Thank you.
Good morning, everyone.
This is a specially scheduled meeting of the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee of the Seattle City Council.
Today is Friday, June 30th, 2023, and the time is 9.34 a.m.
I am the chair of the committee, Council Member Shama Sawant.
Will the court, Ted Verdone from my office, please call the roll.
Council Member Sawant.
Present.
Council Member Juarez.
Present.
Council Member Lewis.
Present.
Council Member Nelson.
Sorry, let me turn on that microphone.
Try again.
Here in Chambers.
Council Member Morales.
Here.
Five, present.
Thank you, Ted and welcome members of the committee.
Today's committee meeting will be the first committee discussion on the rent control legislation from my office.
We will first hear from a panel of labor and renter rights organizers about the crisis in affordable housing.
in Seattle and around the country, and the need for rent control without corporate loopholes.
Then Asha Venkatraman and Jennifer Labreck from City Council Central Staff will present and answer questions about the details of the legislation and its policies.
Seattle's housing affordability and cost of living crisis is the worst it's been in decades, and it's only getting worse.
Over the last three years, overall costs in the Seattle metropolitan area climbed over 20% more than in cities like New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
Wages in Seattle, meanwhile, have not kept up, growing just 16% after a precipitous drop at the start of the pandemic.
Even before this record inflation was unleashed, Seattle's metro area rents increased by nearly 92% between 2010 and 2020. This means Seattle area rents in that decade increased more than in comparable regions, such as the California Bay Area.
And in fact, this was the largest, the increase that was experienced in the Seattle metro rents was the largest nationally.
And nationally also, 39% of Americans and 44% of millennials say they are forced to skip meals to afford housing payments.
And almost entirely they are renters, not homeowners.
And a 2020 national study from the US Governmental Accountability Office showed that $100 increase in median rent is associated with a 9% increase in the estimated homelessness rate.
From 2019 to 2020, Seattle saw a 5% increase in people experiencing homelessness.
And that's just a one year period, keep in mind.
There's been a lot of homelessness increase just in the overall decade and a half.
This is not an inevitable result of supply and demand as we perpetually hear from Seattle developers and many corporate political representatives of theirs.
There is an affordable housing crisis nationally and even internationally because the speculative real estate market treats housing as an investment for the very wealthy rather than housing for human beings.
Not surprisingly, a survey of landlords and tenants from last year shows that the likelihood a landlord will raise rent goes up with the number of properties they own.
Only 52% of the landlords who own one property said they will increase rent compared with 92% of those who own more than 10 units.
The survey also shows that many so-called mom and pop small landlords plan to raise rents less than what they believe to be on the market rate.
No landlord, large or small, should have the right to exploit their tenants, but statistically, as we can see from these survey results, that exploitation is far more frequent with corporate landlords.
Corporate landlords have raked in astronomical profits from rent increases.
A report by accountable.us found that the six largest property management companies in the US made $4.3 billion in profits in 2022, which is over 1.3 billion more than in 2021. At least, and you know, these people make billion dollars like it's pocket change.
I mean, what does a billion dollars look like?
The rest of us are barely getting by.
At least three of those six corporations, Invitation Homes, Avalon Bay, and AMH, own multiple properties in Seattle.
The report found the corporate landlords made these enormous profits by, quote, imposing double-digit rent increases, charging excessive fees, and engaging in abusive tactics to evict tenants, end quote.
Most of the big property management companies are owned by major companies, banks, and other large corporate entities.
And the individuals who rake in the profits through all these holdings are multimillionaires and billionaires.
This rent control legislation is only the first step.
In order to protect renters from outrageous rent hikes, we will not only need to pass rent control in Seattle, we will also need to overturn the outrageous state law that prohibits any city or town in Washington state from passing any law regulating rent.
That state law has stayed on the books for the last 42 years since both the Democrats and Republicans in Olympia gifted it to the landlord lobby in 1981. To address this, the rent control legislation is essentially a trigger law.
It becomes effective the moment the state law banning rent control is overturned.
The rent control policy we are proposing has none of the corporate loopholes that the landlord lobby has often used to undermine and nullify rent control protections in cities and states around the world.
Our bill would cap rent increases at no more than the rate of inflation.
Landlords can choose to raise the rent less than the rate of inflation, reduce the rent, We don't expect that they will do that, but they have the legal option to do that, or keep it the same, but they may not raise it more than inflation.
All the rental housing in Seattle will be protected.
In some cities, rent control only applies to certain units, and you have to be very lucky to get into a rent control apartment.
In our policy, all renters would be protected.
In our policy, there would be no vacancy decontrol.
Some cities have created a loophole this is vacancy decontrol loophole, where landlords can raise the rent by however much they want anytime a renter moves out of the apartment.
This means that the rent control policy becomes far less effective in keeping rents affordable citywide.
It also creates those outrageous situations where an unscrupulous landlord will try to bully a tenant out of their apartment in order to raise the rents.
There is one-to-one replacement of affordable units anytime there is new construction, according to this law.
If a developer demolishes a 10-unit building to build a 100-apartment building, the new landlords need to maintain the rents of the 10 apartments they demolished using some of the new units.
There will also be a rent control board, according to this law, to deal with exceptions.
So if a small landlord faces unforeseen costs, like a tree falling on the roof, for example, and they really need financial support, there will be a rent control board that can grant exceptions.
But those are only for when an exception is really needed.
That's a summary of the rent control law that we are going to be reviewing and asking the city council to vote on, and we'll be discussing that more.
But before hearing from the panel of renters that we have before us, and also the staff memo presentation, we will have public comment.
We have 33 people signed up in person for public comment and how many online, Ted?
37. Okay.
So we will have everyone speak, but speakers will have one minute each so that we can get to the presentations.
So please make sure you finish your public comment within a minute.
I will read out the names of the speakers first who are in person, and then we will go to those who are online.
And for speakers who are online, who are speaking remotely, when Ted calls your name, you will be prompted to unmute yourself.
When you hear that, please hit star six on your phone to unmute yourself and begin.
And those of you who are in person, there are microphones here, right here in the front.
So please make sure you hold it close to your face so that you are heard.
The first, I will call three, three names each time.
So make sure that if your name is following the current speaker, make sure you're ready to speak, you know, stand there so that we don't spend time in people trying to get out of their seat.
David Gooden, Al Rostholder-Harris, and Ken Ollendorf.
And I apologize in advance if I can't read your writing properly.
David.
Good morning, everybody.
My name is David Gooden.
I do not represent an organization or a union.
I'm here as a 25 year resident of Seattle and I'm here to urge all Democrats.
on the city council to vote yes on council members who wants rent control legislation with no loopholes or watering down.
I have 15 seconds to say I've lived in Seattle for 25 years.
I've been a professional and I've worked full time and it's become increasingly difficult for me to survive with the rents.
And also, I don't know if you notice all the people living on the streets, but I believe they're out there because of the high rent.
So Democrats on the city council with all respect to you, please support council members.
So once rent control legislation, thank you.
It'll be followed by Ken.
And then after Ken is Alicia Burton.
Go ahead.
Hi, my name is Al Russell DeHarris and I am a property owner now.
My sign says in case you can't see it, property owner for rent control now.
Before owning a condo, I rented across the city for 10 years.
And one of my houses, which was a shared house with five people, my landlord increased the rent before a new lease by 30%.
The room for each house went up from 550 to $720.
That is absolutely unacceptable.
Luckily, I was able to move in with my partner to avoid the increase into a bedroom in a shared house as well full of queer and trans people in Madison Valley.
Unfortunately, this house was not up to code.
So when people plugged in a space heater in the winter to stay warm, or even sometimes a hairdryer, the entire breaker system would go off and they would lose electricity, we'd have to wait in order to reset the breaker.
and they were scared to report it to code because they did not want to lose their housing that was somewhat affordable.
And that is the reality for people in the city and is absolutely unacceptable.
I'm here on my day off as a property owner because I believe with privilege of property earning income, so responsibility to stand up for people who are still renting in the city.
And I'm going to be watching how you talk and react to this legislation.
And if you vote against it, I will do everything I can to make sure that you do not keep your seat on this council.
Again, I am a property owner who supports rent control with no loopholes for all in the city and statewide.
Thank you, Ashama Suman for introducing this legislation.
Hi, my name is Ken Ullendorf and I'm a renter in the Central District.
The for-profit housing market does not exist to fulfill housing needs but to make money off them.
Instead of catering It caters to the greed of the wealthy shareholders and the real estate companies.
Corporate landlords jack up rents because they have the power to do so, not because they need to, it's because they want to.
This is why the working class and rank and file fought alongside council member, she wants to win the Amazon tax to fund public owned affordable housing.
And that's still far from enough.
