The Seattle City Council’s Sustainability and Renters’ Rights Committee chaired by District 3 rep Kshama Sawant passed a new set of renters rights legislation Tuesday including a bill that could give tenants a right of first refusal when they reach the end of their lease.
The approvals come as Sawant has renewed her push for the ultimate tenants rights prize in Seattle — rent control.
Tuesday, the committee also moved a bill forward that would prohibit student family and teacher evictions during the school year and approved legislation that would establish a new defense against eviction based on financial hardship from the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
“As recovery is near and emergency tenant protections are lifted, tenants deserve stability. They deserve to live their lives without the threat of losing their homes over situations that they cannot control, like something as colossal as a pandemic or as simple as their landlord not liking them,” District 2 representative Tammy Morales, who sponsored the bills along with Sawant.
In addition to the proposed ban on school year evictions for families and educators, the new legislation would require landlords “to offer current renters a new lease before they look for a new renter, unless the landlord has a ‘just cause,’ as defined in law, to not renew the lease,” a statement from the Morales office reads.
The third bill, introduced by Morales and co-sponsored by Sawant, would give tenants “legal protection from eviction due to COVID-related rental debt.”
Sawant credited “the renters rights movement, and especially rank-and-file renters” for pushing the bills forward.
“Today’s bills put people before profits. They put the rights of renters above the interests of profit-seeking corporate landlords,” Sawant said in a statement to media. “They prioritize housing stability instead of racist gentrification. I especially want to congratulate the dozens of community members who spoke out in public comment against the pro-corporate landlord amendments that were introduced at the last minute earlier today. Thanks to their advocacy, each of these amendments, which would have been gifts to the landlord lobby, failed.”
The suite of legislation must now be approved by the full council and could face legal challenges though the court has sided with previous COVID-19 tenant protections.
At an early May rally, Sawant announced a renewed campaign to tie rent control in Seattle to inflation and fight the state ban that prohibits it.
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Does this just effect corporate landlords or mom and pop landlords with a few units?
Any amount of units – even if you are renting a mother-in-law apartment. Alex Pedersen tried to get an amendment written in to exclude owners of five or fewer units but the amendment didn’t pass.
This is great info! I did not know they tried to amend the small landlords. Sorry to hear it did not pass. Thank you for sharing.
How does the city plan to address the wave of discrimination that families will now face when trying to rent if this measure passes. Most landlords don’t want to lose their tenants because they depend on them to pay their mortgage. essentially prohibiting evictions 3/4 of the year means landlords aren’t going to be willing to rent to families (or randomly enough teachers- who aren’t at risk for job loss) without expecting very large security deposits. You know what this will do? Decrease the pool of rental units available at a “reasonable” cost in Seattle.
Yup – I would consider writing something into my rental policy. Even go so far as to exclude school teachers and employees.
You probably wouldn’t even have time to open your mouth in defense before a judge rules against you.
More restrictions, more properties owned by bigco landlords, fewer reasons for local people to own rental properties. Hassle is too big and financial possibilities are too low.
Yes! And these smaller, locally-owned rental properties are often the most affordable options.
If I were the owner of a small property, the idea of getting “locked in” to repeatedly offering leases to someone who isn’t a good tenant, unless I prove “just cause” to the city, would make me not want to rent my property out at all. Maybe I’d turn it into an Airbnb or sell the property to someone rich enough to buy to own. This proposal sounds too meddlesome.
It will probably lead to fewer units available for rent, which because supply/demand will result in rent getting even more expensive.
And what problem is it trying to solve? I think landlords would prefer that their units are occupied and under lease than not.
It’s trying to solve a non-problem. The goal of the renters commission is to pass any legislation that restricts landlords rights. Squeeze away enough landlords rights and you get closer and closer to rent control in their minds.
Uprooting families and disrupting childrens’ education is a problem.
”but I could get an extra $200/month if I rent to somebody else” isn’t worth the damage.
Yup, I recently retired with the idea that I would rent my long-time Seattle home – a condo on first hill – and I would live in a small house on Vashon. But my condo sits empty (during a housing crisis) because I have seen what happens to a small-time landlord in SF under these punitive restrictions. No thanks, I’d rather eat rice and beans than deal with a permanent tenant, especially as I get older.
You’re eating rice and beans while sitting on an unused condo?
Teachers and most school staff were employed during the entire Covid emergency. So it’s a confusing piece of legislation. Is this meant to protect any teacher who gets laid off for any reason? An employed teacher would earn enough money to pay the rent as would employed school staff. So is there more to the story? Is anyone who has a Bachelors in Education able to call themselves a teacher even if they haven’t worked in a school in years? Is a fitness instructor a teacher? What about someone with a Bachelors’ in early childhood education? Or somebody who teaches Drivers Ed at Swerve? I could think of tons of special definitions of teachers. So how is it defined here? And if a teacher is employed but refuses to pay rent should there be a law that allows them to live in an apartment for free?
It’s not confusing if you read the article. Three different pieces of legislation.
Does this also apply to the Seattle Housing Authority? Or will the SCC just raise local taxes to cover any “COVID-related rental debt” by SHA tenants?
When something will very obviously result in a smaller supply of affordable housing, you have to consider that the people trying to do that thing *want* to reduce the supply of affordable housing.
When can we get Sawant and her harebrained ideas out of office? Hasn’t done enough harm already???
So evicting a school janitor or cafeteria employee during the school year is so disruptive to the educational process that it requires we prohibit such evictions? I don’t think so. And the obvious policy solution is to fund rental assistance programs easily accessible to distressed tenants and landlords. That would keep people in their homes without depriving landlords of their contractual and property rights. But this Council isn’t interested in real solutions. They are driven by ideology. Finally, you think Seattle Education Association’s endorsement of Sawant last election had anything to do with this? Of course it did.
Per square foot, one bedroom rentals are already far more profitable to build and rent than two and three bedroom units. If Ms. Sawant’s proposal passes, developers will be further discouraged from building child-compatible housing. Ms. Sawant — intentionally or not — is condemning the future of renting in Seattle to aPodments. No Thank You.
So one bedroom units are far more profitable now and developers are just building multi bedroom units out of the goodness of their hearts? And this is going to be the straw that breaks the camels back?
You missed the point. They typically aren’t building multi family/multi bedroom units into their unsightly boxes no matter how large. We have a new 8 floor apartment building going up in the neighborhood and petitioned the city and builders several times to put in more mixed size apartments (so families can have a place to live) but they keep refusing, building only one bed room units so they can maximize the number of units and therefore tenants and rental income.