Article: City Decides to Referee Landlord-Tenant Disputes

The Bellingham Planning and Community Development Committee decided Monday, Feb. 11, to move forward to move forward with a rental registration pilot program. Ultimately, the Committee hopes ease tensions between landlords and tenants in the city.

                “On-and-off for nearly a decade the Planning and Community Development Committee has been hearing issues between tenants and landlords, and it’s at the point where the Committee has decided to move forward,” Committee member and 2^nd Ward City Council representative Gene Knutson said.

                How the city will conduct the registration, inspection, education and enforcement elements of this pilot program has yet to be decided. A report has been ordered by the Committee to survey rental property standards throughout Bellingham before the pilot program is officially adopted. The results of the report will provide committee members a clearer framework of landlord tenant issues.

                The goals of the report for the Committee are to understand how to strengthen current laws and identify how to move forward, Knutson said, adding that the report will be conducted by City Staff and results will be reported to the Committee mid-March.

                Bellingham Mayor, Kelli Linville, and Committee member’s Gene Knutson, Jack Weiss and Michael Lilliquest agreed Monday that there are current barriers between renters and knowledge of their rights covered under Washington State Landlord Tenant law.

                Josh Moore, Western student and Barkley neighborhood renter, said he is not very aware of his rights as a tenant and believes this is common among renters.

                “I just go with the flow and call my landlord when I need something replaced,” Moore said, admitting that if his landlord did not live up to her responsibilities he doesn’t know of any available resources he could contact.

                Lack of knowledge among renters is only part of the reason current landlord tenant laws aren’t working.

                Weiss acknowledged Monday that the city won’t be able to understand fully what the barriers are until they understand the issues surrounding landlord tenant disputes, and in order to do that a pilot program needs to be implemented.

                At Monday’s meeting Knutson brought forward a three-year “pilot inspection program for residential rental properties” that will assist the Committee in understanding these issues on a deeper. This pilot program will require all landlords in Bellingham to register their rental properties with the city so they can be professionally inspected and reported upon, allowing the Committee to find out exactly where the problems lie.

                Property registration and inspection will not be the only elements of the pilot program. 

                “There is educational outreach and enforcement that needs to be done,” Linville said during Monday’s meeting.                 

                Barkley renter Josh Moore believes implementing a registration program would be beneficial in a city like Bellingham.

                “There is so much student housing that landlords might think they can pull something over on us,” Moore said.

                The student renter population is only a subset of renters in Bellingham and Weiss made it clear during Monday’s meeting that the pilot program will be designed to encompass all renters in Bellingham.

                Bellingham is not the only city that has refereed disputes between landlords and tenants. A worksheet was available at Monday’s meeting that compared rental property registration programs among six cities along the West Coast: Sacramento and Santa Cruz, Calif., Gresham, Ore., Pasco, Prosser and Seattle.

                Seattle adopted a “Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance” program that will be implemented January 2014. The purpose of Seattle’s program is to “ensure that all rental housing in the city meets specific minimum life safety and fire safety standards,” as stated on the worksheet, taken from the Seattle Department of Planning and Development website.

                Planning and Community Development Committee member Lilliquest agreed with the goals Seattle’s stated purpose and moved to amend Bellingham’s 2013 Work Plan to incorporate it. The Committee passed the motion 3-0.

                Linville agreed that adopting Seattle’s goal statement will help to guide the Committee as they move forward with this issue.

                “Once the Committee receives the report back from city staff and evaluates the data, it will take about year after adoption before the pilot program is implemented,” Knutson said.