The housing affordability crisis acute.
I can tell you my rent has gone up and my wages have not met it.
And with inflation, it's harder to pay that rent every single month.
This is why we urgently need rent control.
I urge all Democrats in the city council to stand with the working people, not the wealthy landlords and vote yes on council members commission wants control legislation with no loopholes, watering down or leaks.
Thank you very much.
After Alicia, we have Harriet Saslow and then Josie Ubelhauer.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Good morning, council members.
My name is Alicia Burden and I currently live at Nicholsville Central District.
Nicholsville supports this legislation and we appreciate council members who want for putting this forward.
National research shows that for every $100 increase in rent, there is an increase in homelessness.
According to Zillow, communities where people spend more than 32% of their income on rent can expect a more rapid increase in homelessness.
I became homeless because my rent went from $900 over by the university in Washington.
That was a micro mini studio of 125 square feet.
900 to over 1,500.
I can't afford that.
I live.
I was working full time at that time and I was making $1,500 a month gross.
How many square foot, by the way, for the 125 square feet.
Micro mini studio over by the University of Washington.
900 to 1,500 can't afford that.
This needs to be changed.
My name is Harriet Saslow I currently live at Nicholsville North Lake Nicholsville does support this legislation and we appreciate you, Councilmember so want for putting it forward.
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, people need to earn 40 to $60 an hour to live in Seattle metro area.
Seattle lights making minimum wage need to work, 88 hours a week before we can reach the median monthly price rent price income growth has not kept pace with rents, leading to an affordability crunch for people on the bottom economic rung, increasing the risk of homelessness.
I had a house that I was renting.
I was paying $900 a month and they raised it to $1,500 a month, which I can't afford.
So I became homeless again after many years of not being homeless.
It really needs to be addressed.
We urge you city council members to please vote yes on this legislation.
Thank you.
It's Dominic Wolfgang Wallace and then Maddie Danks.
Hi, my name is Josie Evil Hair.
I'm a social worker with the Department of Children, Youth and Families, a member of Wolfsey Local 889 and a renter in District 3. Corporate greed is making it harder and harder to live in the city.
The for-profit housing market does not exist to benefit working people, and landlords are benefiting and profiting off the backs of working people.
As a social worker, I support people in searching for affordable and safe housing for children and their families almost daily, and it is impossible.
We need not only rent control but an expansion of social housing paid for by taxing the rich to solve this crisis.
Rates of homelessness in Seattle continue to rise and study after study show that raising rents are without a doubt a contributing factor.
City Council is constantly scrambling for solutions to the homelessness crisis in the city and here is a solution being dropped at your feet.
Though rent control is banned in Washington state, there is nothing standing in politicians way to change this.
Seattle passing rent control would lead the way forward for working people fighting to win rent control across the state.
I urge Democrats on city council to support council members to launch rent control legislation without loopholes and fight for the working people you represent.
Hello, I'm Dominic Wolfgang Wallace, and I am a Seattle renter 98105. The for-profit housing market does not exist to fulfill the housing needs of working people.
Instead, it caters to the greed and wealthy shareholders and real estate companies.
Corporate landlords jack up rents because they have the power to do so, not because they need to.
That's why working people in union rank and file fought alongside council members to want to win the Amazon tax to fund publicly owned affordable housing, but that's far from enough.
The housing affordability crisis is so acute that we need dramatic expansion in affordable housing in our city.
We need much more social housing paid for by taxing the rich, and we urgently need rent control.
I urge all Democrats on the City Council to stand with working people, not with wealthy landlords.
I urge you to vote yes on Councilmember Chauvin's control legislation with no loopholes or watering down.
by Jeremy Hawkins and then Gwendolyn Hart.
Hi, my name is Maddie.
I live in Capitol Hill and like the majority of constituents in Seattle, I'm a renter.
I am here to urge the Democrats of City Council to stand with working people, not wealthy landlords, and to vote yes on Councilmember Sawant's rent control legislation without watering it down and without loopholes.
I want to take a moment to address the role of Democrats in the statewide ban on rent control.
The ban was passed in 1981 and has been upheld by both Democrats and Republicans since then, who showed more loyalty to corporations than to working people.
The Democratic Party has held the governor's mansion, the Senate, and the House in Washington state for more than two decades.
Despite a massive housing crisis, this year the Democrats, who again have a majority, refused to even allow two bills to remove the ban to be voted on.
A similar ban was overturned in Oregon in 2019. And across the board, rent control was passed.
Finding this trigger law for rent control will enormously energize the movement that we need to force state Democrats to lift the ban.
We urgently need more social housing paid for by taxing the rich and rent control in Seattle.
My name is Jeremy Hawkins.
The for-profit housing market does not exist to fulfill the housing needs of working people.
Instead, it caters to the greed of the wealthy shareholders in the real estate companies.
Corporate landlords jack up rents because they have the power to do so, not because they need to.
That's why working people in union rank and file fought alongside council members so on to win the Amazon tax to fully fund publicly owned affordable housing.
But that's far from enough.
The housing affordability crisis is so acute that we need a dramatic expansion in affordable housing in our city.
We need much more social housing paid for by taxing the rich and we urgently need rent control.
I urge all Democrats on the city council to stand with working people, not wealthy landlords.
I urge you to vote yes on council member Sawant's rent control legislation with no watering down.
Thank you.
It'll be Alan, I can't read your last name, but Alan with A-L-L-A-N, I think.
And then after that will be Sarah Champernown.
My name is Gwendolyn Hart.
I'm a renter in Green Lake and I'm here to ask all Democrats on the City Council to vote yes on Councilmember Sawant's legislation.
Working class people are in a crisis right now while the big corporate landlords are raking in billions in profit.
Corporate apologists say that because landlords are housing providers that they get to charge the rent however high they want.
But not even two years ago carpenters had to go on strike because construction workers who are the real housing providers cannot afford to live in this city.
Teachers and other essential workers have to carpool in hours every day to go to their jobs because they struggle to afford housing in this city.
How can this council claim to support diversity and inclusion when the best and most diverse layers of our city are being driven out every single day?
That's why we need total comprehensive rent control for every Seattle renter.
We need social housing paid for by taxing the rich, and we desperately need you to vote yes on this trigger legislation so that we can take this fight all the way to Olympia.
My name is John Martin.
We support legislation.
Can you hold the microphone closer, please?
According to the Washington Department of Commerce, And I'm reaching while the homelessness is double 10 number of people homelessness because of people are overwhelming odds by going around pushing people out to march into homelessness.
One more people are getting pushed outside the suburbs where transportation is limited and good paying jobs are and homelessness is growing.
We have members, Council, yes on citation, thank you.
Brandon Ang and Austin Price.
Hi, my name is Sarah.
I'm a union member with WFC 443. I've lived in Seattle my whole life, and I've moved probably five times in the last 10 years while renting.
I had a good job that whole time.
In 2019, my landlord, who is none other than the CEO of PCC Markets, forced almost everyone out of my building after over a year with rent hikes right before COVID-19.
Shout out to you, Kate.
I strongly urge Democrats on City Council to pass Council Member Sawant's full rent control legislation without loopholes for corporate landlords and developers.
They do not need your help right now, corporate landlords and developers.
They've had record profits, billions more every year.
They jack up rent for profit, not out of necessity.
A serious fight back against the undeniable housing crisis in Seattle needs to include a plan for rent control now, as the cost of living is skyrocketing.
We also need high quality social housing paid for by taxing the rich.
Seattle is becoming unlivable and the worst part is there is something we can do about it, but it takes a fighting movement because the status quo is not on our side.
I'm a public health worker and rent control and social housing are public health issues, which is something that should be a priority for all of us after the brutal COVID-19 pandemic.
Rent control works when it's not watered down by corporate lobbyists and corporate politicians.
It would be a powerful defense for the non-wealthy in this hostile economy.
Housing affordability has been the major issue in Seattle for a decade.
We need drastic and immediate action on it.
Thank you.
I am Brandon Ang.
I am a University of Washington undergraduate student renting an off-campus apartment.
And I am absolutely fed up with the rapid pace of rising rents without accountability of the corporate landlords.
And I have been searching for apartments to move in starting this September and options are very limited with the budget that I am searching for and among other things.
If the corporate landlords can continue to increase rents, why are there some reports of units that are not well under maintenance?
We need rent control and we need it now.
Full accountability, no excuses.
Austin, it will be Richie Tai and Daniel Wang.
And please follow Brandon's example and hold the mic, like hold it physically because it's sometimes not close enough.
Hey there, I'm Austin Price.
I'm a renter in District 5 and I'm here just to urge the City Council to vote in favor of this rent control legislation.
I've lived all over this country at this point.
