180 Evacuated for Fire Hazards after Jon Hardister's TREBIC Succeeded in Rolling Back Housing Oversight
Greensboro's Former City Council Weakened Housing Oversight Before Hundreds Narrowly Escape Disaster
Greensboro’s former City Council voted to adopt new restrictions on the Minimum Housing Standards Commission (MHSC), stripping the citizen body of its authority to accompany inspectors into rental properties and removing its duty to study rental rates at the request of Triad Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition (TREBIC) President Jon Hardister along with advocacy from City management led by Trey Davis and the legal department’s Lora Cubbage.
The vote came weeks before a catastrophic failure at The District at West Market apartments forced the emergency evacuation of roughly 180 residents due to severe electrical fire hazards. Strategic & Crisis Communications Manager Eric Chilton described the electrical system as severely faulty and called it “a miracle” that no one was seriously hurt. Chilton also said an electrical company declined to inspect the building due to liability concerns.
The Council’s vote increased the likelihood that future hazards will go unseen, unverified or unchallenged until it is too late.
In a city with rising rents, aging housing stock and increasingly absentee ownership, that is a dangerous gamble which no one on the new City Council seems to want to correct.
The rollback of Greensboro’s housing oversight did not occur in a vacuum. The ordinance stripping the MHSC’s ability to advocate for tenants mirrors long-standing priorities of TREBIC, the region’s most influential landlord and developer lobbying group. TREBIC has maintained its opposition to rental inspection ordinances despite housing crises that suggest a lack of oversight comes with significant consequences.
Former state Rep. Jon Hardister, now TREBIC president, played a central role in advancing this deregulatory agenda. Hardister, who first ran for office in 2010 and served from January 1, 2013 to April 8, 2024, obviously supported legislation that preempted Greensboro’s Rental Unit Certificate of Occupancy (RUCO) program, eliminating routine inspections of rental properties citywide, otherwise he wouldn’t have his revolving door lobbyist job. That law removed a key early-warning system, one that housing advocates argue could have identified dangerous conditions long before they escalated into emergencies and harm to residents.
The timing could not be more troubling.
According to city officials and first responders, burned wiring, faulty breakers and melting electrical panels created what one fire inspector described as one of the worst electrical situations he had ever seen. Power outages had plagued the building for months. Tenants reported elevators trapping residents, prolonged periods without electricity or heat and repeated unanswered calls to management.
No one died. But that outcome appears to owe more to luck than to a robust, proactive housing safety system.
Meanwhile, TREBIC has been throwing “Staff Appreciation” parties for Greensboro’s housing inspectors;
A System That Acts Too Late
Greensboro’s housing enforcement regime is largely complaint-driven and reactive. Inspections often occur only after conditions deteriorate to the point of imminent danger. The MHSC was designed to serve as an independent layer of oversight; citizen eyes and ears capable of questioning patterns, verifying conditions firsthand and identifying systemic neglect before it escalates into crisis.
By limiting the Commission’s role to reviewing staff-presented information after the fact, the City and TREBIC has now narrowed oversight at precisely the moment when history shows it is most needed.
The West Market evacuation underscores the stakes. Electrical systems do not fail overnight. They degrade over time. Burned wiring and melting panels suggest prolonged neglect, not a sudden malfunction. Had conditions worsened just slightly, or had a fire ignited during peak occupancy, hundreds of lives could have been at risk, including students trapped on upper floors without functioning elevators.
The Cost of Reduced Independent Oversight
City leaders framed the ordinance as a technical cleanup, citing liability, privacy and the MHSC’s quasi-judicial role. But the practical effect is clear; commissioners are now barred from independently observing dangerous conditions, even when tenants request their presence. Inspectors have been compromised by TREBIC.
That creates a system in which;
Commissioners must rely entirely on staff narratives and documentation.
Patterns of neglect across multiple properties are harder to detect.
Tenants lose independent witnesses to unsafe conditions.
Accountability becomes centralized, not shared.
History offers a warning. Greensboro has already experienced the consequences of weak rental oversight, most tragically in the 2018 Cone-Summit fire, where five children died in unsafe housing. Each subsequent rollback of proactive inspection authority increases the risk that the next crisis will again be discovered only after lives are endangered.
How Many Warnings Were Missed?
Residents at The District at West Market reported months of electrical problems. Power failures moved floor by floor. Water outages and maintenance lapses were routine. These were warning signs; signals that a functioning inspection and oversight regime is supposed to catch early.
The question now facing Greensboro is not whether Council followed a narrow legal interpretation. It is whether the City has chosen a structure that prevents early intervention in favor of one that responds only when buildings become uninhabitable.
A Preventable Risk
Greensboro narrowly avoided tragedy on West Market Street. The residents were displaced, traumatized, and left scrambling, but they survived.
The next time, the margin for error may not be so forgiving, and we’ll know who to blame.
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