After months of discussion and several meetings to review ordinance drafts, the Austin City Council has voted down a draft for a rental housing ordinance.

Council members voted against the proposed ordinance by a vote of 5-2 at a Monday night meeting. Members Marian Clennon and Judy Enright voted in favor of the draft.

The ordinance would have required rental property owners in Austin to register their properties with the city for a fee. Landlords would need to provide the following information: name, address and phone number of the property owner or rental manager; address of the residential rental property; whether the property owner conducts a criminal background check on each tenant; and whether a written lease exists for the rental property and its units.

The City Council voted 6-1 in favor of the rental property registration aspect of the proposed ordinance at an Oct. 17 work session.

In previous discussions, some council members indicated that registration might help local emergency services in notifying the property owner when police or fire are called to a rental establishment.

Several local landlords were in attendance at Monday night’s meeting. While some didn’t mind the idea of registering, with the caveat that the fee be minimal, others said the registrations would only impact the already-compliant landlords since the “bad landlords” probably wouldn’t register their properties anyway.

Austin realtor Charlie Fawver said the ordinance doesn’t get to the heart of the issue, which is cleaning up rental property in town and helping ensure a secure, crime-free living place.

Council member Steve King agreed with Fawver’s notion that the registration alone would not accomplish what council members hoped.

“There’s no reason to do it if there’s just a registration,” King said.

Jeff Austin, council member, said there are already city laws in place that are supposed to aid in cleaning up rundown property.

“There’s an ordinance in place to deal with this kind of thing,” Austin said. “We don’t need to create another level of bureaucracy here. We don’t know that this will create anything except headaches among landlords.”

Enright motioned to approve the ordinance as written, but Clennon was the only other council member who voted in favor of the draft.