Editor’s note: This story was originally published at 10:20 a.m. on Feb. 12, 2025. It was updated at 1:25 p.m. on Feb. 12, 2025 to include comments from the Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington.
U.S. military veteran Tonia Chestnut moved to the Enclave apartments in White Oak in 2019 following her retirement. She said she was impressed by the luxury amenities and “beautiful property” she was shown on her tour of the Oak Leaf Drive complex, so she was eager to sign a lease.
But when she moved into her apartment building, she was frustrated to experience health and safety issues within her unit, including mold and pests, and found that the complex’s management was not helpful in addressing these problems. She said her experience did not match what was advertised by the complex of more than 1,000 units across three buildings.
“There were critters running around, something I didn’t expect,” Chestnut, who now serves as president of the Enclave Tenant Association for Progressive Maryland, said during a press conference at the Montgomery County Council building on Tuesday. “People that come to me with the same things, complaining of mold, people complain of rats … These are things that they shouldn’t have to complain about: broken elevators, parking lots that have potholes. These should have been fixed.”
The experiences of Chestnut and fellow Enclave residents as well as tenants of other county apartment buildings with health and safety issues inspired Montgomery County Councilmember Kristin Mink (D-Dist. 5) to introduce legislation Tuesday that would hold county landlords to the same consumer protection standards as merchants.
“The county does not have the tools to enforce our own housing laws. Currently, landlords are specifically named as being exempt from the county consumer protection law. Purveyors of what is generally a consumer’s largest expense for housing are exempted,” Mink said during Tuesday’s press conference introducing the legislation. “These landlords can continue taking payment for goods or services without delivering the goods or performing the services, without the county’s Office of Consumer Protection having the ability to take action.”
Mink’s legislation would remove an exemption for landlord and tenant issues under county consumer protection laws, making it easier for the Office of Consumer Protection and the Office of the County Attorney to enforce compliance when landlords fail to correct housing code violations.
Under current county law, landlords are exempt from some consumer protection laws because they are not considered “merchants.” According to a council staff report, Mink’s bill would amend the language of the laws to include landlords under the category of “merchants,” which would enable government officials to hold landlords accountable if they provide unfit rental housing, do not provide amenities as advertised, fail to repair essential building services and impose junk fees, or if they have committed chronic housing code violations.
In recent years, Mink and other elected officials have tried to get Enclave’s management to respond to chronic health and safety concerns within the complex. One particular concern, according to Mink, is that residents’ leases require them to pay for the complex’s security officers, but security officers were not always orovided. In October, the apartment complex received widespread media attention after several refugee families that lived there were threatened with evictions.
The Enclave Apartments management office did not immediately respond Tuesday afternoon to a request for comment.
According to Mink, the loophole in the county’s consumer protections laws has made it difficult for county agencies to enforce fines when landlords violate building regulation and tenant safety laws. In fiscal year 2024, which ended June 30, the county Department of Housing and Community Affairs attempted to recover more than $1.5 million in unpaid fines from landlords in actions filed in Montgomery County District Court. Due to the current loophole, the county recouped just $100,000, a recovery rate of 6.5% of what was sought.
“A small number of the worst actors waste a significant and disproportionate amount of county staff time for years on end, as they continue pitching their buildings to prospective tenants as safe, healthy, even luxury dwellings,” Mink said. “Meanwhile, tenants have no meaningful recourse when they discover they’ve been sold a false bill of goods and are locked into a lease with a landlord that chronically and illegally fails to meet basic obligations.”
The Enclave was not the only residence that was criticized during Tuesday’s briefing. A woman named Melissa shared during the press conference that she had been evicted from the Parkside Landing apartments in Rockville following struggles to get management to address health and safety issues.
“We never imagined that our community would become a place of fear, neglect and ultimately loss. Like so many renters across Montgomery County, we found ourselves facing evictions, all while having to endure conditions that were unsafe, unsanitary and downright uninhabitable,” said Melissa, who did not provide her last name. “Imagine living in a home with rodents, insects, insect infestation, mold growing across the AC vents, leaks that never get fixed, security so non-existent that even the simplest sense of safety is stripped away.”
Representatives for Parkside Landing and Rockville Housing Enterprises, which manages the apartment complex, did not immediately respond Tuesday afternoon to a request for comment.
The bill is co-sponsored by council President Kate Stewart, Vice President Will Jawando and councilmember Dawn Luedtke (D-Dist. 7). It has been endorsed by local labor unions MCGEO and SEIU Local 500, Action In Montgomery, CASA, the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, Islamic Society of the Washington Area, the Enclave Tenant Association, Jews United For Justice, Everyday Canvassing, Progressive Maryland and the Housing Initiative Partnership.
County Executive Marc Elrich (D) also supports the bill.
“[Under current law] if you’ve not delivered the services you said you were going to deliver for months, if you have basically let people live in unsafe living conditions for months, there’s no consequence for that,” Elrich said. “I do not anticipate having to [use the legislation against] most landlords in Montgomery County. The ones that we do will learn very quickly that we are serious about this.”
The Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington (AOBA), which represents office and residential real estate developers in the region, opposes the legislation.
“[The legislation implies] that tenants have no meaningful recourse when a landlord chronically or illegally fails to meet basic obligations. That’s factually untrue,” Alex Rossello, AOBA’s policy communications director, told Bethesda Today on Wednesday.
Rossello pointed to the state’s Tenant Protection Act, which passed through the Maryland General Assembly last year, as well as tenant protections included in the county’s rent stabilization regulations that passed last year.
“Tenants within a building can band together and file a class action lawsuit for housing violations that are not been abated, and they can sue for damages,” Rossello said of the state law. “This [legislation] is just another way that legal action could be filed against housing providers, on top of all of the other avenues. I’m unsure why it’s necessary.”
Rossello also took issue with Mink’s claim about fines not being recouped in court, saying that some landlords may have housing code violation fines waived if they bring their buildings up to compliance.
A public hearing on the legislation will be held at 1:30 p.m. March 4. A council vote has not been scheduled.
