Palmerton is making headway on governing rental units.

Councilwoman Holly-Hausman Sell briefly touched on the subject at Thursday’s borough council meeting.

Hausman-Sell noted that the committee has met twice since the last meeting.

“We’re working diligently on a (code) for rental properties,” Hausman-Sell said. “We’re making a lot of progress.”

The discussion started in July 2023 when resident Bruce Morrison asked if there was a way to enforce keeping sidewalks clean in the borough.

Borough Manager Autumn Canfield said at the time that anytime the borough gets a complaint, officials send it to the code enforcement officer or building code officer, depending on the nature of the complaint.

Canfield noted at that time the borough doesn’t have a rental ordinance.

Hausman-Sell asked Morrison if he had a specific concern on a rental property.

Morrison said that there’s been a lot of trouble in other municipalities, and that he didn’t want to see that happen in the borough.

In October 2021, council discussed joining other local municipalities in an attempt to regulate rental units.

At the time, the borough had 700 units.

Officials said the rental unit registration and inspection program would pertain to property maintenance as dictated by the International Property Maintenance Code.

The goal was to promote safe and sanitary conditions of rental housing, and that the borough believed this would increase property values, as well as encourage landlord and tenant responsibility for the condition of properties.

The borough had been made aware that an increasing number of calls to the police come from rental units, and the revenue from the registrations may be used to help fund additional police staffing and training to meet the demand.