Twilight Zoning in Bellingham: Bellingham City Council Passes Rental Ordinance

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Bellingham City Council Passes Rental Ordinance - Includes Mandatory Inspections

On December 15, 2014 the Bellingham City Council passed a rental ordinance that includes not only registration but mandatory inspections. The draft ordinance minus a few last minute edits by the city council can be found here.

I was not in town but through the NWCitizen editor I was able to post the following to the site regarding the passage of this law:

"One must catch one's breath!

The vote of the Bellingham City Council on Monday night [15 December] is a stunning reversal of the consensus of the council from earlier this year, at which time only a weak rental registration program was under consideration. Much of the credit for the passage of this ordinance surely goes to the Western Washington University students who have worked hard over the past 4-5 years. They spoke the truth to the opposition (the landlords) whose arguments to defeat this measure were astoundingly repudiated by the 7-0 vote. No stronger message could have been sent.

Also in for thanks are council members Jack Weiss and Michael Lilliquist who worked hard behind the scenes to shepherd this measure to passage. Dozens of Bellingham citizens also worked diligently over the last 10 years to speak to the reality of renting in Bellingham.

Based on a meeting I had several weeks ago with our new planning director, Rick Sepler, I expect we will see rapid action in putting this measure into effect. Rick seems to me to be a no-nonsense manager who will meet deadlines and develop accurate information for the council. Nevertheless, we still need to be vigilant about a process that has yet to be developed to register rentals and then begin inspections in 2015.

Again, thanks to our City Council for this measure to ensure the health and safety of the tenants in Bellingham."

Since my return to Bellingham last week, I have been reviewing the video of the discussion of this ordinance at the afternoon session of the Committee of the Whole and at the evening session of the full council at which the vote to approve was taken. I will have more comments on those council discussions and the unfolding process over the next few weeks.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: An open apology to current council members from an active rentals "observer-commenter"

Quite firmly I believed council mainly to be puppets on Real estate strings.

What an uplift to this voter's spirit to be proven wrong.

At long last council has moved as one in acting to control the excesses of many landlords and some unprincipled manipulators in the city's Rental agencies

Applause for council for starting measures to control bad apples in the rental arena.
Please do not spoil your intent by allowing "loopholes" to appear such as privately paid "inspecters" or other easing of enforcemnt by dilution of firm rules; December 29, 2014 at 7:32 PM

The Rationale for Rental Licensing

There is the definitive experience of cities that have already adopted rental licensing and inspections in the face of exactly the same opposition as we saw in Bellingham over the last decade. Ultimately, each of these cities was proven correct in its resolve to move ahead to protect the safety and health of the renters. We already know that the city of Pasco, WA found that 15% of the units inspected under their program had serious life/safety issues. 10% had mold problems. A full 85% had problems of varying degrees. The city of Gresham, OR performed over 1600 inspections in 2009 and issued, as a result, over 4,000 citations. Lexington, KY performed inspections of units near the University of Kentucky and found that 50% had life/safety issues. Sacramento, CA began an inspection program during which one third of the units inspected had serious safety and health issues. The question why does anyone believe that the condition of rental housing here in Bellingham does not mirror that which is found in cities that have the statistics to show that time and time again the condition of rentals in our cities is problematic? All we have had to date from those who oppose licensing are broad statements by the landlords and their paladins that are completely and utterly unsubstantiated. The Zonemaven has searched in vain for the horror stories that these opponents of licensing and inspections have predicted. On the other hand, The Zonemaven did find over 100 cities that have licensing AND inspections without the catastrophic effect for the rental markets that the landlords would have you believe. (See this blog's sidebar at bottom left for list)

One Reason Illegal Rooming Houses Do Not Work

The limit for unrelated persons at a single family home rental is three residents. Leases are signed by three people who then invite additional renters to join them to lower per capita rental rates. The perverse effect is that rental rates tend to rise under these circumstances making it difficult for single families to rent single family homes. Some local rental agencies facilitate this practice.

"To say that a family is so equivalent to a ragtag collection of college roommates as to require identical treatment in zoning decisions defies the reality of the place of the family in American society, despite any changes that institution has undergone in recent years. Only the most cynical among us would say that the American family has devolved to the point of no greater importance or consideration in governmental decision making than a group of college roommates." (Stegeman v. City of Ann Arbor)

That being said, accommodation ought to be made for protected classes, especially non-traditional unions and group houses for the disabled. These classes are laid out in federal and Washington State law.