Seattle Councils Housing, Human Services, Health and Culture committee will be holding a meeting this Wednesday, August 8th @ 2pm at City Hall for discussion of public comment received by the City’s Department of Planning and Development (DPD) regarding their proposal for a mandatory rental housing inspections program in the City of Seattle.
The current legislation Seattle Council will be reviewing would:
Require all rental housing units to be registered with the City on a tiered basis and beginning by July 1, 2014. Registration would be valid for five years.
Allow inspections of up to 10% of all rental units in any given year. Require that any property subject to inspection be inspected at least once every ten years.
Allow inspections of no fewer than two units at properties with 20 or fewer units.
Allow inspections of no more than 15% of units, up to a maximum of 50 units, at properties with more than 20 units.
Require that inspectors verify a rental unit meets minimum requirement standards of the Citys housing code related to floor area, sanitation, structural, sheltering, maintenance, heating, ventilation, electrical, emergency escape, garbage removal, extermination, keys and locks, garbage cans, and smoke detectors.
To review the entire proposal, click here!
In opposition, alternative proposals made by the Rental Housing Association (RHA) include:
Enhanced landlord-tenant education and outreach.
A hierarchy of DPD enforcement mechanisms targeting known and knowable problem properties.
A registration and property condition declaration for all rental properties.
Random inspections of a small percentage of registered rental properties to serve as an audit component.
It will be very interesting to see how this new proposal comes to play and will be updating you accordingly in the future months!
-Ash