Landlords tried to stop bills to protect renters. City Council just passed them almost unanimously.

City Council passed two bills meant to protect renters living in unsafe and unhealthy homes after a couple of last-ditch attempts by landlords in court to stop them.

Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke introduced the bills a year ago as part of a yearslong effort by tenants and their advocates to get the city to help renters living with leaks, mold, lack of heat, pests, crumbling ceilings, and other threats to their health and safety. Supporters who packed Council chambers erupted in cheers Thursday as the bills passed 16-1. Roughly half of Philadelphia households rent their homes.

The legislation affirms tenants’ rights to safe and sanitary homes, expands protections against landlord retaliation for renters who participate in tenant unions or investigations of code violations, and authorizes the Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections to create a program to proactively inspect rental units.

It allows for rent relief for tenants if their landlords don’t have valid rental licenses or don’t fix code violations in a timely manner. The legislation also expands the city’s requirement that landlords have “good cause” for not renewing a tenant’s lease and further penalizes landlords who accumulate code violations.

“We would not be doing this at all if the floor for how many landlords treat tenants wasn’t so, so desperately low,” O’Rourke said after the vote. “And today, we have raised it.”

Some Philly rental property owners, who argue the bills will unintentionally harm good small landlords or force them to raise rents, delayed passage of the legislation last month by suing city lawmakers the day before a scheduled Council vote, an exceedingly rare move.

In the lawsuit, two landlords — one of whom is the political chair for HAPCO Philadelphia, the city’s largest association of rental property owners — alleged that Council members violated the state’s Sunshine Act by privately deliberating and then voting to advance the bills before public comment.

The landlords and Council reached a settlement that sent the bills back to Council’s housing committee. Almost two weeks later, on March 30, the committee voted again to move the bills forward.

The two landlords then alleged that Council members had again violated transparency requirements at the second hearing. They asked a Philly judge to hold the city in contempt and to stop Council from voting on the legislation.

The city moved the dispute to federal district court, where a judge last week denied most of the landlords’ requests, allowing for Thursday’s Council vote. The judge scheduled a contempt hearing for June to hear arguments on whether the housing committee’s March 30 hearing violated the Sunshine Act and the earlier settlement agreement between landlords and Council.

Before and after the court actions, discussions among Council members, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration, and landlord groups resulted in extensive amendments to the two bills. Council last amended the legislation at its April 16 meeting.

The day before, the influential Building Industry Association of Philadelphia e-mailed every Council member to express support for the bills and ask members to vote to pass the legislation.

“These are reasonable amendments that if adopted will maintain the bills’ legislative intent while allowing housing providers some flexibility and thus not discouraging badly needed housing in our city,” the association said in the email obtained by The Inquirer.

O’Rourke said Thursday that as long as rental property owners follow the laws that already exist, his legislation won’t make their lives any harder.

“But for any landlord, of any size, who’s neglectful, who’s negligent, who’s not concerned about maintaining the property you’re drawing income from...” O’Rourke said,” it’s time to get yourself in order."

O’Rourke wrote his “Safe Healthy Homes” package of bills in partnership with OnePA Renters United Philadelphia, a coalition of renters unions and advocates, and Philly Thrive, an advocacy group for racial, economic, and environmental justice.

Last year, Council passed one of the bills, which created an anti-displacement fund to give financial help to renters forced to move because of unsafe or unhealthy conditions in their homes.

O’Rourke agreed to push back the date his two remaining bills go into effect to give landlords more time to comply.

The bills will take effect Nov. 1.

Staff writer Abraham Gutman contributed to this article.