Local Government

Alex Robertson | Policy Analyst |  arobertson@RHAwa.org |  (206) 905-0611

Election season is beginning to ramp up as we get into the summer. The primaries are right around the corner. While we have to pay attention to this extremely critical election season, we cannot afford to ignore local governments that continue to increase the already onerous burden on housing providers. Across the state, housing providers are leaving the rental housing industry shown most clearly in Seattle.

In Seattle, analyzing the city-wide rental housing data that was released on April 25, 2022, we can see that since May 2021, the city has lost over 11,500 rental housing units. The data collected under Seattle’s Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance shows a staggering 3,407 rental units that have left the market over the last year. 74% of which, equaling 2,538 properties, are single family homes. Those properties are often owned and operated by small, mom and pop housing providers. Based on a survey of our membership, almost half of the housing providers selling their properties do so due to the increased legislative burden. Housing providers across the city, and especially small housing providers, are leaving at unprecedented rates. This trend is likely to continue as long as the City Council continues to pass more and more onerous, costly ordinances. Seattle just recently rejected the resolution to extend the eviction moratorium indefinitely, a hard fought victory for the city’s housing providers. Now, without the eviction moratorium, there has not been the “eviction tsunami” that many were predicting to support increased tenant protections. The City Council passed CB 120305, sponsored by Councilmember Strauss, with a vote of 7-1. Councilmember Nelson was the only Councilmember to vote no and the only one to express concerns with the policy. The ordinance requires housing providers to offer repayment plans in line with RCW 59.18.630 for the length of the city’s civil health emergency, plus an additional six months. Neither the ordinance, nor the city’s emergency have a sunset date. This means that the state’s emergency could end and it would once again leave Seattle isolated with ongoing eviction bans and restrictions. Additionally, Councilmember Pedersen has proposed an ordinance that with require housing providers to disclose their vacancy status and rent rates as part of RRIO. The proposed ordinance would make it so that you could not enforce your lease unless you provided your private information to a research university or non-profit, designated by the city. This type of compulsory, coercive data collection is highly concerning. As of writing this article, the proposed ordinance CB 120315 has not been passed through the Renter’s Rights Committee.

In the King County Council, Councilmember Dunn has proposed a much broader, non-compulsory ordinance to collect rental data. Ordinance 20220164, would authorize the County Executive to create a rental housing report. We are meeting with the King County Councilmembers to discuss this proposal and look into options as to how to gather rental housing data in a non-coercive way. We have had many studies done by third party entities such as the UW Center for Real Estate Research and ECONorthwest. Counties and city’s should focus on partnering with these third party research organizations instead of mandates, such as the Seattle proposal.

Finally in Kenmore, for those of you who joined us to fight the King County Ordinance 2021-0131 in June of last year, much of this proposal will be familiar. The City of Kenmore is hearing a proposal on a suite of regulations that are extremely similar to the previous King County policy. We have significant concerns with the drafting of that ordinance and likewise have many concerns with this city policy. Kenmore recently passed a shortened, narrower version of the full suite of regulations. Only including the 1.5% late fee cap, 120 day rent increase notice for increases over 3%, banning the requirement of a prospective tenants SSN. There are more proposed regulations that the council is considering. Now is not the time to be pushing housing providers out of the market with local policy. We must work collaboratively and support our affordable housing providers if we are going to solve this crisis together. To stay up to date on local policy issues, keep and eye out for our emails and calls to action and check out the blog to keep up to date on current proposals - RHAwa.org/blog/advocacy