ATHENS, Ohio — A relatively new ad-hoc city subcommittee has high ambitions for collecting information on renting in Athens.
Formed by Athens City Council last year, the Rental Inspection Processes Subcommittee is overseen by the Affordable Housing Commission’s Neighborhood Revitalization Committee. The September 2025 resolution that created the subcommittee states that its purpose “to enhance efficient and effective code compliance and rental unit safety.” The group began meeting the following month.
According to censusreporter.org, which uses U.S. Census data, more than two-thirds of Athens’ housing units are renter-occupied.
In late February, the subcommittee released separate surveys for tenants and for landlords and property managers. The tenant survey is available online; the subcommittee sent the survey to 575 landlords and property managers using contact information provided by the code office.
People who prefer alternative formats or did not receive the landlord survey may contact Spjeldnes at spjeldnes@ohio.edu or 740-590-2036.
The subcommittee is collecting results through May 31. All responses are confidential and anonymous.
Subcommittee Chair Solveig Spjeldnes told the Independent that as of April 2, the survey had collected 344 tenant responses and 180 landlord/property manager responses. The goal is 1,000 tenant responses, Spjeldnes said.
Rob Delach has volunteered to create an interactive online map of rental properties and their respective code reports. Additionally, Spjeldnes is seeking support from the university to analyze the data.
“Over the summer, we have a professor who’s going to clean the data,” Spjeldnes said. Then, a class in the fall made up of professors and researchers will analyze the data. “That’s going to take some time,” she said.
The subcommittee is set to complete its study by Oct. 1 and submit a final report to Athens City Council by Dec. 1.
Members of the subcommittee are:
- Affordable Housing Commission member: Spjeldnes.
- Student renter: Emory Mathy.
- Tenant advocate: Caitlyn McDaniels.
- Research consultant: Jennifer Woody-Collins.
- Code-compliant landlord or property manager: Ric Wasserman.
Measuring Code Enforcement compliance
In an email to the Independent, Spjeldnes emphasized that the project “is a comprehensive look at Code Office processes that is intended to be a collaboration with the city administration and involves multiple stakeholders.”
“We are authorized by City Council to collect information and make informed recommendations. The administration can determine what and how to implement these ideas,” Spjeldnes wrote.
The survey aims to identify challenges the code office faces, Spjeldnes said: to see what’s working, what’s not, how inspections can be improved or more efficient — and how access to public records about properties and owners to benefit tenants, landlords and the public.
“Because, ultimately, I believe that the things that could most influence landlords, is a really transparent record of their compliance,” Spjeldnes said.
Spjeldnes’ passion for the project comes from personal experience.
“I lived in sort of a dump when I was in college, but it was a safe dump. I felt confident that the roof wasn’t going to fall in. I felt confident that the plumbing worked,” Spjeldnes said.
Her children — who attended Ohio University and remained in Athens afterward — were not so lucky.
“They lived in some places that were really terrible,” she said. “I can’t understand how they could have possibly passed code inspection.”
“One of my kids when he was a junior, I believe he got this place on High Street, got the key, opened the door, there’s the roof and the ceiling on the floor, a hole right there — birds could be seen overhead,” Spjeldnes said. “Well, that’s not OK — like, can we do something better than that?”
Spjeldnes hopes that another outcome of the surveys could be creating an informational resource system for landlords, a sort of “landlord network,” she said. “So that they can find out about grants, for example, that could help their properties.”
More information on the subcommittee can be found here.
