After making dozens of changes to tighten its rental licensing laws since 2005, Minneapolis now is giving violators some bad press.

The city on Wednesday rolled out new website lists of landlords and other property owners who have violated its standards. The lists include those who lost rental licenses for a single property on up to those who have been denied the right to hold any rental license for five years. There also are lists of condemned, demolished and boarded-up properties.

The new approach of publicly identifying violators comes as the city is about to shift to a tiered inspection program for rental license holders. Those with the most serious violations will get annual inspections. Others could go five years or more without one, absent a complaint.

According to the lists, the owners of 14 properties were banned from operating rental property for five years after the city pulled their licenses on at least two properties. The city revoked 40 licenses last year, one more than in 2009 and up sharply from the first half of the decade, when it revoked a total of 11 licenses in five years.

The surge in revocations is from more aggressive enforcement and the collapse of the housing market in parts of the city hit hardest by foreclosures, according to Henry Reimer, assistant director of regulatory services. Now the publicity is designed to send a message of accountability.

"We wanted to move from a reactive, very time-consuming process of going after bad guys if they do bad things, to a more proactive posture of preventing problems before they occur," Reimer said.

The lists and other information about city rental licensing standards and housing enforcement are available at: tinyurl.com/4tnlng4

Steve Brandt • 612-673-4438