PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Tenants living in Pinellas County are going to have some added protections when renting property after the county commissioners approved an ordinance that gives renters a “bill of rights” when leasing in the county.

This is a major victory in trying to help people struggling to find affordable housing in the county, according to renters, but landlords say this creates more unnecessary paperwork that’s more of a headache than a solution.

During Tuesday morning’s meeting, while standing in front of the Pinellas County commissioners, William Kilgore didn’t mince his words.

“These are some of the most vulnerable people in the county and they need your help,” said Kilgore, a member of the St. Petersburg tenants union.

He’s talking about renters in the county that need vouchers to afford rent or other basic assistance that he says are being discriminated against by some landlords who don’t want to rent their properties to voucher holders.

“These are some of the things that people are facing,” he said.

Which is why he was ecstatic that the county commissioners passed a new ordinance that will go into effect in October that will require landlords to accept any legal form of payment for rent, require at least 60 days’ notice for major rent increases and provide tenants with a notice of rights when their lease starts.

It’s something St. Petersburg already passed but Kilgore says has too many loopholes that work around those rights.

“Now we can go back to St. Pete and get St. Pete’s changed now that this is a model,” he said.

For small property landlords, like Jody Shirley, who owns property in Largo, this vote is far from a victory.

“Most of those items are already covered in a lease and, you know, it’s a standard lease process,” Shirley said.

She and other landlords in the meeting who spoke say this won’t improve major issues like the rising rent costs or other housing issues in the county.

“It’s added paperwork,” she said, “added documentation to initiate the tenant bill of rights.”

Something commissioner Dave Eggers is worried about, which is partially why he voted against the ordinance.

“I’m just worried about the unintended consequences and I’m not smart enough to know what they are but I don’t want us to get out ahead of ourselves,” said Eggers.

But, according to commissioner Rene Flowers, who supported the ordinance, this is a good step forward.

“We have got to do something and we’ve got to start somewhere,” Flowers said.

This ordinance won’t take effect until October.

According to the county, a city within the county can opt out of this ordinance if they vote to do so, or create their own type of ordinance, similar to what’s already happened in St. Petersburg.