Spokane will now have a residential rental registry, funding for additional code enforcement officers, tenant relocation services and more.
After months of negotiations, community meetings and tweaks, the city council passed the FINAL tenant-landlord ordinances late last month. Here, we break them down for you.
Up until a few hours before the city council meeting on February 27, we had all been talking about one tenant-landlord ordinance. But, over the weekend before the final vote, city council members split the ordinance in two in an effort to ensure a unanimous vote on the part of the ordinance that had broad agreement, Council President Breean Beggs told RANGE.
The first ordinance, C-36330, which got unanimous support from council, covers the business license requirement, fees, more money for code enforcement, establishes the rental registry and a housing navigator position. Just to reiterate: everyone on council, even councilmember Cathcart, who previously spent four years as the director of government affairs for the Spokane Homebuilders Association — a trade group that generally opposes additional regulations on development and housing — was in favor of this piece.
The second ordinance, C-36366, basically covers everything else.
- Lays the groundwork for “portable” background and credit checks tenants can use to apply between different landlords and management companies
- Establishes a residential rental property mitigation program to help pay landlords for damages incurred by low-income tenants
- Establishes a legal services and relocation program for tenants
- Adds new requirements for walkthroughs, inspections and disclosures from landlords
- Provides anti-retaliation protections and the ability for tenants to sue.
It was passed with a 5-2 super majority. Council members Michael Cathcart and Jonathan Bingle voted no.
At the meeting before the vote, Cathcart said that he supports the first ordinance because it provides a basic framework for the city to enforce the laws that are already in place, but he believes that the second ordinance isn’t fully fleshed out yet.
He pointed to the portable background checks as not being fully baked and the possibility that people can misinterpret that part as being mandated. Cathcart also said that, while he fully supports anti-retaliation laws, he thinks the way it was written in the ordinance leaves too much room for misinterpretation. Lastly, he took issue with the tenant legal aid program, saying he fears that the program was created “in a more biased way and not a balanced way” and believes the rental property mitigation program isn’t nearly as funded as it needs to be.
“I don’t think it makes sense to adopt that one as it is,” Cathcart said.
Mayor Nadine Woodward sent a veto letter for the second ordinance C-36366, saying that the law will cause people to sell off their rental properties and endanger new development of rental housing in Spokane.
It’s unclear if the veto letter will have any impact. The Mayor’s veto would be overridden by the 5-2 majority it originally passed with, unless one of the council members who originally voted for the ordinance has a change of heart. The council is scheduling a vote to override the veto on March 27, according to Beggs.
Mayor Woodward vetoes part of tenant-landlord ordinance by RANGE on Scribd
