From a conversation on a FB group:

I am actually 100% for licensing long term rentals and treating them like businesses (because they are) fines are necessary for negligent business owners (landlords). The part that feels like an impossible feat, ripe for corruption and a total waste of time and money is the piece about inspections, having a 3rd party inspector come out, who is unregulated is nothing but muddying the waters. Current shitty landlords will stay shitty, they will not call a 3rd party and pay the money, etc.

Instead, I suggest the city invest in a team to actually enforce the current requirements. I heard back from Council President's chief of staff:

"We have heard the concern regarding home inspectors who are only certified at the state level in 33 states, Colorado not being one of them. However, the requirement for this program for this program would still be rigorous with educational certifications and a combination building inspector certification from ICC. We would also have all inspectors sign the inspection form legally attesting they have these certifications and are qualified to do this work, and have offered to DMAR and AAMD to be a part of that working group that would assist in creating the checklist so that it does reflect only the minimum housing standards. I have also attached the letter we sent to DMAR based on feedback we heard and changes we made to the policy based on those concerns."

So now it's just a big old circle of nothing. This is honestly less about the cost to the landlords and more about the cost to the taxpayers . Governing to govern is so pointless. Requiring a license is not. I am all on board with that.
- so, invest in training a system to a group of 3rd party vendors. 
- they sign off "legally attesting" they have the certs. I mean the layers of pointlessness go on
- engage other organizations to weigh in on rental requirements (a list that already exists) 

We did do an open records request and are waiting for that information to learn more about what the program would cost the city in the next 5 years. It's $434K to just lay the groundwork this year, before anything even happens. I mean, the city, per usual will be tripping over dollars to pick up dimes. I wish government ran like small businesses have to... this convoluted of a plan would have never made it beyond an email for me.