City officials are looking at a registration and inspection ordinance for rooming houses following a deadly fire last month.
Two people died after the December 23rd fire at the 22 room boarding house in south Omaha. The cause of that fire remains under investigation. Omaha Planning Department and Fire Department officials are discussing a plan that would apply to properties such as boarding houses, fraternity and sorority houses, and transient living facilities.
Jay Davis, who oversees code enforcement and inspection for the Planning Department, says they hope to reduce some uncertainty about boarding houses.
"The one overriding problem is, we don’t know where they are. And so our conversation is leaning toward some type of way for us to register and identify those properties."
The ordinance would create an inspection and reporting protocol and a yearly inspection process, among other things. It would also work within new standard operating procedures regarding repairs.
The discussion comes as the Omaha City Council is set to approve changes to code enforcement procedures. Mayor Jean Stothert says those revisions have been in the works for a year and a half---before a lawsuit by the Metropolitan Omaha Property Owners Association, and the boarding house fire.