Twilight Zoning in Bellingham: November 2014

Thursday, November 13, 2014

City Council Work Session on Rental Registration and Inspections

At the 1pm meeting of the city council's Committee of the Whole this coming Monday (17 Nov), the members will have a work session on the draft ordinance that was the subject of a city council hearing on 27 October. That hearing lasted nearly three hours during which time dozens of citizens voiced their concern that the draft measure did not contain an inspection component. After the citizens' comment period, council member Terry Bornemann stated that he had changed his mind and that that he would be supportive of an inspection component.

Although there will be no comment period during the work session next Monday, I encourage all of you to attend the session as an indication of our support of a rental registration AND inspection ordinance. [Note that the Committee of the Whole will meet earlier at 11am to consider the city budget. They will reconvene after lunch at 1pm to consider the rental ordinance.]

My most recent letter to the city council follows:

Dear Council Members,

In advance of the work session on rental registration and inspection on 17 November, I would like to suggest the following while you consider development of a program for the city:

There seems to have been a morphing from a per unit fee to a per "property" fee. I am not sure what occasioned that but it is unnecessarily restrictive. It weighs favorably on the side of those with the largest properties (for what reason?) and it markedly reduces the potential income to finance the hiring of staff and the administration of a program. The program with all its facets should be developed and then costed out in order to define the fee structure. This is basic program management.

I ask also that you challenge the bloated estimates provided by staff months ago on the cost of hiring code enforcement personnel and running the program. We know that the local HUD inspector can do almost 2,000 unit inspections per year. This tracks also with Pasco, WA whose inspector also does the same number of inspections per year. That flies in the face of the estimate given to us by the Planning Director. Granted there will be some start-up lag but with proper planning, that lag can be minimized.

Any inspection program should be included in the fee structure so that landlords will be encouraged to participate with city inspectors rather than hire private firms. Relying primarily on private inspectors for periodic inspections means that the city neither gains nor retains any institutional knowledge of the city’s rental units. Paper reports from private inspectors are no substitute for the experience of a city inspector whose employment is, for all intents and purposes, long term. The Mayor and the Planning Director would have no group of in-house code enforcement officers to whom they can go for experiential knowledge. Furthermore, there is no indication that there are sufficient private sector home inspectors to fulfill the needs of the landlords who might want to hire one.

Granted, the use of private inspectors is allowed under law. In fact, this was one of the challenges to the Pasco licensing ordinance, that city inspectors would be the sole inspectors. The landlords there wanted the option to hire their own. They have that option now and is written into the state law passed a few years ago. I am not sure how that serves the landlords since a properly structured program with a revenue neutral fee system (the program fees will pay for the program) will spread the cost of inspections over all landlords and result in much lower per unit inspection costs.

I also suggest that you replace any sunset provision with a provision that mandates a program review after 4 or 5 years. At that point, the council can, based on the facts surfaced by the review, decide to maintain, modify or end the program. The review should be inclusive of city staff (based on data), landlord experience and renter experience that would be surface through a hearing and/or a professional random survey.

Regards,

Dick Conoboy

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.