City manager's office recommends putting off RUCO discussions

Discussions about amending or eliminating the city of Greensboro's lauded, Rental Unit Certificate of Ordinance program, which has occasioned much strife, are officially tabled, at least until November.

Deputy City Manager Bob Morgan told RUCO Board chair in a letter today that the city manager's office wants to wait until the merger of the planning and housing & community development departments is completed in November before any changes are made. The division that administers the program will fall under the neighborhood services division in the new planning and community development department.

"Changes to, or the elimination of, the RUCO program will have a significant impact on the mission and the alignment of the new division," Morgan wrote. "We need to take the time to have larger conversation and the city manager would appreciate it if the RUCO Board would delay further consideration of changes to RUCO until November."

Morgan closed by telling Placentino, who is vice president of property management for Brown Investment Properties, that he appreciated the frustration that many members of the board felt. The board is significantly weighted with representatives from the real estate industry.

In the meantime, some cause for confusion: A notice from City Clerk Betsey Richardson states that the RUCO task force meeting tomorrow has been canceled, and a meeting for the purpose of discussing "possible changes to the RUCO ordinance" has been scheduled for Aug. 25.

Donna Newton, advisor to the Greensboro Neighborhood Congress, said she believes that the topic of the meeting is actually education.

UPDATE: Newton now says she believes the Aug. 25 meeting might, in fact, be a RUCO task force meeting.

She reports from the neighborhood congress unanimously passed a resolution tonight, among whose provisions are

• The neighborhood congress continues to insist on a proactive system of inspections;
• The neighborhood congress supports the delay proposed by the city manager's office; and
• The neighborhood congress' representative on the RUCO Advisory Board will vote to support the continued proactive approach.

UPDATE 2: A source within the city's engineering and inspections department clarified for me that Morgan's letter was really a recommendation, not an order to suspend discussions about changes to the RUCO program. In that sense, I think the original title of this post, "City manager suspends RUCO discussions," was inaccurate. I've changed the headline accordingly.

UPDATE 3: Another correction: I initially reported that the planning department will be merged with the engineering & inspections department. In fact, planning will be merged with the housing & community development department. The copy of this post has been changed to reflect the accurate information. My apologies, especially to Mayor Pro Tem Vaughan, who repeated my errors in her e-mail to the city manager.