules.

This story was originally published July 25, 2016 at 7:00 PM with the headline "Belleville needs to get its housing in order."