Twilight Zoning in Bellingham: Rental Licensing Adopted in Prosser, WA -Seattle Considers Doing Same

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Rental Licensing Adopted in Prosser, WA -Seattle Considers Doing Same

Hesitation not being part of the Prosser, WA City Council agenda, the town quickly adopted a rental licensing and inspection program on 26 May. The new law will take effect on 1 January 2011. You can read an article in the TriCity Herald on the topic by clicking here.

Essentially, the City Council decided to pass a place-holder law to avoid the restrictions placed on rental licensing by the Washington legislature's Bill 6459 (click here to read about that statute) which allows rental licensing and inspection codes passed before 10 June 2010 to be exempt from the new state law. The town of Pasco already has a code in place that will also be grandfathered under the bill passed in Olympia last March. You can read Pasco's rental licensing code by clicking here and scrolling to Title 5, Business Licenses and Regulations on page 106. Prosser essentially borrowed the wording of the Pasco ordinance while planning to amend it at a later date to conform to the local situation.

Seattle is also now considering a licensing and inspection law. There, an officer with the Associated Students of the University of Washington testified before the City Council in support of inspections of rentals echoing the stance of the Editorial Board of the Western Front student newspaper of WWU. (Click here to read about the Western Front editorial) The program in Seattle would pay for itself under a fee charged to landlords. You can read an article on the Seattle licensing debate by clicking here.

It appears, then, that Bellingham is not alone in its pursuit of ensuring the safety and health of renters. Our Mayor and City Council should take note.

No comments:

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.