Cook Introduces Pro-Tenant Ordinance
- Durham Dispatch
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 10 hours ago
At the city council work session on Oct. 9, Chelsea Cook advocated for a new ordinance that would increase tenant rights in Durham. Based on similar policies in Charlotte, Pittsboro, and Pineville, the proposed policy would make it unlawful for landlords to collect rent from properties deemed to be uninhabitable. Cook's ordinance will be debated at the Oct. 20 meeting of city council. Triangle Tenants Union and other organizations have called on supporters to pack the chambers.
Cook is working to change Chapter 10, Article VI, Section 10-241 in the Code of Ordinances so that it would be “unlawful for the owner of a place of habitation that is imminently dangerous to health or safety to collect rent”. Imminent danger would be determined by eleven conditions such as “no potable water supply”, “no operable heating equipment, during November, December, January, February, or March”, and “no operable sanitary facilities” [1].
Cook called the pro-tenant ordinance “something that would allow for tenants who are in the most vulnerable positions to have a little bit more negotiation power.” [2, timestamp 1:13:00]
She said, “What ends up happening when people have habitability issues that are this severe is that they have to spend money outside their homes in order to have their basic needs met. They have to go to hotels, they have to take showers elsewhere, they have to join memberships at places … What happens when they have to spend all of that extra money and almost half of them are already rent burdened, they miss their rent payments the next month.” [2, timestamp 1:13:30]
Cook described how some landlords let properties to deteriorate as a gentrification tool. She said, “[Landlords] can allow this to go on … until folks are forced to leave because they are unsafe, or they miss their payments and end up in eviction court. They can use those habitability issues to ensure that those folks who they don’t want are out and they can get residents that they want in.” [2, timestamp 1:14:00]
After their input was solicited, the City Attorney’s Office (CAO) advised that the proposed ordinance could be vulnerable to a court challenge [3]. Similar ordinances have been used by three NC cities, two of them for decades. However, it is the role of CAO as an institution to be risk averse. During the Oct. 9 work session, the council majority (Javiera Caballero, Mark-Anthony Middleton, Carl Rist, and Leonardo Williams) seemed reluctant to step outside the bounds recommended by the CAO. Nate Baker supported Cook’s proposal.
In a Sept. 25 memo, the CAO recommended an alternative policies to protect tenants living in unsafe conditions. The lawyers suggested adding nine uninhabitability conditions "to the Emergency Repairs section of the Minimum Housing Code, Section 10-239(d)". Tenants would then be able to petition the Housing Appeals Board for a wider range of emergency repairs.
Cook is an eviction defense lawyer. She replied, “I don’t know who else of you has sat on this board, but I go to these board meetings … I send my tenants there all the time. You have to get an emergency hearing. It means enough board members have to sit down and make a decision. Then there is a 72 hour period in which they tell the owners of the property that they have to fix it. Then the city has to contract out to do the repairs. That’s city money they use to do the repairs. Then once those repairs are done, they can put a lien on the property if it’s ever sold to recoup the costs at a later date. That might be one year down the line, it might be never.” [2, timestamp 1:36:30]
City manager Bo Ferguson said, “the only emergency repairs that we have enforced under the ordinance have been heating related. Those are done at the city’s expense. There is the ability to levy a lien that only is repaid [on sale of the property]. Essentially, [the CAO proposal would be] a budget line item that is currently not budgeted. The discussion about the city remediating additional repairs would need significant staff analyses and likely an injection of new resources.” [2, timestamp 2:12:30]
While the CAO proposal would patch landlord neglect with public resources, Cook noted that it “does not get to the heart of [my] ordinance, which is the valuation piece … we are determining ahead of time that it is zero dollars for your rent if you are in one of these uninhabitable conditions.” [2, timestamp 1:37:30]
The city's lawyers also drafted an alternative ordinance "should the council still wish to adopt a prohibition on collecting rent". The alternate language from the CAO would "prohibit an owner from ... allowing occupancy of an imminently dangerous dwelling", which could be interpreted as meaning that tenants should be evicted if landlords allow a property to deteriorate.
Cook remarked, “The language in this makes me leery that people are going to be displaced.” [2, timestamp 2:06:30]
The council majority then tried to steer Cook onto a committee to work out a compromise. She replied that she’d spent three months trying to partner with her colleagues on the pro-tenant ordinance without success. Given that context, Cook prefered that her language to be placed on the agenda of the Oct. 20 council meeting.
Remarkably, student activists in the Riverside High School Affordable Housing Club played a significant role in lobbying for the pro-tenant ordinance. The club is mentioned as a major supporter in city documents and the organization’s president published an Indyweek op-ed advocating for the new policy.
A source from the Indyweek piece states almost half of Durham residents spend 30 percent of their income on housing. Another source claims that about 16 percent of Black households in Durham are evicted on an annual basis [4].
In a statement, the Triangle Tenant Union said, “In just one week, we will be packing Durham city hall to support an ordinance that would allow tenants to withhold rent for safety code violations … we can’t let city council water it down.” The group's social media used the slogan, “No Rent for Slumlords.”
The People’s Alliance, Triangle PSL, Durham Black PAC, and other organizations have issued calls for their supporters to attend the Oct. 20 city council meeting to support the ordinance. Cook's proposal has also received support from progressive clergy at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church and Trinity Avenue Presbyterian Church.
Work Cited
Cook, Chelsea; Riverside’s Affordable Housing Club. (Aug. 21, 2025). Housing
Ordinance Amendment to Protect Tenants. City of Durham.
City of Durham NC. (2025, October 9). Durham City Council Work Session October 9,
2025 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3K_yAOoZe0
City Attorney’s Office. (Sept. 25, 2025). Imminently dangerous conditions and rent
prohibition housing ordinances. City of Durham.
4. Graber, M. (2025, October 13). Op-Ed: Durham needs a tenant protection ordinance. INDY Week. https://indyweek.com/news/opinions/op-ed-durham-needs-a-tenant-protection-ordinance/