Louisville Metro Council can either severely weaken its local regulations to protect children from lead paint in rental properties — or lose them entirely.

That’s the choice that local and state officials say is now on the table, as Frankfort Republicans say they will hold off on passing a bill prohibiting any local rental registries statewide if Louisville acts quickly to weaken the ordinances itself.

The apparent terms of the deal between Louisville Metro Council members and state lawmakers were confirmed to Kentucky Public Radio by Republican Council Member Anthony Piagentini. He is the sponsor of two proposed Louisville ordinances expected to come up in committee Tuesday, with the support of the Democratic committee chair.

GOP Rep. Ryan Dotson of Winchester, the lead sponsor of House Bill 173 to end any local rental registry across the state, also confirmed the deal and said the council needs to pass it quickly to stave off his bill moving forward.

“So if they get this passed, (HB) 173 will be null and void,” Dotson said. “But if they don't pass this in the next couple of weeks, then we will have no choice than to push (HB) 173 through.”

Louisville unanimously passed an ordinance in December 2022 requiring owners who rent housing built before lead paint was banned in 1978 to register and remediate their property, as well as register such properties with the city to monitor compliance. The lead ordinance did not go into effect until December 2024.

Lead is a neurotoxin that is especially damaging to children, whose exposure to lead paint through merely touching it or breathing in lead dust can lead to brain damage, slowed development, learning and behavioral issues and hearing and speech problems. A University of Louisville study found nearly 10,000 children in Louisville tested with high lead levels in their blood from 2005 to 2021. The Courier Journal extensively reported on childhood lead exposure in Louisville in 2023. Reporters found childhood exposure is linked to systemic housing and environmental injustices, and that children in the city's West End are at far higher risk.

Piagentini’s proposed changes to Louisville’s lead ordinance would no longer require landlords renting properties built before 1978 to proactively test for the neurotoxin. Lead-hazard risk assessments would only be required after a child’s blood tests positive for elevated lead levels or if a complaint-driven inspection turned up evidence of the neurotoxin.

Another of Piagentini’s proposed ordinances on the committee agenda Tuesday would weaken a different rental oversight ordinance Metro Council also passed in December 2022.

Under current law, landlords must register their rental properties in a public database and pay an administrative fee, while city officials must randomly inspect 10% of all rental properties in certain neighborhoods. Piagentini’s new ordinance proposes to do away with the random inspection requirement — eliminating another avenue for regular lead hazard testing — while ending the fee and striking language about tenants being protected from landlord retaliation for filing a complaint.

Piagentini voted in favor of both the initial lead registry and the random inspection ordinance, but said he was concerned HB 173 could strike down Louisville’s ability to keep any registry of rental or short-term rental properties. He said he shared those concerns with state lawmakers.

After discussions with state lawmakers who represent parts of Louisville, Piagentini said they agreed not to pursue Dotson’s HB 173 if Louisville’s Metro Council weakened its own laws — quickly.

“Our hope is that by demonstrating to the General Assembly that we can be more targeted in how we do this and not be so sort of broad brushstroke, obtuse about how we draft legislation — by being more accurate and precise — they will trust that we are responding to our mutual constituents' concerns and adjust in course,” Piagentini said.

Democratic Councilwoman Donna Purvis, who chairs the government oversight committee, said she urges the committee to accept the proposed changes. Purvis represents District 5, where many of Louisville’s oldest — and thus, most likely to be lead-contaminated — homes are located. She said there needs to be some accountability in place to protect tenants from “lead-infested homes.”

“If I can't get 100%, I’ll take 50%. I don't want to go on not having anything in place to address homes that have lead in them,” Purvis said.

Purvis appreciates state lawmakers “giving us the opportunity to address it locally,” she said.

‘Quit coming after the landlords’

Dotson filed HB 173 in response to criticism he heard from apartment associations about Louisville’s lead hazard reduction program, he said.

The proposed bill would prohibit a local government from making a registry of landlords or residential rental properties “for any purpose,” but also specifically forbids registries designed to ensure the rental properties’ safety, or, require landlords to inspect for “lead hazard.”

Dotson wants cities to “quit coming after the landlords,” saying Louisville’s lead ordinance is government overreach and “could have translated to a huge debacle in the housing market there.” He said he was told it costs landlords as much as $800 to test for lead and that removing or reducing exposure to the neurotoxin could cost anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000, depending on the size of the units.

Dotson said HB 173 has more than enough support within the GOP supermajority to pass in Frankfort, describing a clear ultimatum if Louisville Metro Council doesn’t act quickly.

Dotson is also responsible for another state law, passed last year, that voided Louisville and Lexington bans on source of income discrimination by landlords. The recent state law means cities aren’t allowed to stop landlords from refusing to accept a tenant solely because they use federal housing vouchers, which Dotson likened to “communism.”

“I feel, as a state legislator, we're protectors of the state, and we want to protect our values and protect our state from a lot of woke policies that's still out there in some of these communities,” Dotson said. “So we're watching.”

Louisville Democratic Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong sponsored the lead poisoning prevention ordinance when she was serving as a city council member for District 8. Now a state senator, she said the program was designed to “proactively protect children from lead exposure.”

“I hope that any changes made will continue to center the need to protect children from the lifelong harms of lead exposure,” Chambers Armstrong said. “This means it is essential that we retain local control to safeguard Louisville’s most vulnerable children.”

Louisville Democrats, whose party holds a tiny minority in both chambers of the General Assembly, have often decried what they portray as a “war on Louisville” in Frankfort, pointing to several laws passed in recent years to override local ordinances in the state’s largest city.

Louisville remains one of the last few Democratic strongholds in Kentucky, though the party is only holding onto a slim plurality on Metro Council after losing a few seats to Republicans in the November election.

Democratic Rep. Pamela Stevenson, the House minority floor leader from Louisville, said local policy should be left to local leaders.

“The state ought to allow local governments to govern their communities,” Stevenson said. “This program has been working, and it has saved the lives of children. We should allow it to continue.”

Piagentini said the current lead ordinance is a burden on the majority of good landlords, with his amendments instead allowing city code officers to use a ”scalpel” and go hard against the small minority of “slumlords.”

“We need to not approach property owners and landlords as if they are all the enemy, because they are not,” Piagentini said.

The Kentucky League of Cities, an advocacy group for local government, indicated it has lobbied against the HB 173 as currently written because it could eliminate the ability of any local government to even regulate short-term rentals, like AirBNB, and collect tax revenue from them.

Nick Storm, a legislative lobbyist for KLC, said in an email they were working with Dotson to amend the bill and “address the concerns of cities.”

At least a dozen cities across Kentucky have some form of residential rental registries, including Ashland, Taylor Mill and LaGrange.

LPM Reporter Roberto Roldan contributed to this story.

State government and politics reporting is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.