STARKVILLE — Rental property owners will soon be required to pay fees for unit inspections.

The board of aldermen approved an amendment to the city’s unified development code Tuesday requiring property owners to pay a one-time $15 inspection fee per rental unit for housing inspections to determine units are in livable conditions.

After the discovery of several uninhabitable units across the city, such as units at Brookville Garden Apartments, Mayor Lynn Spruill, City Attorney Chris Latimer and City Planner Daniel Havelin crafted a document laying out regulations for unit inspections to prevent additional properties from becoming dilapidated or unlivable.

Though every rental property owner must pay the fee, units will only be inspected if a complaint is given to the city or a structure looks rundown on the outside. The city must gain entry approval from the tenants, landlords and property owners to conduct the inspection, and if that approval is denied, the city must obtain a warrant.

“There will either be entry by consent or from a warrant,” Latimer said. “So if a tenant says, ‘We don’t want you in,’ well then you go get a search warrant in that event to ensure there’s no forced entry. There’s no non-consensual entry.”

Latimer said there are three areas of probable cause for administrative search warrants — time between inspections, nature of the building itself and what the general surrounding area looks like. Inspections will be conducted by code enforcement and city building officials.

Havelin said each property cannot be examined in the same manner because properties built in the 1950s will be in a different condition than units built a few years ago. The inspections will simply require the units to have basic maintenance, such as locks on doors, no mold on walls and ceilings and fire extinguishers inside the buildings.

“If you drive by a unit, you can many times tell if a building is rundown,” Havelin said. “If there is something that has something that draws attention, then through registration, we will know who owns the property, and we will know who to contact to get the inspection.”

Property owners have until May 16 to pay the one-time per unit fee. Spruill said the plan is for property owners to upload a spreadsheet of each unit they own. Inspection fees can be paid online or in person through the city clerk’s office.

Spruill said this will benefit the city because it will identify properties that are not adequate. She said she believes $15 is not too much money to ask of owners because cities like Tupelo, which have unit inspections, charge a yearly $25 fee per unit.

“We took a foundational document and started manipulating it,” Spruill said. “… I have a vested interest. I think $15 per housing unit is a reasonable amount for the city’s oversight, keeping up with the paperwork associated with this.”

Ward 4 Alderman Mike Brooks, an appraiser who was one of the two opposing votes along with Ward 1 Alderman Ben Carver at Tuesday’s meeting, said he is concerned for property owners who have multiple units throughout town and will have to pay several thousand dollars in the coming months for these inspections.

“I do think that we have codified this and it’s something good,” Brooks said. “Hopefully, it will keep us from having problems, but I’m just concerned about these fees.”

Spruill, who is also a property owner with 358 units that will fall under this code amendment, said she will have to pay over $5,000 in unit fees but knows this will ultimately help owners rather than constrain them.

Ward 2 Alderman Sandra Sistrunk said this lays out an efficient process for inspection. She said the city hopefully will not have properties that deteriorate to an uninhabitable level anymore.

“This arose from the level of properties that rose to the level of being condemned or approaching being condemned,” Sistrunk said. “That’s what initiated all of this. We want to be sure that spaces that are rented in town are habitable and the kind of places where people can feel safe.”