'Simply unacceptable': Neronha puts spotlight on governor's scale-back of lead safety law

Taking aim at lead poisoning, Rhode Island lawmakers last year required landlords to prove the apartments they rent are lead-safe in a public statewide registry of all rental properties.

But now, with the launch date of the registry approaching, Gov. Dan McKee wants to delay implementation and scale back the information landlords must make public.

The relaxation of lead registry rules, which McKee proposed in his budget for next year, faces heavy criticism from Attorney General Peter Neronha, who pushed for the creation of the registry last year and has been a frequent critic of the governor.

“Last year, the General Assembly passed perhaps the most significant tenant protections that Rhode Island has seen in a generation, and certainly the most significant healthy-housing legislation in at least two decades, since the passage of the Lead Hazard Mitigation Act of 2002," Neronha stated in a news release last week. "Why we would now undo that progress on the lead rental registry and significantly decrease its protections of children escapes me."

Advocates call McKee's move `disappointing'

There is no safe level of lead exposure and, according to Neronha, 1,300 children in Rhode Island are poisoned by lead each year.

DeeAnn Guo, community organizer with Childhood Lead Action Project, called McKee's proposed changes "disappointing" in testimony to the House Finance Committee last week.

"These proposed changes are second-guessing the General Assembly and would leave families without adequate protection for another year," Guo wrote in written testimony to the committee. "The registry is not creating a requirement to get and maintain a lead certificate; it is a tool to help enforce an existing one."

The law passed last year requires all landlords to give their name with current address, email address and telephone number to the state Department of Health to be included in a public rental property database. The owners of properties built before 1978 — the year lead paint was banned — would have to provide a valid certificate showing the building is lead safe.

The Health Department is required to create the public database, "contingent upon available funding," nine months after the bill became law, which is March 20. Landlords have until Oct. 1 to provide the required information to the state.

Funding, resources for the registry and database delayed

Despite passing the rental registry bill, lawmakers provided no funding for it.

McKee's budget proposal would appropriate $1.3 million to stand up the registry but delay launch of the public database until Sept. 1, 2025. (Landlords would get another month after that to deliver information to the state.)

It would also exempt the owners of any property built after 1978 from having to register, and only landlords whose apartments are in violation would be made public.

Even violators would be able to provide the name of "any business entity responsible for leasing" instead of their own name and would not have to provide any direct contact information.

More: A Central Falls couple's twins were struggling. Then a blood test showed high lead levels

Interim state Health Director Utpala Bandy, who is set to retire at the end of the month, told lawmakers in a letter last week that McKee supports "identifying pre-1978 housing stock," but her department now lacks the resources to "create and maintain such a database and engage and support landlords."

The letter does not directly address why, if funding is provided, McKee does not want landlords of newer properties to have to register with the state or why landlord information should not be made public.

But a host of landlords and the Rhode Island Association of Realtors testified that the cost of complying with the current lead requirements would be expensive and would create red tape.

"Without time and resources to remediate lead in older homes, [the Rhode Island Association of Realtors] is concerned that these exorbitant costs will be passed on to tenants, further exacerbating the rental crisis in Rhode Island," Realtors Association CEO Philip Tedesco wrote in support of McKee's proposed changes. "From the cost of hiring architects, to limited window replacement options, the cost and length of process will negatively impact home values and housing affordability."

The push to create a public, statewide apartment database fits within a larger debate about increased tenant protections, of which lead safety is one part. Knowing who owns what apartments is a facet of many tenant protection ideas, up to and including rent control.

Providence City Council members last year proposed a citywide apartment registry and are considering rent control.

Carol O'Donnell, a landlord and member of the state Commerce Corporation board, wrote: "We cannot have a further unfunded mandate that will become a law."

"This will hurt landlords and tenants alike," she stated. "Personal information does not belong in a portal."

Neronha, on the other hand, said ending lead poisoning is a matter of political will.

"The current situation, where 1,300 children in Rhode Island are lead poisoned each year in Rhode Island, when nearly 20% of Providence students test positive for lead, is simply unacceptable," Neronha wrote. "We have the power to end childhood lead poisoning in our state."

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Lead paint registry scaled back by McKee, drawing criticism