A trimmed-down version of that perennial Bellevue nightmare known as a rental inspection ordinance may have lost enough excess baggage to get inspectors in the doors of the borough’s apartment buildings.

The frequently debated and always abandoned legislation now before council is dramatically streamlined from its previous versions, which contained broad and potentially unlawful requirements regarding tenant registration.

The new document is simple: the owners of rental property will have to obtain a special occupancy permit from the borough every three years, and that permit will be conditioned on an inspection by the code enforcement officer (CEO) and possibly the fire marshal.

CEO Jim Delcroix told Bellevue Council members at their work session on March 8 that inspectors are now unable to enter many apartment buildings because tenants are too afraid of retribution from their landlords to give inspectors permission to come inside, even though they are complaining about conditions that violate various codes and threaten the welfare of anyone living in the buildings.

“This gets us in the door,” he said of the proposed ordinance.”The Borough of Bellevue has to draw a line in the sand. We have to start turning the corner here.”

Landlords who do not register and obtain the permits will not be able to rent their units, Delcroix said.

While council members agreed that rental property inspection was needed in the borough, council member Linda Woshner questioned how the inspections would be accomplished by Bellevue’s CEO. Woshner said that, using numbers supplied by Director of Administrative Services (DAS) Doug Sample, she determined that the CEO would have to inspect 845 rental units per year, or 3-4 units per day.

She suggested that the inspections be done in two phases, with examination of building exteriors done first before venturing to interior inspections.

Woshner said that a plan that could not be accomplished or enforced would do little good in the borough, and pointed to a similar ordinance in Avalon as failing to eliminate problem rental properties.

“It’s a pie in the sky plan,” she said.

Council member Mark Helbling suggested that the fee structure be changed. The proposed ordinance calls for an initial inspection fee of $45, which covers two inspections -- one to inspect the property, and a second to ensure that conditions discovered during the first visit had been corrected. If the CEO has to return to the property because corrections have not been made, there is an additional $30 fee.

Helbling said that the initial fee should be reduced to $35, and the fee for subsequent visits increased.