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City councilmember takes steps for rent control in Seattle


City councilmember takes steps for rent control in Seattle
City councilmember takes steps for rent control in Seattle
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Seattle’s influence could lead Washington State in an effort to lift a statewide ban on rental control that’s been in effect since 1981.

At least that’s what Seattle Councilmember Kshama Sawant is aiming for. She chairs a council committee that is working on the proposal.

Sawant was the only member of the Human Services, Equitable Development and Renter Rights Committee present on Tuesday when the co-chairs of the Seattle Renters’ Commission made a presentation about rental control and its endorsement of it.

“It’s a show of support for the lifting of the ban on rent control, that would go into effect almost immediately after the legislature lifts the ban,” says the commission’s co-chair, ChrisTiana ObeySumner.

The lack of fellow council members at Tuesday’s hearing is not stopping Sawant’s pursuit of rent control in Seattle. The commission suggested the City pass a rent control measure in the next three months.

She may be catching a wave of rent control measures not being discussed across the nation and the country deals with affordable housing issues.

Oregon just became the first state in the country to allow rent control statewide.

According to the commission, 46 percent of Seattle renters are “rent burdened” and worker earning the minimum wage of $15 an hour during a 40-hour work week will spend and average of 73 percent of the wages on rent. The commission says rents have increase an average of 62 percent in Seattle between 2008 and 2017.

But even if Seattle passes a rent control law, it can’t become reality until lawmakers in Olympia, including the Governor, agree to lift the ban.

Democratic State Rep. Nicole Marci of Seattle tried to get the ban lifted in 2018 but the bill never got any real traction. She’s now working on smaller, but important, items such as eviction reform and thinks that the appetite for a rent control reform is not there.

“I’m not sure that the removal of the a local authority approach, where local cities can legislate city by city, is going to be the idea that takes hold in Olympia,” says Marci.

She also thinks Seattle’s march forward toward it’s own version of rent control will discourage some legislators, who don’t like the way Seattle does things, for supporting a lift of the ban.

“If Seattle passes a bill that will enact rent control when the state gives authority to do that, that may disincentivize legislators from engaging in the policy conversation,” says Marci.

The Commission’s other Co-chair Jessica Westgren believes Seattle moves toward rent control will incentivize other cities to do the same thing.

“The more each city gets how they would want it to look like, then we can have a better regional and statewide conversation.”

The Commission also endorsed an effort by Sawant to require landlords to give tenants a six-month advance warning of any rent increase.

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