New York, Austin, from Louisiana, lived in Colorado, and I can say the Seattle rents are the most ridiculous and the rates of increase are the most ridiculous I've seen all over this This country, I don't know what to say about it.
Um, so the the for-profit housing market does not exist to fulfill the housing needs of working people We can all see that it caters to the greed of wealthy shareholders and real estate companies Corporate landlords jack up rents because they have the power to do so not because they need to and because there's no accountability for them That's why we have to stand together with rank-and-file unions and working-class people to fight alongside Council members who want to win the oh my goodness.
I'm screwing this up.
Well, the point is We need this legislation desperately, every single one of us.
We're just going to keep getting run out of this city and it's going to get worse and worse and this is unacceptable.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Rich.
My name is Richie Tai.
I'm a tech worker and a member of Alphabet Workers Union, and I'm a renter in Seattle.
I'm here to urge all the Democrats on City Council to stand with working people, not the corporate real estate companies, the corporate landlords, and stand with working people.
Vote yes on Councilmember Swan's rent control legislation with no loopholes or watering down.
And you may read scary, fear-mongering reports from economists, myths that rent control will decrease the housing stock.
And these problems are caused by the loopholes that we desperately need to avoid.
Things like vacancy decontrol is not rent control.
And more than allowing rents to revert back to market rates once tenants move out, it It allows landlords to push tenants out to avoid rent control measures.
That's why working people like us have fought for things like the Amazon tax to make publicly owned affordable housing available.
But we need more than that.
We need rent control.
We have Natalie Bailey and then Josian Howard, I think.
Sorry.
Go ahead.
Hi, I'm Daniel.
I'm a renter in District 3. Housing at the moment overwhelmingly serves as an investment and a means of profit for real estate firms and their shareholders.
And as working people, we can't really vote with our wallets because whatever the corporate landlords want us to pay.
That's why they raise rents as much as they want, because they can.
And that's why a movement of working people and union rank and file, they fought for the Amazon tax alongside the council office of Shamasawan.
And I'm personally very proud to have been part of that movement.
But that's nowhere near enough, as other people are saying, considering the state of the housing crisis, which working people are paying for.
Like people said, we need more social housing paid for by taxes on the rich, and we need rent control.
So I'm obviously not alone here in demanding the Democrats on city council to pick a side and stand with working people against the parasitic real estate industry.
Vote yes on council member Zawin's rent control legislation with no loopholes or watering down.
And that includes no measures of things like vacancy decontrol, where rents can be jacked up on a unit anytime there's a vacancy.
Experience shows that this will obliterate affordability of rent-controlled or stabilized units of the poor, like in the example of Santa Monica, where 83% of rent-controlled units used to be affordable to low-income people, and it went to 4% after vacancy decontrol.
We will not accept any poison pills like that.
We need rent control in its strongest form now.
Hi, my name is Kat and after living in Seattle for the last three years, it is clear to me as well as the overwhelming majority of working people and renters that we need rent control and we need it now.
Corporate landlords have raked in astronomical profits and rent increases while driving thousands of renters and families food bank lines and into homelessness.
A 2020 national study from the U.S.
Government Accountability Office showed that a $100 increase in median rent is associated with a 9% increase in estimated homelessness rate.
From 2019 to 2020, Seattle saw a 5% increase in people experiencing homelessness.
If the City Council is serious about addressing homelessness, it will vote yes on rent control.
That is why we need rent control for all renters, for all rental homes with no loopholes and no vacancy control.
I urge all Democrats on the City Council to stand with working people, to stand with renters, not with the wealthy landlords.
And I urge you to vote yes on Council Member Sawant's comprehensive rent control legislation with no loopholes or watering down.
Thank you.
Hello, my name is Natalie Bailey.
I've been a renter here in Seattle for over a decade.
The for-profit housing market does not exist to fill the housing needs of working people.
Instead, it caters to the greed of wealthy shareholders and real estate companies.
Corporate landlords jack up the rent because they have the power to do so, not because they need to.
That's why working people in union rank and file fight along council members to want to win the Amazon tax to fund publicly affordable housing.
And that's why it's far from, but that is far from enough.
The housing affordability crisis is so acute.
We need dramatic expansion and affordable housing of our city.
We need much more social housing paid for by taxing the rich and we urgently need rent control.
Seattle's crippling rents have acutely human costs.
The greed of millionaires and billionaires, corporate landlord barons is driving thousands of renters and families to food banks and into homelessness.
The claim that rent control reduces the quantity and quality of available housing is a myth perpetuated by the real estate lobby.
Big developers have controlled Seattle's public establishment for years, and despite a skyline littered with cranes, Seattle's biggest developers have nothing done nothing to make rent more affordable.
We desperately need rent control and be a massive win for working class people.
Good morning everybody.
My name is Josiah Howard and I have lived here in Seattle my entire life and throughout the past 10 years we have been closer and closer to homelessness, despite having family that has worked 40 to 60 hours or more constantly every week.
And it has not mattered.
And how much they work, we cannot make our ends meet.
And we have seen even more families not be able to make ends meet.
With the passing of rent control, we will be able to just live here finally, and it will be people will be able to not be just outside on the streets with nowhere to go because no matter how much they work, they can't make their ends meet.
Rent is too high and if we pass this, rent will be far more manageable for many people here.
Thank you.
Anderson, Eric Simmons and Stephen Durowski.
Hello, my name is Aja Anderson and I am a grocery store cashier represented by UFC w 3000. I urge all Democrats in the city council to vote yes on council members so wants rent control legislation with no loopholes or.
watering down.
Rent prices have continued to skyrocket throughout Seattle yet minimum wage remains the same and hazard pay has all but vanished as Seattle living spaces grow more expensive and the experience of homelessness becomes ever more present to the people who reside here.
I am low-income.
I have rented MFTE units in the past and have experienced difficulties doing so.
Many apartment complexes today are owned by LLCs.
The paperwork training certain LLCs provide to building management is lacking, and many MFTE units remain empty only to provide tax breaks for these companies.
Because of poor training and convoluted application processes, People who qualify for these units are not getting housing that they need.
I spent a year correcting my MFTE paperwork.
I was told by someone with the authority to correct my situation that at the end of the day, housing is a business.
My issue was never resolved and I am now in great debt as a result of this.
Housing is not a business.
Housing has never been a business.
And for as long as people require shelter for survival, housing is and will continue to be a human right that should be accessible to everyone regardless of their financial status.
16 million homes remain unoccupied throughout the United States.
This includes condos, apartments, houses, and more, meaning that there are 28 vacant houses for every one person experiencing homelessness in the U.S.
Rent control is a necessity under a system where housing is viewed as a commodity.
Rent control will provide the people of our city, Seattle, with the housing that every human being needs on this earth deserves to have.
I'm Eric Simmons.
This for-profit housing market does not exist to fulfill the housing needs of working people.
Instead, it catered to the greed of the wealthy shareholders and the real estate companies.
Corporate landlords jack up rents because they have the power to do so, not because they need to.
That's why working people in union rank and file alongside council members who want to win the Amazon tax to fund publicly owned affordable housing.
But that's far from enough.
The housing affordability crisis is so acute, we need a dramatic expansion in affordable housing in our city.
We need much more social housing paid for by taxing the rich, and we urgently need rent control.
I urge all Democrats on the city council to stand with the working people, not wealthy landlords.
I urge you to vote yes on council members from Watts for rent control legislation with no loopholes or watering down.
I pay $1,475 a month for a tiny studio apartment in South Lake Union.
My microwave handle broke off a few weeks after moving in.
I have no control over whether my bathroom fan runs, the windows do not open, and just this morning my door outright did not lock.
I have time and time again tried to get management to tackle these issues, only to receive no response.
I would sue, but I barely make rent, so I can't afford a lawyer or afford to take time off work.
Even if I did, the mental toll to go through a lengthy lawsuit is something I should not and cannot deal with.
Remind me how paying $1,500 means I get high-quality housing.
The landlords of this city only see me as a source of passive income, and if you don't do something soon, then it will be clear that that's how you see me too.
Do your job, or at least turn on your cameras to prove you have the courage to look me in the eye.
Here, Stephen, it'll be Rachel Kay, Yuli Matthew, Preston Sahabu, and Luke Weigrandling.
Good morning, council members.
Thank you for introducing this measure.
Good morning, members of the council.
My name is Steven.
I urge you in good conscience to, how could you possibly vote no on this?
Anyone, how can anyone vote no on this?
I live in assistance housing.
I want to tell you about some of my neighbors.
My neighbor across the hall is a Vietnam veteran and a former police officer with dementia, okay?
If his rent is increased, are you gonna allow this veteran and former police officer to be evicted?
Also, two of my neighbors are a gay couple who are on disability because they have mental illness.
