Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Maintaining Our Rental Housing Stock

[This is an unedited version of an opinion piece written by Dick Conoboy which ran in the Cascadia Weekly on 21 April 2010, page 6.]


Over 50% of the housing stock in Bellingham is found in the rental market. That means that over 17,000 housing units are rentals whose condition is virtually unknown. The reason for this knowledge gap is that there is no rental licensing and inspection program in Bellingham. Nobody would think about allowing the hundreds of restaurants or dozens of hotels in the city to operate without inspections by health and fire officials. Nor would we depend solely on restaurant patrons and hotel guests to report unsanitary or unsafe conditions as part of a “complaint only” system to keep our citizens safe. Similarly, we would not depend on a self-certification program to ensure quality food preparation or clean accommodations. Generally speaking, owners, patrons and guests simply have limited expertise in these matters. Consequently, the body politic recognizes that public accommodations have to be placed under a modicum of control. Why, then, have we permitted thousands of rental units to be offered on the public market without any control whatsoever?


In recent months in Olympia, the legislature passed a law on rental licensing in Washington State (Bill 6459). This new statute, which will take effect this summer, was supported by several landlord and rental management groups. In essence, the law recognizes the right of municipalities to inspect rental units and provides certain limits with respect to inspection frequency, i.e., once every three years. The code also provides for administrative search warrants, if necessary, to ensure compliance. Current landlord-tenant laws in Washington spell out rights and responsibilities but, until now, none of the present code spoke to mandatory licensing and inspections for health and safety reasons. A tenant may complain about conditions but for what reason should we suppose that he or she can even begin to know about all aspects of safety in a rental. Even well intentioned landlords cannot be expected to have expertise in electrical systems, plumbing, structural integrity or vermin and mold.


Can we reasonably conclude that there is a problem with rental units in Bellingham? (We are not speaking of single rooms rented in owner-occupied houses.) If we look at the experience of other cities, including Pasco, Washington, the answer is yes. Aside from the 85% of units overall that had some problem conditions, Pasco inspections found serious life-safety issues in 15% of its rental housing during the first inspection round. Ten percent had significant mold problems. The city of Lexington, Kentucky discovered similar life-safety issues in 50% of an initial test sample. Gresham, Oregon conducted 1,600 inspections of rental units last year and issued over 4,000 citations during the period. The top serious violations were in the areas of plumbing, wiring and smoke detectors.
Until recently, Bellingham has been dealing with the rental licensing issue as a cat does with a captured mouse. It pokes the issue from time to time to see if it is alive or dead and then loses interest only to return again for another poke. Promises to work on rental licensing were made by the City Council in 2004 but nothing was done. Rental licensing was also brought to the fore in August of 2008 but not much happened. With the public appearance of the first serious study on rental licensing by the City Council’s Legislative Policy Analyst in May, 2009 (the draft report had been languishing since October 2008); the council has made some tentative steps toward considering licensing and inspections. The issue was discussed before council in December, 2009 at which time the staff was told to get more information, spilling further discussion into the lap of the newly constituted 2010 City Council.


There is no longer time to waste on establishing a means by which the city can ensure the health and safety of over half of its citizens, not to mention the overall quality of the housing stock and its impact on our city. We ought not forget that any sensible program will be phased in over the period of several years. There should be no severe shocks to the housing market. Pasco saw some of its worst rental properties sold as affordable “fixer-uppers” to families willing to invest with sweat equity. The remainder of the rentals there are now safe for habitation thanks to a robust inspection regime. Significantly, the responsible enforcement official stated that there was no concomitant leap in the price of rentals. Landlords in Pasco now get to point out to prospective renters and insurers that their premises have a clean bill of health. Bellingham can expect as much.


Dick Conoboy is a retired federal worker whose blog Twilight Zoning in Bellingham can be found at www.zonemaven.blogspot.com.

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