The Seattle City Council today approved (7-0, Rasmussen and O'Brien disqualified) legislation to better protect renters from sub-standard rental housing conditions. The three pieces of legislation create a framework to improve sub-standard housing via administrative warrants and a rental housing licensing and inspection program as early as 2012.

"The vast majority of landlords in Seattle care about their renters and their investment, but a few don't," Councilmember Sally J. Clark said. Clark chairs the Council's Committee on the Built Environment which last week voted the legislation forward to the Full Council. "A rental licensing and inspection program isn't a cure-all for sub-standard housing, but we should preserve the ability to institute a program that safeguards the rights of tenants and property owners."

The Council's action comes in advance of new, more restrictive inspection rules passed by the 2010 State Legislature that takes effect June 10. That legislation limits a local jurisdiction’s ability to design its own inspection programs if a local program is not in effect by June 10, 2010. The Seattle ordinance, co-sponsored by Councilmembers Clark and Licata, serves as a "placeholder" for future action by the Council to define the specific details of a rental housing licensing and inspection program in advance of the April 1, 2012, effective date.

Approximately 51 percent of all dwellings in the City are rented. Under current law, city inspectors can enter a rental unit only if invited by the tenant or owner.

"Representatives from both apartment owners and tenants working together, made passage of the State legislation possible and we duplicated that effort with the city’s bill," said Councilmember Nick Licata. "Now Seattle can move forward with a pro-active rental inspection program."

In addition to the ordinance, the Council adopted two companion resolutions. The first requires the City's Department of Planning & Development (DPD) to work with stakeholders to determine the right elements of a future licensing and inspection program and report back to the Council by February 1, 2011.

Specific stakeholder input will be required for:

Whether all units should be inspected or instead a sampling.
How often inspections should occur.
The standards for what warrants passage or failure of an inspection.
The scope and focus of a proposed rental housing inspection program, including whether it should be citywide, geographically focused, limited to buildings with a certain number of units or with a certain type of units.
Whether exemptions in the placeholder legislation are appropriate or should be expanded.

The second resolution requires DPD to report on the City’s success or failure in using administrative inspection warrant authority to gain entry into rental units that may have serious code violations. Administrative warrant authority, an element of the SSB 6459, allows the City to obtain an inspection warrant from a court, if there is evidence from a third party or a City inspector that conditions exist in a rental housing building that threaten the life or safety of a tenant. That report will be delivered to City Council July 1, 2011.