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 2nd 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.
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