As Houston City Council moves closer to voting on an ordinance targeting negligent apartment operators, local leaders can look west for some potential insights into the benefits and challenges of such regulations.
In 2023, San Antonio officials launched their Proactive Apartment Inspections Program, an initiative that increases city oversight of nearly 2,300 complexes. Similar to Houston’s proposed ordinance, the program bolsters monitoring of apartment conditions, creates a registry for repeat violators of health and safety codes, and establishes punishment for troublesome landlords.
In the three years since, city workers have inspected tens of thousands of apartments and labeled dozens of landlords as repeat offenders. The result: More San Antonio apartment dwellers are living in safer conditions, free of roaches, broken air conditioners and busted water pipes, city officials said.
“We’re holding property owners accountable where there are code violations of basic housing standards,” said Danny Liguez, interim assistant director of San Antonio’s Code Enforcement Division. “Our goals initially were to incentivize good property management. We’re seeing that now.”
But not all San Antonians are as sunny in their assessment. Some landlords have criticized the program as unfair and unnecessarily punitive, while tenants’ rights advocates argue it addresses a small fraction of the issues plaguing apartments.
“As an advocate, I go to properties all over San Antonio, and I can tell you there are a lot more (complexes) that need to be in this program,” said Kayla Miranda, a housing justice advocate and member of San Antonio’s Building Standards Board.
Some of those issues likely would arise in Houston, where the proposed ordinance dedicates modest resources to inspections and sets a higher bar for placement on a registry than San Antonio.
Houston city leaders have generally supported stiffer enforcement of apartment safety regulations, but disagreements over the strength and fairness of the proposed ordinance have stretched out since then-Councilmember Letitia Plummer introduced the idea in 2021. City Council is expected to vote on a final proposal in the coming weeks, said Monique Welch-Rutherford, a spokesperson for Councilmember Tiffany Thomas.
Preliminary results from the Kinder Institute’s ongoing Housing Quality Registry, in which local residents document their living conditions, show nearly half of 175 respondents living in an apartment or condominium reported feeling “somewhat safe” or “not at all safe” in their home. The rate is roughly double the rate of those living in single-family homes or townhomes. (The sample size is small and not intended to be scientifically representative of the city.)
Stronger apartment scrutiny
San Antonio’s apartment safety initiative first gained momentum in 2022, growing out of frustrations with substandard living conditions in two complexes.
Under the ordinance, which took effect in April 2023, any apartment building with five or more units can be inspected without warning to ensure compliance with dozens of city property maintenance codes.
Any complex with three major violations — including structural safety issues, heating and cooling failures, and pests — in a six-month period can be placed on a registry, potentially triggering monthly follow-up inspections and an annual fee of $100 per apartment unit. Landlords can get off the registry by correcting the violations and having less than two citations in a six-month span.
Over the past three years, San Antonio city employees have proactively inspected 21,000 apartment units and re-inspected 43,800 units, according to city data. Another 13,500 units were visited in response to residents calling a 311 helpline to file complaints.
To date, 56 of 2,280 inspected properties have been enrolled in the registry for repeat violations. City officials said half of them have been removed from the registry after completing necessary repairs, while three have re-entered the list.
Liguez said the system has prodded landlords into making more repairs, often without harsh punishment.
“It has worked in our favor because of the responsiveness that we’re getting from the managers of these properties,” Liguez said. “We’re engaging with the property owners early on. Those that we’ve interacted with because they've been required to register to the program, they’re getting a better understanding regarding property maintenance.”
Too soft or too harsh?
While San Antonio’s program has increased apartment safety oversight, frustrations with the program remain.
Miranda said she considers the initiative “somewhat of a success,” but argued it’s under-resourced. San Antonio employs five inspectors to monitor the city’s nearly 2,300 complexes, which means the city captures only a portion of complexes with serious maintenance issues, she said.
The limited staffing also means the vast majority of units in a troubled building go unexamined, Miranda said.
“If a property has 300 units and one unit has code violations, there are going to be a lot of other units with the same violations that need to be addressed,” Miranda said. “There’s only a certain amount of dedicated code officers, and they cover large areas. Once a landlord gets a single complaint in a single unit, they really need to be checking all the units, and not just the unit that's called in.”
In 2023, two apartment property owners sued the city in federal court, arguing the ordinance is unconstitutionally vague, infringes on their property rights and levies excessive fines, among other complaints. A federal judge rejected those claims in 2025.
Representatives of the San Antonio Apartment Association, the city’s leading trade association for multifamily and rental property owners, did not respond to requests for comment. The association’s leaders didn’t oppose the ordinance in 2023, though they warned that fees would ultimately get passed down to renters and hurt housing affordability.
