Middletown’s estimated 600 landlords will soon have to register their contact information with the city or risk having water to their properties shut off.

A new proposed plan calls for landlords to register their names, physical address (no P.O. boxes), contact numbers and a listing of all their properties with the city through their water bills, according to Steve Bohannon, a landlord who worked with the city on the proposal. The plan is set to become mandatory on July 1 and no water will be turned on — even if a tenant requests it — until that landlord registers with the city.

The goal of the plan is to hold landlords accountable for maintaining their property. Some city properties are owned by individuals or groups who lives outside of the region, and can be difficult to contact.

City officials had previously considered charging landlords a $25 registration fee, but many landlords protested the idea.

“We came to a happy medium and everybody’s happy,” Bohannon said of the compromise. “We didn’t need any more fees for this or that.”

Further details of the plan were not being released Friday because City Manager Judy Gilleland had yet to review it or present it to City Council.

“We will be finalizing a proposed program and processes, putting it forward for the city manager to review,” said Community Revitalization Director Doug Adkins.

“The city was looking for a goal to find irresponsible landlords who weren’t taking care of their properties,” said Missy McCall, a landlord who served on the committee with Bohannon. “All they want to have is to find the responsible party. It was easy to find a solution that met their needs and ours.”

The city in January 2012 proposed to charge a fee to register landlords in order to hold them accountable for maintaining their property.

But many landlords felt they were being unfairly targeted by the plan, which had a goal of holding landlords more accountable for poorly maintained and dilapidated properties. McCall said the proposal was offensive because landlords felt the city was trying to “punish the masses for the mistakes of the few.”

After meeting with some landlords, city officials killed the proposed plan last August.

Committees were then formed — one to address vacant property registration and one to address landlord registration — and this proposed plan is the result, Bohannon said. He called it a win for the city and landlords.

The registration process gave the city’s landlords an opportunity to meet on a regular basis, and that eventually led them to forming the Middletown chapter of the Investment Property Owners Association, an organization that’s been in Hamilton for decades.

“We feel as an investment group, we can bring a lot to the table, just like we did when we sat down to discuss the registration,” said Bohannon, the president of the MIPOA.

Bernie McGuire, immediate past president of the IPOA of Butler County, called the organization “an extension of the voice of housing providers.”

“We’re helping housing providers become better housing providers,” he said of the educational program they conduct, which is open to the public. “We try to get the point across that it’s a shared responsibility, not just the landlord who’s invested a lot of money in the property. The tenant shares some of the responsibility in upkeep with the property and the standards of the neighborhood.”

Anyone with interest in the Middletown IPOA should call Bohannon at 513-464-0464 or attend a meeting. Meetings are every third Thursday of the month, at Java Johnny’s, 3534 Central Ave.