Are you gonna allow their rent raised and them to be evicted?
How can you sleep at night and vote no on this measure?
Thank you.
Hello, my name is Rachel Kay.
I'm a low wage cashier and I am a member of Seattle Democratic Socialists of America.
I'm here because my friend, UC Solzig, committed suicide in a standoff with the King County Civil Processing Unit after she was being evicted from her slum of an apartment building that she couldn't even afford.
She lost her life over $6,000 while her landlords Gary and Devine Schaefer own a home in Hawaii in addition to a mansion in Bellevue.
The foundation group, also the property manager for her building profits.
We need rent control and social housing now so more people don't lose their lives to suicide or to homelessness on the street.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Yuli Matthew.
I'm a recent UW grad and a resident of Power Lake in District 5. I was an RA in college, but I recently moved back in with my parents because I cannot afford to rent in this city.
Seattle, I want to urge all the Democrats on City Council to stand with working people, not wealthy landlords and vote yes on Council Member Sawant's rent control legislation with no loopholes or watering down.
Seattle's housing affordability and cost of living crisis is the worst it's been in decades and it's only getting worse.
Over the last three years, overall costs in the Seattle metropolitan area climbed over 20% more than cities like New York, LA, and San Francisco.
Wages in Seattle, meanwhile, have far from kept up, growing just 16% after a drop at the start of the pandemic.
And even before this record inflation was unleashed, Seattle metro area rents increased by nearly 92% from 2010 and 2020. This means that Seattle area rents in that decade increased more than comparable regions such as the California Bay Area.
I want you to vote yes on this legislation with no loopholes.
Hello my name is Preston our renter in district four and a member of UAW 4121. According to an internal survey of our union members over half of us are rent burdened.
Three weeks ago UAW members launched a strike against the UW who has repeatedly refused to provide raises in line with our cost of living.
a cost of living which now matches the dystopian inequality of San Francisco.
UW has been acting in concert with these corporate landlords to gentrify the university district and jack up everyone's rents, not just by lobbying for developer giveaways, but literally trying to give away their public land to these private developers.
I urge all Democrats on City Council to stand with the students and the researchers who are struggling, struggling to make the UW work and not the catalysts, administrators and corporate landlords.
Million dollar salaries.
Vote yes on Council Member Saul Wanstrong, rent control with no loopholes and no watering down.
Solidarity.
My name is Luke.
I moved back to Seattle in 2016 and spent the first four years moving sometimes twice a year because of the complete stranglehold that the for-profit housing market has on our city.
I've had friend after friend forced out of the city after being bled dry by their landlords.
Renters skip meals, avoid doctor visits, miss life because they're working to keep up with their rents.
Meanwhile, landlords literally gamble away our money, literally.
or worse, donate money to unseat our only true representatives like Council Member Shama Sawant.
Conservative council members and big business will do what they've always done, fear-mongering and calling rent control an outlandish or even radical demand that we should fight for more moderate reforms.
I argue, given the scope of the crisis, rent control is the reform.
While I support more radical demands such as decommodifying housing altogether, getting rid of second homes, we need to fight for rent control now and pass this bill.
RIP UC.
Those who are signed up in person, Ted, can you read out the online?
Yes.
Oh, go ahead.
I didn't see your name, but go ahead.
Council Member Sawant, check the backside of the sign-up sheets because it was.
Yes, you are signed up.
I'm 34, yeah.
Okay, yeah, just I study Leon Trotsky, and just as capitalists want us to think that resources are something that we heavily have to compete for, and in order to win, we have to undercut people and become desensitized.
Just like the military bases that the capitalists set up import sex slaves desensitize people in the military bases and, you know, fund wars and make profit off war.
So the big real estate has become like a giant military base, desensitized that the people have to compete for housing.
And if the socialists were in control, then the military could become a thing to restore the environment.
to focus on all the military bases around the world would focus on like restoring the environment and where is global warming coming from.
So the real estate could become like a force to see who needs the most housing because the most oppressed workers become the proletariat, become the leaders of the movement.
And if the proletariat were the leaders of the movement, then we wouldn't be having these issues.
The first three remote speakers are Angie Gerald, followed by Brett Frank Looney, followed by Margo Stewart.
Go ahead, Angie.
Good morning.
My name is Angie, and I'm a small landlord in Ballard.
Do not move forward with rent control.
Seattle is losing rental units, and it's riskier than ever for people to rent housing to other people in Seattle.
Council's regulations are diminishing opportunities, contributing to higher rent, more competition, and less diversity of housing.
In the last few years, Seattle has lost many thousands of rental units in smaller size buildings, where most of our naturally affordable rental housing is.
At the same time, an almost billion dollar housing levy is being put to voters that will build and preserve only around 3,000 affordable units The state legislature finally passed missing middle housing legislation yet Seattle has been passing law after law raising barriers for people to be able to viably build finance or operate new rentals in the city.
Council Bill 120606 is a fever dream and political distraction.
Please redirect your energy toward a one Seattle approach.
Encourage a rental housing environment where more people not fewer can offer residential housing to other Seattleites.
Thank you.
Brett Frank Looney.
Brett, oh, there you go.
Good morning for the record, Brett Frank Looney, third generation minority housing provider.
Here today in opposition of Council Bill 120606. State law does not allow this policy to take effect.
The current state legislature is not interested in giving Seattle that.
This policy would not achieve housing stability and in fact have the opposite impact, but there are other steps the council can take.
The state made historic investments this year to fund the construction of affordable housing.
It also passed several laws like permanent and zoning reform, which will lead to much needed increase in supply.
Council should be focused on ensuring the success and full implementation of those policies, which are just taking effect.
This proposal would decrease both the quantity and quality of housing in our city.
I'll leave you with this from economist Gunnar Myrdal, quote, Right control has, in certain Western countries, constituted maybe the worst example of poor planning by governments lacking courage and vision," end quote. Please reconsider this approach. I strongly urge you to oppose Council Bill 120606. Thank you.
After Margo Stewart comes Joe Suguru, followed by Patrick Gibson.
Hi, my name is Margo.
I'm a renter on Capitol Hill and an activist with Workers Strike Back.
I'm here to demand that the Democrats on the Council pass Councilmember Sawant's bill for strong rent control.
Working people in the city are being crushed between record inflation, skyrocketing rents, and as someone who's spent a decent amount of time couch surfing and living paycheck to paycheck, I don't consider rent control to be a fever dream, like a previous speaker said, but an obvious necessity.
I think if we want to have any talk about addressing the housing and homelessness crisis or questions of abuse and domestic violence, which serves with coven we need.
rent control and we need a rapid expansion of social housing and the idea that the housing supply goes down is just not supported by the data and cities that already have rent control.
This is a really strong bill, and it's urgent for working people that it stays that way without any loopholes or carve outs for big developers.
And I want to go back to what a previous speaker said about they can see the control which allows landlords to jack up rents between tenants, there's some really striking numbers from Santa Monica.
where without vacancy decontrol, rents were affordable.
80% of units were affordable in rent-controlled units to low-income households.
And with it, just 4% were affordable to low-income households.
And that just...
After Joe Sugru, comes Patrick Gibson, followed by Ben Russell.
My name is Joe Sugru.
I'm a public school teacher, a union member, a D4 renter whose rent's gone up twice in the last year and a half, and a member of Worker Strike Back.
And I urge all Democrats on the city council to vote yes on council member Stalwant's rent control legislation with no loopholes.
And I think the point the last speaker was just making is really important.
There can be no vacancy decontrol allowed.
That could erode the benefit of rent control specifically for low-income tenants, because it does not create below market rates that are maintained over time.
It's as simple as that.
It's a gift to the developers.
And again, those numbers from Santa Monica are stunning.
83% of rent controlled units were affordable to low, very low and extremely low income households.
But since vacancy control was implemented, that number is now 4%.
And to the person who was just talking about the ban in Olympia.
Yeah, there is a ban kept in place by the democratic party and winning this legislation would energize a movement and put immense pressure on them to repeal that ban vote.
Yes.
No loopholes and stand with working people.
Ben Russell.
My name is Ben Russell.
I'm a renter here in Seattle.
I'm asking the council to vote yes on rent control.
If landlords are raising rent so much, over 90% in the last 10 years, it must mean that the homes they rent out are well-maintained and safe, right?
Far from it.
In 2021, my apartment was destroyed by a fire deemed likely caused by dilapidated electrical wiring.
There were no fire alarms in the hallways, and the building was only roused because the heavy smoke awoke one of the tenants.
The landlord treated us with total ruthlessness, including using the return of the security deposit as a bargaining chip, which many of us now in financial crisis desperately needed.
In the course of dealing with the landlord, it came to light that the shell LLC holding the building was named It's My Party LLC.
