🔒Haxhiaj requests new multi-family developments be included in Worcester’s rental registry program

District 5 Worcester City Councilor Etel Haxhiaj requested at Tuesday night’s council meeting the City amend its Rental Registry Program to include newly-developed residential units.

Referencing the apartment complex formerly known as Alta on the Row, which was sold to a division of Morgan Stanley in October for $157 million, Haxhiaj argued including properties built after September 2022 would help fund the city’s efforts to ensure rental units are up to code. 

Since the sale, the 370-unit Alta on the Row has changed its name to Aria on the Row, according to the website for Greystar, the property management firm for the site. The project started in 2022 and was completed in March 2024, according to real estate data website CoStar.

Multi-family properties built after September 2022 are exempt from inspections and for paying into the program for a period of five years after an occupancy permit is received.

The first time registration fee is $15-per-unit, with annual renewals costing $5-per-unit, according to the City of Worcester ordinances. Inspections take place at least once every five years, with a cost of $50-per-unit.

As an example, Haxhiaj said inspecting Aria on the Row would have generated around $37,000, helping fund inspections of rental properties across the city.

“As we know, we have a severe shortage of inspections,” Haxhiaj said. “Those folks need more resources.”

The rental registry program was implemented in 2024 and after being passed by the City Council in 2022. The deadline to register was initially April 30, 2024, but that deadline was later pushed back to the end of July of that year, after three amendments to the program were made by the council. 

District 2 City Councilor Candy Mero-Carlson opposed Haxhiaj’s order, saying inspections under the program had just started. She argued inspectors should focus on older properties rather than ones which were approved and built in recent years. 

Haxhiaj later countered that the City’s Inspectional Services Department has the discretion to focus on older and known problem properties. 

Councilor-at-Large Moe Bergman also spoke in opposition to the order.

“I feel like there’s an effort before the end of the year to make a lot of changes before the end of the year to things that we’ve given lots of lots of time and attention to,” Bergman said. 

The end of the year will bring about a new City Council, with Haxhiaj and Mero-Carlson among the councilors who will not be returning to the body next year, after losing their re-election bids.

Councilor-at-large Khrystian King used the discussion of the rental registry to renew calls for a report on the City’s compliance with 110 inspections, a part of the state’s building code which requires periodic inspections of buildings to ensure safety and compliance.

“This council has unanimously requested that report, and it hasn’t come forward,” King said. “I just want to state for the record that is a failure. I’m not happy about it. This has been requested for a long time.”

Other than King saying he liked the spirit of the order, the concept didn’t appear to receive much support from the rest of the body. Mero-Carlson moved to file the order without taking a vote on the proposal or moving it to a committee, with Haxhiaj being the only councilor moving in opposition to the order being filed.

Eric Casey is the managing editor at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the manufacturing and real estate industries.