Lansford Borough Council wants answers on why rental license application returns are so low this year.

Only 122 applications were completed out of an estimated 1,100 rental units in the borough, Councilwoman Jennifer Staines reported last week.

The borough handed over the rental application process and inspections to ARRO Consulting this year. The firm was completing a database of properties and sent out applications to landlords, who had until May 31 to complete them.

The borough also increased its rental license fee to $150 a year, which is split between the borough and ARRO. The borough gets $25 from each application, and ARRO, which inspects the rental units every two years per the borough ordinance, gets $125 of the fee.

The rental licenses generated $3,050 for the borough so far, Staines said, and $15,200 for ARRO, based on 122 complete and paid applications.

If the remaining 978 landlords or property owners completed the applications and paid, the revenues would be much higher, she said.

The borough should have received an additional $24,450, and ARRO should have received an additional $122,250.

Staines also took notes on 129 pages of responses from property owners explaining reasons for not completing the forms for 224 potential units, such as the property is owner occupied, not a rental, change of ownership, or vacant.

“There are people who didn’t respond,” Staines said.

Council Vice President Jay Doyle said that they’re not even getting a quarter of the rental applications back, and asked if ARRO was supposed to do something regarding the violations.

“That’s what we pay them $150,000 to do,” Councilman Jack Soberick said.

Doyle called the situation ridiculous.

Council President Bruce Markovich said he wasn’t sure about those numbers.

“When we did our own billing, we had a better response than that,” he said.

Resident Joe Genits believed the changes to how the rental license applications are done under ARRO may have something to do with the low returns. The firm requires landlords to provide proof of paid bills when previously the borough secretaries verified this, he said.

Council members agreed that they need to hear from ARRO as to why they’ve seen so few returns.

“What Jennifer is talking about is off the wall,” Soberick said. “We have no idea what they’re doing.”

Soberick suggested they come to a public meeting.

Councilwoman Michele Bartek believes ARRO doesn’t have enough manpower dedicated to the borough and rentals.

She also believed landlords need to be held accountable for reporting to the borough regarding rentals and fined for not complying.

“We have to stop this $5 nonsense and start putting hefty fines for a lot (of violations), and it would stop,” Bartek said. “It’s not like we don’t have the ordinances already on the books. It’s here.

“We don’t have anyone taking the bull by the horns and actually doing it,” she said.

Staines pointed out that tax records show that people pay taxes on 2,241 properties, which includes all houses, garages, and other structures, while 4,669 people pay occupational taxes, she said.

She said that local real estate agent and certified home inspector, John Zym, would have a PowerPoint presentation for Wednesday’s council meeting.

Late last week, Staines reported more rental applications had been processed, approximately 50, and more were waiting to be processed.