The brutality we were treated with goes to show how far landlords will go to protecting their profits, neglecting even the most basic safety measures, which only by sheer luck did not result in death or serious injury.
What to us were our homes to them at the name of their LLC suggests it was their party.
We need rent control.
Thank you.
After Randy Banneker comes Jennifer Leakish followed by Marilyn Yim and somebody that I called previously, Patrick Gibson is no longer connected.
So if Patrick, if you reconnect, then we can call you.
Go ahead, Randy.
Thank you, Council Members.
Randy Banneker.
I'm here on behalf of the Seattle King County Realtors.
The best form of rent control is a 30 year mortgage, and this proposal does nothing to advance the dream of homeownership.
We present members who struggle every day to help people buy a home in Seattle in a market where they're increasingly priced out.
One tool many buyers use involves renting out an accessory unit or a duplex in order to both qualify for the mortgage and make payments on that mortgage.
Rent control shatters that dream because it eliminates buyer's ability to keep pace with rising expenses because they have to pay for increased property taxes, city utility rates, mortgage rates.
Rent control has proven to be an abject failure in every market where it exists.
It constrains the supply of rental units and it establishes disincentives to improving those units.
It's a lose-lose proposition.
bad for the tenants, and bad for the rental housing owners.
I urge you to reject this legislation.
Jennifer Blackish, who is next on the list, is now not connected.
So if you reconnect, then we can call you.
So next is Marilyn Yim, followed by Bruce Becker.
Marilyn, you appear to be muted, so hit star six on your phone.
Marilyn, you are still muted.
Try star six.
Can you hear me now?
Yes.
Great.
Okay.
My name is Marilyn and I'm a small mom and pop housing provider and a union member.
Seattle's regulations are making it impossible for people like me to continue providing housing in this city.
Harvard just released a study this week showing that missing middle housing has a significant proportion of BIPOC and immigrant ownership that should be reflected in our race and social equity policy goals.
They would be harmed by this hostile policy.
Rent control is the ultimate NIMBY policy and so once proposal is the worst possible version.
It shuts Seattle's door to newcomers and makes no room for them.
Rent control has been proven to reduce housing supply increase rents and results in poorly maintained properties.
It's a disincentive for builders and can result in a housing shortage.
The opposite of what Seattle needs to create lower rents.
I urge you to heed RCW 35 21 830 and stop entertaining this now.
The imposition of controls on rent is of statewide significance and is preempted by the state.
No city or town of any class may enact, maintain or enforce ordinances or other provisions which regulate the amount of rent to be charged for single family or multiple unit residential rental structures.
Thank you.
Next on the list is Bruce Becker.
Hi, my name is Bruce Becker.
I'm a mom and pop landlord in Seattle.
And this kind of rent control bill is really the worst possible form of providing additional housing.
What you want to do is to make providing housing simple, efficient, and predictable, and this does none of those.
For example, in Portland, after rent control was put into place, it lost 14% of its single-family rental stock.
That's happening in Seattle, too, with all of the other regulations that go along with providing housing.
This bill is especially bad.
It limits rent increases to an index that has no relationship to cost.
of the cost of providing housing.
For example, taxes on my rental house a few years ago went up 25% from year to year.
That's the kind of increase that can happen sometimes.
It's also provides for years without regard to improvements or costs and the exceptions to what require a two-thirds vote to approve, and that's undemocratic.
I encourage you to vote against this proposal.
Thank you.
Leo Palenque, followed by Henry Graham, followed by Rachel Ravitch.
Yes.
Hi, my name is Leo Palenque.
I'm a small-time landlord, and I'm strongly opposed to rent control for three main reasons.
First of all, it's ineffective.
It has never been shown to have an overall positive effect on the cost of housing in any of the places it has been tried in the past.
And to a large degree, the very facets worn out policies being proposed illustrates the complete failure and imagination and creativity of the city council to deal with the high cost of housing in Seattle.
Second, we have only recently come out of a pandemic during which landlords were unable to increase rents.
And many of us had to deal with non-paying tenants for a very long period of time.
Following the pandemic, we've seen prices go up dramatically.
And in my case, I'm just now getting my rents back to what they were before the pandemic because I lured them to help my tenants out.
Locking us into low rents at this time is like a slap in the face to those of us who tried to help our tenants.
Third, in light of the other things City Council has done the past few years to increase my risk, installing rent control will allow for me to finally sell my property and get out of this altogether.
And to be clear about that, I have tenants that are paying way below market value and they'll be forced to move because my properties will be sold to developers.
The biggest irony here is that rent control will be the final act in ensuring a corporate takeover in Seattle rental market.
Finally, I have two questions.
Why is it okay for me to work hard at my job and not expect to make a profit?
How many of you?
Next up is Henry Graham followed by Rachel Ravitch, then Aiden Nardone.
Hello, my name is Henry Graham.
I'm a renter in District 4 and I urge all Democrats on the City Council to vote yes on Council Member Sawant's rent control legislation without loopholes or watering it down.
I grew up in Seattle and I can barely afford the moldy basement where I now sleep.
It doesn't take a radical to recognize that we need rent control now.
Working people all over the city can see it.
Black people and other people of color are the people who need it the most.
But if your constituents don't move you, then just look at the facts.
Study after study reveals the greed of corporate landlords, the undeniable correlation between rising rents and people being forced out onto the streets not to mention the benefits that real rent control has already brought to cities around the world.
If you vote no, turning your nose at the mass support and mountain of evidence, know that the people of Seattle will remember this.
Rachel Ravitch is next.
Rachel, you appear to be muted.
So hit star six.
You're still muted.
Star six on your phone.
Can you hear me now?
Yes.
Sorry.
Hi.
Hi, my name is Rachel Ravitch.
I'm an architect and homeowner in District 3. I was a renter for 11 years in Seattle before purchasing a home with my partner in 2014. When my family first came to the Central Area as Jews fleeing violence in Europe, they were not allowed to reside in much of Seattle.
In fact, redlining and other racially restrictive covenants prohibited non-white residents and Jews from purchasing real estate in much of Seattle until 1968. The homeownership gap between Black and white residents contributes to persistent wealth inequality in our community.
Black household net worth is $23,000, while white household net worth is $456,000.
The rate of homeownership of white residents is 65% and below 30% for black residents, worse than the national average.
The voter turnout gap between renters versus homeowners is 25% in local elections.
Housing stability is key to voter turnout.
Housing instability is a form of Jim Crow.
In the South, voter suppression is manifesting as redistricting and laws that make it more difficult to vote.
Housing insecurity and displacement is Jim Crow in a different cloak.
Past Council Member Sawant's proposal to rent controls outmodifications, protecting tenants, many of whom are victims of a racist flaws established by our own city and are vulnerable to homelessness is the least we can do to start to repair the harm caused by racist zoning practices.
Thank you, Council Member Sawant.
Aiden Nardone followed by Brad Augustine followed by Daniel Bannon.
Good morning.
My name is Aiden.
I don't, I live in district six.
Where are the beans testing provisions in this bill?
I don't think somebody that's living in an ultra deluxe penthouse is particularly worried about their rent increase.
Are there any plans to reduce landlord expenses?
Will you cap any, uh, increases in registration fees?
and inspection fees.
Will you cap any, uh, utility bills increases for landlords that must hold the water, sewer and garbage in their own name.
By the way, in your report, there was an obscure reference to Cambridge mass and, uh, rent control.
Rent control was terminated in 1995 in Cambridge.
If you're going to use statistics to support your arguments, at least try to use something from the 21st century.
Uh, Brad Augustine followed by Daniel Bannon followed by Caleb Kratz.
Hello.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
My, my name is Brad Augustine.
I'm the manager of a company called Madrona real estate services in Seattle.
We manage what I call ma and pa owned apartments.
In the city of Seattle, 74.4% of all apartments are owned by ma and pa's.
And yet we have seen in the last two years dramatic reduction in those desires to own apartments.
Sawant said the, I quote this, housing is an investment.
And then she implied that the audacity that it would be an investment.
So, she also said if a developer tears down three to four rental units to build a large apartment, then they should be required to maintain lower rates for the units that were torn down.
Okay, good luck.
No one's gonna build apartments in Seattle.
There are 58,526 units being added to Seattle right now.
Seattle's population growth is flat.
We don't have the 20,000 people moving.
And Portland, Oregon, who has rent control,
Daniel.
Hi, this is Daniel Bannon calling in on behalf of the Rental Housing Association of Washington and over 5,000 small housing providers from across the state.
Rent control has failed to improve the rental housing market every single time it has been implemented because it reduces supply and actually increases rental housing costs.
Specifically, a study conducted by the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the professors of that school, found that rent control caused an overall increase in rental rates, which made it much more difficult for new residents to find affordable housing.
