It is time for the last big push of Kshama Sawant’s decade on the Seattle City Council.

Friday, Sawant will introduce her long-promised Seattle rent control legislation at the morning meeting of her renters’ rights committee.

The proposal would bind rent increases for most housing in the city to inflation.

The District 3 representative for Capitol Hill and the Central District is calling for support for the proposal in the face of what the Socialist Alternative leader says will be opposition from her Democratic council counterparts.

“The eight Democrats on the City Council need to know that if they choose to vote against rent control or undermine it from behind the scenes that there will be hell to pay,” a message sent to supporters Wednesday afternoon reads.

“Their Democrat colleagues in Olympia, despite having firm control of the state Legislature and the Governor’s Mansion, refused to allow two rent control bills to even be voted on this year. Seattle City Council Democrats will undoubtedly use every procedural and bureaucratic trick in the book to block this legislation unless working people make it clear that they will pay a steep political price for doing so.”

Despite legislative efforts, a statewide ban on rent control remains on the books in Washington. Sawant’s legislation would put rent control into effect in Seattle as soon as the ban is lifted.

“Currently, Washington State prohibits any regulation of the amount of rent that a landlord can charge,” the council staff memo diplomatically describes the situation around Sawant’s bill. “As such, rent control as described in this legislation would not yet be permitted in the City of Seattle. However, in the circumstance that this state level prohibition is repealed, this ordinance would go into effect, freezing rent increases between the time of the repeal and 18 months after.”

The push for rent control represents the final major goal for Sawant’s office after she has methodically checked off victories in the largest promises she made from her days as an economics professor launching her first political campaign — a $15 minimum wage, a tax on Amazon, and rent control.

The $15 now victory came first in 2014 — though it would take years for the city’s required wage to reach that level. A push for rent control followed but fell by the wayside in 2020 when the city’s shifting political tides put the effort to tax large employers on the frontburner. The pandemic sealed the deal. By that summer, Seattle had a new payroll tax and Sawant, another victory like $15 an hour — a far left movement translated into a version palatable at Seattle City Hall.

The planned summer thrust on rent control now comes with a final push as Sawant’s time on the council is winding down and following her hard-won fight against recall.

In January, Sawant announced she would not seek reelection as her political group Socialist Alternative sets its work in District 3 aside to focus on the creation of a new national party to take on the “Democratic establishment” including the growing ranks of the Democratic Socialists of America. “My council office will continue fighting relentlessly for working people right up until the final days of my term,” Sawant told supporters as she made her announcement early this year promising a vote on rent control before the end of her term.

While the lifting of the ban in Olympia never came, Sawant is still carrying the debate forward with a push to tie rents to inflation and put City Hall in the business of controlling rents in the city. Under the proposal, the city would publish an acceptable rent increase percentage yearly and establish a Rent Control Commission and District Rent Control Boards to authorize rent control exemptions.

The Rent Control Commission would include 35 renters and seven landlords serving two-year terms. The district boards would require five renter members and one landlord member from each City Council district.

“Nothing,” Sawant’s legislation notes, “prevents a landlord from increasing rent charged for a rental housing unit by less than the maximum annual rent increase, choosing not to increase rent charged, or decreasing rent charged.”

Sawant’s office has said rent control gives renters stability and predictability and helps fight displacement. Rent control opponents argue it can eventually lead to fewer rental units and higher rents by lowering incentives for developers to build more housing and decreasing the housing stock. Fewer apartment units means higher prices. Others have argued that it disincentives landlords to keep up the maintenance of rental units because they can’t recoup it by raising rents.

Proponents argue that the loopholes in legislation are mostly to blame for some of the failures of rent control.

Meanwhile, other cities are taking action including Washington D.C. where an emergency cap has been placed on rents in its rent-stabilized apartment buildings. This report from The Guardian looks at other U.S. cities where there are growing calls for rent regulation.

The full text of the proposed rent control legislation is below. You can track the legislation’s progress here at seattle.gov.

CITY OF SEATTLE

ORDINANCE __________________

COUNCIL BILL __________________

title

AN ORDINANCE relating to tenant protections; establishing rent control provisions; regulating residential rent increases; establishing a Rent Control Commission and District Rent Control Boards to authorize rent control exemptions; establishing enforcement provisions; adding a new Chapter 7.28 to the Seattle Municipal Code; and amending Sections 3.06.030 and 22.214.040 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

body

WHEREAS, Article 25 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes housing as a human right; and

WHEREAS, Seattle faces an affordable housing and homelessness crisis as rising rents have forced thousands of Seattle renters out of their homes, neighborhoods, and the City; and

WHEREAS, between 2010 and 2018 average rent in the Seattle area rose 69 percent while inflation for Urban Wage Earners (CPI-W) in the Seattle area rose only 20.3 percent; and

WHEREAS, rental housing industry analysis firm ApartmentList.com calculated that average Seattle rents increased 23 percent in 2021; and

WHEREAS, the “Seattle Housing Market Forecast for 2021” of real estate investment consulting firm Mashvisor notes that “Seattle real estate investors are continuing to enjoy a good return on investment on rental properties…Although affordability continues to be an issue for local residents, it does have a positive aspect for Seattle real estate investors. Owning a rental property in Seattle does mean high demand which translates into good occupancy rates and cash flow”; and

WHEREAS, a national study published in the Journal of Urban Affairs established the correlation between increasing rent and homelessness including that: (1) Washington is the tenth most expensive state for renters; (2) the high cost of rental housing is driving increases in homelessness; and (3) an increase of $100 in median rent for an area results in a 15 percent (metro areas) and a 39 percent (nearby suburbs and rural areas) increase in homelessness; and

WHEREAS, across the United States and around the world rent control policies have allowed millions of people to remain in their homes, neighborhoods and cities; and

WHEREAS, in September 2015, the Seattle City Council passed Resolution 31620 advocating for the “State Legislature to allow local governments to propose ordinances that significantly increase the supply of rent restricted units and that protect tenants from sudden and dramatic rent increases, without causing a negative impact on the quality or quantity of housing supply, by modifying or repealing RCW 35.21.830”; and

WHEREAS, there is a growing movement of renters for rent control, which in 2018 and 2019 won new rent control laws and expansions of existing rent control laws in California, Oregon, and New York; and

WHEREAS, over 12,000 Seattleites have signed petitions, urging The City of Seattle to enact rent control laws; and

WHEREAS, the Council intends to pursue amendments to the City Charter to allow election of Rent Control Commission members; NOW, THEREFORE,

BE IT ORDAINED BY THE CITY OF SEATTLE AS FOLLOWS:

Section 1. A new Chapter 7.28 is added to the Seattle Municipal Code as follows:

CHAPTER 7.28 RENT CONTROL

7.28.010 Short title

This Chapter 7.28 may be known as the Rent Control Ordinance.

7.28.020 Purposes

The purposes of this Chapter 7.28 are to prohibit large and unaffordable rent increases that cause housing displacement for tenants, to help renters build community by allowing them to remain in their neighborhoods, to allow young people to remain in their neighborhood schools, to prevent the expansion of homelessn