The Chicken or the Egg - Support of a Rental Licensing Ordinance

Support for rental licensing seems to be a difficult topic for some neighborhoods and individuals. To date several neighborhoods have written to the Mayor or to the City Council to indicate that they would like to see licensing and inspection of rental units. These neighborhoods are York, Samish and Sunnyland. The Associated Students of WWU, that represents the student body at WWU, has passed a resolution in support of licensing. The student run newspaper, The Western Front, has also expressed support in an editorial last year. Why are others sitting on a fence?

The argument given is that there is no ordinance to support. This is true . It is also true that the City Council is hesitating on taking action on an ordinance, in part, because there is not enough support from the citizenry. So, we are in this gray zone of hesitant support until a draft ordinance makes its appearance and no draft ordinance until the support is there. Chicken/support - egg/draft. Egg/draft - chicken/support.

Dan Welch, The Mayor's Neighborhood Advisory Commission (MNAC) representative from the Birchwood Neighborhood, reminded the Zonemaven that the commission had asked "that a "mock-up" of this [licensing] program be put to paper...something tangible that MNAC could discuss further." Dan went on to say, "Over the past year we have not been presented with such a mock-up, describing the nuts & bolts of such a program but have been repeatedly pointed to studies of other municipalities." There is no indication that the Mayor acted on this recommendation from his commission.

How might we extract ourselves from this indecision? Perhaps we make take our cue from the students at Western who developed a resolution in which the situation is clearly stated (the findings) and is followed by the suggested remedies (statements of resolve). You can read the student resolution by clicking here.

The Zonemaven maintains that there need not be an draft ordinance and he provides the following suggestions for inclusion in a licensing program. One might simply take a successful, existing ordinance from, let us say, Pasco, WA (Click here to read the 2 page Pasco rental licensing and inspection ordinance) and hang some Bellingham ornaments on it, to wit:

1. An inspection program run by the city that is funded by the landlords as a group through licensing rentals as a business.
2. Inspections at least every 3 years as allowed by law.
3. Meaningful fines for scofflaw landlords.
4. Exclusion of property owners who rent out a room in their own home.
5. Inclusion of unattached ADUs, carriage houses, duplexes, triplexes and all apartment buildings unless they fall under an inspection regime by HUD or some other entity.
6. Language that would help landlords get insurance reductions for being certified by the city inspector.
7. Language that could help landlords deal with the inevitable bad renter. This is a two way street.
8. If any self-certification is considered, that it be proposed only for the several years between actual inspections by the city.
9. Less frequent inspections for rentals that consistently score high in the inspection ratings.
10. Inspection of only X percent of units in an apartment complex of X size.

It is almost 7 years since a licensing and inspection ordinance was discussed at the Bellingham ferry terminal. (Click here to review that event). We had a teachable moment with the fire on Grant St. Thankfully, nobody died for us to learn the lesson but we ought to have received the message about the condition of rentals. Now is the time for action.