And in this instance, it actually proved to accelerate gentrification in the San Francisco rental market.
The study found that rent control only provided a benefit to those who were already residing in a unit with an affordable rate and the lack of investment and new construction strangled San Francisco's housing supply and created immense barriers for new residents to find housing at all.
Furthermore, rent control decreases housing turnover and misallocates housing units.
It will create a price gap between rent controlled units and market rate units, which creates an economic barrier where rent controlled units remain stagnant, whereas the market rate of vacant apartments increases more rapidly than in a market without rent controlled policies.
Please.
Caleb.
Amy.
Yes.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Good morning, council members.
My name is Caleb Kratz.
I currently live at Nicholsville central district.
After becoming homeless in January, I have struggled to find work that will pay enough to successfully get me out of homelessness.
According to national low income housing violation, people need to earn 40 to 60 an hour to live in Seattle, Seattle metro area.
The minimum wage here is far from that, being at only $15.74 as of January 1st, 2023. With the prices of rent being so high, more and more people are having to move further from their jobs, farther from Seattle just to comfortably live.
The problem with this is that we will now have to spend money on gas and car maintenance.
Transportation is often limited and good paying jobs are rare.
The annual salary of $100,000 isn't even enough to buy a single family home in Seattle.
Majority of people don't even make that salary today.
My concern is that people coming out of homelessness, the people who might have lower paying jobs such as janitors and retail clerks, won't be able to ever successfully get out of homelessness due to the increase of rent if they do.
Burt Lawson, followed by Micaela Adams, followed by Isaac Chris.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes, go ahead.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Hello.
Yes, we can hear you.
My name is Burt Lawson.
homelessness in Seattle because of the, um, high cost of living and my wage just couldn't quite keep up with the cost of living.
And I support this legislation so that, um, it can just make just, you know, I don't, it's hard to explain, but I just, I just support this legislation.
Sorry.
Hello.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Good morning, council members.
My name is Mikayla Adams.
I currently live at Nicholsville Central District.
I became homeless almost a year ago today.
My siblings, mom, and I, after weeks and months of trying, finally got into a homeless shelter industry.
More and more people are becoming homeless every day in Seattle.
According to national research, every $100 increase in rent is associated with an increase in homelessness of between 6% and 32%.
With these numbers, how is Seattle equipped to even find shelter for the homeless people living on the streets?
My concern is that it took months for my family not to get into a shelter due to the overflow of homeless people in Seattle.
What's to say in the future I become homeless again?
Will I be guaranteed shelter or will I find myself struggling again because of the amount of homelessness in Seattle?
With the rent prices continuing to go up, more and more people will eventually become homeless and struggle to get out of their homeless life.
Majority of shelters are too full to even provide shelter.
And after, if rent prices continue to go up, the homeless problem and lack of shelter in Seattle will also continue to go up.
Nicholas will appreciate council members for putting the legislation forward, and we urge the city council members to pass the legislation.
Thank you.
Next is Isaac Curtis, followed by Andrew Lingbloom, followed by Rogan Thompson.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
This is Isaac Curtis.
Good morning, council members.
In 2022, I was diagnosed with cancer and began treatments at Fred Hutch.
I am on Medicaid and have found that to be an adequate system to pay for these treatments.
My ability to work full time has been curtailed.
although I do work a part-time job.
Because there are income limitations with Medicaid I'm only able to earn $1,677 a month.
I live in a micro studio in Capitol Hill.
The best of my knowledge the studio I live in is one of the lowest priced units in Seattle.
I'm currently paying $8.17 a month which covers utilities.
Also my original monthly payment in November of 2021 was $6.50 a month including utilities which I found to be a reasonable rental payment for the size of the unit, which is under 200 square feet.
Beginning in December, my rent is scheduled to increase to $900 a month plus utilities, which are $120 a month.
Limitation increase in rent will cause me to pay a significant amount in relation to my income.
It's an equitable manner in which to treat renters who have disabilities and are members of a class known as the working poor.
Thank you.
Andrew, go ahead.
Andrew, you're not muted, but we can't hear you.
Maybe the mute button on your phone has been hit.
Oh, thank you.
Hi, my name is Andrew Lingbloom.
We desperately need and deserve rent control.
Our family had to move out of Seattle into a mom and pop rental in the suburbs because he could no longer afford Seattle rent.
I used to walk to work to Seattle, but now I'm part of Seattle's traffic problem.
Our salaries are not increasing at the same rate as rent, and we are not alone in that.
Inflation continues to outpace wage growth.
The increase in rent is not only driving people out of Seattle, it's also driving people to hunger and out onto the street.
Expensive rents do not mean a well-kept apartment building.
I have dealt with mold, thin insulation, sheet paint.
This is a crisis that so many of us face.
We cannot build our way out of this affordability crisis.
We need rent control in the apartments that we have.
This rent control is a trigger law.
You can pass this law and with it, Seattle will be a positive driving force statewide for real change.
I urge the city council to pass council members who wants rent control legislation without watering down our loopholes.
Thank you so much.
Go ahead, broken.
Yes, hello.
My name is Brogan Thompson.
I've been a housing provider for many years.
I spent two years remodeling my property.
One of the two bedroom, one bath is only $1,400.
The other is a two bedroom, one and a half bath that's $1,700 with a view of the lake.
The last apartment is a two bedroom, two bath.
It's only a dollar per month because the guy living there is getting chemo and radiation.
for two cancers up at Kaiser Permanente.
Since many mom and pops provide the naturally affordable homes, they will be burdened like myself with this legislation.
I urge you to vote no or at least add exemptions for single family, duplex, triplex, fourplex.
They continue to provide good housing and we need to keep doing that.
Thank you.
Next is Constance Nelson, followed by Bert Lawson, followed by Anthony Jacobs.
Hi, my name is Constance, and I'm a small housing provider.
I agree that housing matters, but this is not the solution.
We need to work together, the housing providers and the council and the city and everyone to come up with solutions.
We have no control over a number of the expenses we face.
Property taxes, maintenance, and insurance are big ones.
Housing providers like me provide the affordable housing in the state.
Help us keep doing this.
We want to be able to set rents based on current costs and rent control does not allow that.
I want to keep my current tenants at the below market rates.
I need the city council to help me make being a small landlord in Seattle possible.
Thank you.
Next is Bert Lawson.
Oh, Bert Lawson is no longer connected.
So next is Anthony Jacobs, followed by Gordon Hagerty, followed by Rye Armstrong.
Go ahead, Anthony.
Good afternoon.
Well, yeah, I'm not going to start by praising Trotsky.
Instead, I'll simply point out what empirically has happened under rent control.
Rent control has forced housing providers, big and small, to both reduce existing housing supply and forego investment in new units.
That reduction in supply makes it harder for people to find housing, and it lowers the quality of existing housing.
And the data are clear on that.
And no level of ideological fervor will change that.
This council continues to destroy the housing market through punitive policies driven by ideological spite.
I marvel at your willingness to demonize a group of people that provide housing.
Do you hate doctors for high health care prices?
Grocery stores for food inflation?
There's so much demonizing going on and it's leading to awful public policy.
And this is, this is an example of that.
You're also very, yeah, I'll stop there.
Gordon Haggerty.
Hello?
Uh, yes, this is Gordon Haggerty.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yep.
Yes, thank you.
My name is Gordon Haggerty, and I'm testifying today against this rent control bill.
I've been a small affordable housing provider in Seattle for over 50 years.
I first got into the housing business as a university student because I needed affordable housing myself.
So I managed a five-bedroom rooming house while I lived in the unfinished basement.
Coming out of college, we managed to rescue an old 1890s Victorian apartment conversion from the Wreckers Ball.
and over the next 10 years, put our sweat equity into restoring it into a beautiful, affordable, and desirable neighborhood gem.
Today, we still fight to avoid the wrecker's ball, as demand for higher density has driven up land prices, property taxes, utilities, insurance, and maintenance.
50 years later, we're still remodeling and improving.
Rent control will drive the final nail into the coffin of private rental housing in Seattle.
We are not the enemy here.
So Seattle has an affordable housing problem and rent control will make the problem worse, not better.
Next up is Lucas Johnson, followed by Kevin Vitswong, followed by Naomi LeBlanc.
Lucas, you appear to be muted if you hit star six on your phone.
Okay.
Good morning.
I'm Lucas Johnson.
I rent a studio apartment in Greenwood.
Before that, I was homeless.
I want to thank Council Member Swamp for introducing this legislation because nationwide studies show that the main cause of homelessness is unaffordable rent.
Um, and the son of portable road is driven by greed.
Someone talked about demonizing, um, uh, landlords demonize themselves by succumbing to this greed.
