§ 4003 — Housing authority; establishment

(a) In each municipality there is hereby created a public body corporate and politic to be known as the housing authority; provided, however, that such authority shall not transact any business or exercise its power under this chapter, until or unless the governing body of the municipality by proper resolution shall declare that there is a need for the authority to function in the municipality.
(b) The governing body shall adopt a resolution declaring that there is a need for a housing authority in the municipality, if it shall find:
(1) that unsanitary or unsafe inhabited dwelling accommodations exist in the municipality; or
(2) that there is a shortage of safe or sanitary dwelling accommodations in the municipality available to persons of low income or elders of a low income, or both, at rentals they can afford. In determining whether accommodations are unsafe or unsanitary, the governing body may take into consideration the degree of overcrowding, the percentage of land coverage, the light, air, space, and access available to the inhabitants of the accommodations, the size and arrangement of the rooms, the sanitary facilities, and the extent to which conditions exist in the buildings that endanger life or property by fire or other causes. (Added 1961, No. 212, § 4, eff. July 11, 1961; amended 2013, No. 96 (Adj. Sess.), § 158; 2017, No. 113 (Adj. Sess.), § 158.)