A proposal quietly making its way through the city government would force tenants to pay landlords twice the amount of damage they cause to their apartments.
The proposal is a compromise of a previous initiative which the city council shot down. Although the new proposal is less controversial than the previous one, some opponents said they do not want it to pass.
\I am staunchly opposed,"" Phil Ejercito, a UW-Madison senior and member of the city's Housing Committee, said. ""This gives landlords yet another tool over their tenants.""
However, according to the sponsor of the proposal, Ald. Dorothy Borchardt, District 12, landlords could only use the ordinance to punish the most egregious offenses.
Borchardt said that when tenants cause damage that costs more than the total of their security deposit, landlords usually have to suffer the loss. The proposal gives tenants 21 days to pay before it punishes them doubly, she said.
""If you're a good tenant, then you don't have any problem with it,"" Borchardt said.
The lone alder on the Housing Committee, Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said he supports the ordinance because it is less extreme than the previous one. He said the new ordinance mostly just copies pre-existing state law into the city's record books.
Verveer said he voted against the first ordinance, but he did not think this one would be as problematic. For example, tenants would not have to pay double for breaking their mini-blinds.
""The compromise as I understand it sounds reasonable,"" he said.
But Ejercito maintained that the ordinance would hurt student renters, whose number-one complaint to him has been problems with their security deposits. He said his experience as a student influenced his opposition to the ordinance, but it was not the sole factor in his decision.
""I don't think it's necessarily a matter of self-interest, but rather who I'm supposed to represent on the Housing Committee,"" he said. ""It's not just me, it's all tenants who are going to be adversely affected by this.\