Uh, they're using this.
real-page algorithm most corporate landlords do that allows them to squeeze renters ruthlessly for as much as they can get out of them to increase their short-term profits, making the housing crisis a simple, efficient, and predictable result.
So housing is a human right, and we need to treat it as such rather than prioritizing people's profits.
Thank you.
Hey, my name is Kevin.
I'm an educator in district three and I pay well over half my income to my landlord.
Seattle rents have nearly doubled in the last 10 years, which is why I'm calling in to strongly urge all democratic council members to vote yes and support council bill 120606 for strong right control without loopholes or watering down.
You know, the small landlords are calling it a day.
If they decide to try a different job, they have the option to sell a property.
But when renters get new jobs, we keep paying rent.
So when a movement of renters won the cap on late rent fees to $10 just a few months ago, the corporate landlords were here crying crocodile tears.
I remember how one of them mentioned, you know, just how much pains they take, you know, take care of their portfolios.
And Zelle Corporation see us as ledger lines and their books interchangeable.
And all these record profits from the housing industry have been speaking for the four decades that rent control has been banned on the Democratic Party control at the state level.
So continue to stay longer in delay to protect these profits, but there's a strong movement that can change this.
And if you're serious about ending homelessness, vote yes for strong rent control without loopholes or watering down.
Thank you.
Next, Rye Armstrong is reconnected now.
So Rye Armstrong, why don't you go next, followed by Naomi Litwack, followed by Gabe Mahan.
Hi there.
This is Rye Armstrong.
I'm a resident of District 3 and a candidate for Seattle City Council, strong democratic socialist.
I'm talking and speaking to hundreds of people on the streets and also within their homes that are demanding for rent control.
I praise Shama Sawant's office for pushing this legislation forward so we can affect actionable change against the state law.
I grew up here but also lived in New York City for five years.
The only reason I could live there was because I was on a rent-stabilized lease.
I was paying $8.75 a month to live in Midtown Manhattan as an artist working within theater.
For me, this is an extremely important legislation, especially for the fact that year over year, Seattle has seen nearly a 19% increase in rent, with the average rent for a one bedroom being $1,681 and for a two bedroom $2,097.
This is unacceptable that we have this amount of inequality and greed from corporate landlords, and I would ask the council to please secure the passing of this legislation.
Thank you.
Go ahead, Naomi.
Hi.
My name is Naomi.
I'm currently renting in the University District.
And last week, my neighbor was stabbed.
He was a victim in a domestically violent abusive relationship.
And the stats show us that a big factor in people dying from violence by their partners, being injured by their partners, is when there isn't as much housing available and when housing is unaffordable.
He couldn't move out.
He had nowhere to go.
And so I strongly urge Council to pass rent control with no water, with no limitations and no watering down.
I echo the statement about crocodile peers.
Reminder to landlords, you are not providing housing because ticket scalpers are not providing tickets or shows.
If it's that hard to be a landlord, you can quit and sell at any time and get someone into homeownership.
The idea that rent control will be a barrier to homeownership is laughable because the primary driver of land prices is speculation and a crowded demand market for profit.
So I really ask all the landlords and realtors here to ask themselves whether human lives are more important than their profits.
Gabe Mahan, followed by Eric Brand, followed by Catherine Dawson.
Hey, y'all.
My name is Gabriel.
I'm a renter and tech worker in District 3 calling in emphatic support of the proposed universal rent control legislation without loopholes or watering down.
You know, in the Central District in particular, that's my neighborhood.
It was once a predominantly black neighborhood, but people of color have been continuously driven out of the neighborhood due to shocking rent increases.
And rent control is without question the strongest way to protect our neighborhood and keep people in their homes.
I think it's really disingenuous to describe this bill as some sort of undue burden or restriction that will drive people to stop renting their homes.
I mean, neither common sense nor data support that notion.
In fact, the real thing driving people to sell their spare homes is the speculative housing bubble, which drove home prices to astronomical levels.
A lack of rent control and skyrocketing rents was in fact one of the things that fueled this bubble since investors looked opportunistically at the possibility of jacking up rents.
That's why even as a tech worker, I can't afford a home and probably never will with rents going up by 15 to 20% each year.
So I urge the City Council Democrats to please do something.
Protect our companies, don't let the big corporations get away with flimsy excuses, or use small landlords as a shield to try to justify loopholes like that can be controlled.
Thank you.
Eric Brand, followed by Katherine Dawson, and then the last speaker who's signed up and present is Ruby Holland.
Hi, my name is Eric Brand.
Thank you for listening this morning.
I'm the fifth generation resident of the Seattle area and was a renter until the age of 41. I served the community as a medical doctor, which means that 16 years out of medical training, I still have six figures of student debt.
I provide medical care for 17% of the rates provided by hospitals.
I'm trying to serve the community here.
At the age of 41, I did get married to a first generation immigrant, a person of color, a woman who had worked very hard to try to own a house in this area.
And so I'd become the accidental landlord trying to help keep the house that she worked so hard to purchase.
And what I'm finding is that we have a huge affordability problem in the Seattle area.
And I think there's a lot of talk about corporate, and I think we need to be very sensitive and nuance this legislation to distinguish corporate from small mom and pop shops with increased inflation, utilities, taxes, and uncompensated damage done by renters.
So I think we need to pause and make housing more affordable.
I'm concerned that Seattle has lost 14% of its single family houses in the last year, and we're gonna be next unless we get some support from the city.
Catherine Dawson.
Go for it, Catherine.
Hi, I'm Catherine.
Thank you.
You're good.
I'm a renter in District 3, and I'm calling to ask the council to vote yes on rent control.
As you've heard, and you know, Seattle's in a housing affordability crisis, and rent control has really broad public support.
The majority of Seattle residents are renters, like me, and over 40% are rent burdened.
Rents continue to rise, and so that landlords and investors can maximize their profit.
But we know that renters are forced to bear the burden of those increases, and that that often leads to displacement and homelessness.
For example, like you've heard, my landlord increased my base rent 10% just last year in addition to adding a bunch of new fees.
They're also one of the 10 mega landlords currently being sued for allegedly colluding and using price fixing to artificially inflate rent price prices.
So it is about profit, not about housing supply or anything else.
And like many renters, I've shuffled between apartments to try to avoid those big rent hikes, but even that strategy can't work.
So housing is a human right.
Please vote yes.
And council members want strong bill for rent control without any loopholes.
Thank you so much.
Next comes Ruby Holland.
And then some people who were previously not present are now connecting.
So I'll read out the next list after Ruby.
Yes.
My name is Ruby Holland.
I'm a homeowner born and raised in Seattle.
I urge you to pass a balanced rental legislation that works for both renters and mom and pop landlords alike.
It doesn't have to be either or.
In the last few years, it's been city halls, not-so-democratic Democrats that have pushed and priced responsible residents out into the suburbs or into the streets.
The not-so-democratic Democrats who try to force urban village homeowners out of their homes in order to give their lot to the rich.
It's been the not-so-democratic Democrats that passed the scam MHA, knowing it could only provide housing to luxury clients and not those needing affordable housing as promised to those who gave up our lot with the purpose of affordable housing.
Please kick the obsession with the rich people to the curb and pass some affordable housing law for these people.
Thank you.
So people who are now reconnected speakers, we have Jennifer Lekish, followed by Debra Pitak-Crawley, followed by Ellen Anderson.
Hi, my name is Jennifer Leakish and I am a, uh, 20 plus year residents of Seattle.
I've been a renter and I've been a housing provider and I urge you not to pass this type of legislation.
What it does is it prevents housing providers from actually taking good care of their properties.
Costs go way up and there's no way when you, when you're using a figure like.
I don't know, 4% pegged on, on an inflation rate.
You know, when the city charges go way up, um, as an example, backflow testing, uh, on a property went up for up from 150 to $230 this year, unless you can somehow, you know, make sure that our costs don't go up.
There is no way to renter.
Passing this kind of legislation is a really bad idea.
Also we work with our tenants.
We, they are our friends.
And we are good people, and when they have problems, we help them.
We are not the enemy.
Thank you very much for your time.
Deborah Pitacrolli.
Hello.
Thanks.
My husband's a union minimer.
My father was.
I dedicated a career to nonprofits, including ones such as Uplift Northwest, supporting homeless of Seattle.
And I am a rental housing owner.
We have two properties in Seattle, single families in highly desirable areas that we rent for 1300 and 1600. You're hearing the difference between very large corporations and small owners.
And to the point that we are being forced out To the person I had to laugh who said we had algorithms to figure out rents for us small landlords shows how little you understand what being a small landlord is.
I see the folks who were put on this meeting officially to present, none of them represented small landlords.
And so as we go forward, I think the folks who spoke to a rational way of looking at this are looking at the small landlords differently than large corporate landlords.
We are those who care about our tenants.
We can't afford the cost.
Our property taxes have gone up 35% in the last 10 years, including all of the others.
I just had one plumbing piece done for a renter over $1,000.
Ellen Anderson is the last speaker who signed up and present.
Hi, I'm Ellen.
I live in Beacon Hill, and I am a queer renter, a small mom and pop, small time renter.
And I find it being an absolute shame for so many of these small landlords to try and use the identities of queer and POC landlords, quote unquote, livelihoods, claiming their livelihoods are at risk, to try and push back against the reality that the Seattle queer and POC communities are going to be and are currently impacted the most by this outrageous and completely unregulated costs in housing.
Claiming that rent control makes rent unpredictable and ineffective and more unaffordable for working class people is laughable and completely not based in reality.
The claim that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of available housing is a myth that is perpetuated by the real estate lobby.
In New York City, the two largest booms took place during the times of strict rent control in the 1920s and in the post-war period between 1947 and 1965. And more recently, UC Berkeley researchers have found that six cities had rent control in the Bay Area actually produced more housing per unit per capita than its cities without rent control.
I encourage all council members to pass this without any loopholes, without any potholes.
Let's get this pushed through so that we can have the people who live in this city afford, who run this city,
That's the final speaker in the online public comment.
There are four people signed up but not present.
Patrick Gibson, Bert Lawson, Howard Freeman, and Brett Frosicker, who are welcome to send in your comments if you are able.
Thank you, Ted.
And thank you to all those who spoke in public comment.
And our presenters are arriving here.
We have one presenter.
online.
So the way we'll do it is for all the presenters, panelists, if you can, when you start, if you can start by introducing yourself for the record, and then go ahead and say your, say your contribution.
And then of course, if you can be available for subsequent questions or comments, that would be really appreciated.
We'll start with Ella, go ahead.
Sure.
Yeah, I'm Ella.
I'm joining remotely from New York City.
I'm a member of UAW 2325, representing public legal services workers here.
And I'm also a New York City renter.
And I'm here to talk about rent control in New York City, which has been mentioned a few times.
and how both the protections that it offers for tenants, but also this year's limitations of it point toward the need for the kind of rent control legislation that's being proposed by Council Member Sawant's office, as well as the kind of fighting movement of working people that we've been talking about, and how these are needed in Seattle, New York, and every city in the country.
But yeah, just to briefly outline the situation here, New York City has had some form of rent regulation ever since federal regulations were enacted, which that was part of FDR's Emergency Price Control Act.
And then since 1950, when those federal regulations lapsed, New York has carried on regulating rent.
And this is currently administered at the state level.
All forms of rent regulation in New York City are overseen by the Rent Guidelines Board, whose members are appointed by the mayor.
We have both rent control, which is more restrictive and basically establishes a maximum rent for each apartment, which can only be changed every two years based on changes to the landlord's operating costs.
And we also have rent stabilization, which was mentioned by one of the commenters, which is less restrictive, where there's no overall maximum rent set for an apartment, but rents can only be raised based on amounts set by the board each year.
The more restrictive rent control currently applies to about 16,000 apartments in the city and about 1 million So that all sounds well and good, but I'm certain there's not a single person here today thinking to themselves, yeah, I've heard New York City is a really affordable place to live with affordable rents.
In fact, New York is the most expensive city in the United States for renters.
So clearly something is going wrong with the measures that we have in place.
One major thing is that there are over 3.4 million housing units in New York City.
2.1 million of which are currently occupied by renters rather than owners.
So that means about half of the four rent apartments in New York City are under no rent.
And those renters are completely at the whim of landlords and developers.
The reason for this is that our regulations are only applicable to a very narrow field of units.
Rent control is only for buildings built before 1947 and which have been continuously occupied since 1971. And stabilization, is only for buildings built between 1947 and 1973 that have a certain number of units.
This is clearly extremely restrictive in a city where, like Seattle, we constantly see developers seizing up land or knocking down to build new luxury apartments.
And anything built after 1973 has absolutely no rent.
These enormous gaps in the protections that working families have against the greed of big developers and landlords The Blackstone Group, being one of the biggest developers in New York City, of both commercial and residential real estate, whose chief executive is worth over $30 billion, combined with inflationary pressures have meant that over the last three years, average rents have increased by about 20%, pushing the average rent for a one bedroom apartment here to over $4,000, which is about $1,200 over an average New Yorker's monthly half of New Yorkers are rent burdened or spending 30% more of our income on rent, and fully one third of New Yorkers are paying over half of our income towards rent, or one third of New York renters.
As has been pointed out in regards to the Seattle legislation, lack of affordable housing clearly has a direct impact on rates of homelessness.
And currently in New York City, which has the highest concentration of very wealthy individuals in any city in the world with 340,000 There are 70,000 people living on the streets and in shelters, including over 20,000 children.
In addition to the just plain narrowness of our regulations and how few apartments they actually cover, they're riddled with corporate loopholes and measures that keep all the power in the hands of big-legged Lawrence developers and also the corporate politicians who are in their pocket.
One huge one is the fact that the board that I mentioned that oversees these regulations And that critically decides how much rents can be raised each year in rent stabilized unit is made up of nine members who are all appointed by the mayor, our current mayor Eric Adams is unambiguously an ally of big business who would never willingly appoint or who would challenge to corporate greed.
Ella, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but you seem to be cutting in and out your audio.
I don't know how you can maybe stay closer to the microphone or something.
You seem to be missing the ends of some of your sentences.
OK, I'll try.
Sorry, I'm not sure why that's happening.
But yeah, as evidence of this, just last week, the board approved universal rent increases on stabilized apartments for the second year in a row.
And this year's increases were the highest that they've approved in a decade, up to 5% increases for one-year leases and 7% increases for two-year leases.
Among the many loopholes or ways around the regulations, I'll also highlight vacancy decontrol, which has been as well, or allowing for landlords to deregulate rent on a regulated apartment if there's a gap in residency.
Vacancy decontrol is a part of our rent control legislation.
which is why you hear stories of tenants and families holding on to rent-controlled apartments in New York City by the skin of their teeth over generations, which makes sense when only 16,000 such apartments exist in a city of 8.5 million people.
And vacancy decontrol was repealed in 2019 as to rent-stabilized apartments, which is great, but there are loopholes around that as well.
The main one being the practice of warehousing, where when a tenant rent-stabilized apartment, landlords just keep it empty by not advertising it anywhere in order to avoid having to rent someone who they can't buy high rents to.
And because of this practice, it's estimated there are currently 20,000 vacant rent-stabilized apartments in New York.
Yeah, I'm also a renter in New York City, and given, you know, our more widespread situation and also my experiences, It's very clear to me that the kind of legislation being proposed by Council Member Sawant without corporate loopholes is necessary all around the country.
I don't live in a rent-controlled or stabilized apartment, but our housing law has a provision for all tenants that says that although landlords can raise rents by however much they want, depending on how long you've lived in an apartment, they have to give you a certain amount of notice before the increase goes into effect.
And just in the past few months, my landlord tried to raise the rent beyond the legal threshold, given that he'd given us less than 90 days notice.
And my roommates and I had to know, understand, and repeatedly point out the housing law to our landlord, all with him threatening us and saying that he would get his attorney involved because we were breaking the law before he conceded that we were right.
And our, you know, victory, quote unquote, wasn't even that the insane rent increase won't go into effect, but that we'll get an extra month in our apartment while the increase goes into effect for the next month.
And I think these anecdotal and more widespread examples show the limitations of weakly enforced and loophole-ridden tenant protections and rent protections, which result in people having to essentially represent themselves in very adversarial negotiations with landlords.
And that's also a small landlord that I rent, by the way.
One last point that I'll end on is that I also work as a paralegal at one of the public defender's offices in New York.
And I mostly work with people who have been convicted of felonies in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten And this job has allowed me to see very clearly how, when someone is dealing with dire economic circumstances and not having their basic needs met, like stable housing, they're all the more at risk of getting caught up in the criminal justice system, sometimes for life.
And this is especially true of Black working-class people and families.
When people are pushed into housing insecurity and homelessness by skyrocketing rents, a snowball effect is created where it becomes more difficult to hold down a job and more likely that someone gets involved with things like drugs and gang activity to make money and also provide some level of security, which can obviously result in contact with the criminal justice system and lengthy prison sentences.
This isn't even to mention the fact that homelessness itself is often considered a crime by some jurisdictions, with people getting arrested and locked up for things like sitting down in public, which happens in Austin, Texas, after Proposition B passed there.
So when people are pushed out of their homes by corporate greed, they're ushered right into our prison jails.
As part of my job, I just went to one of our state prisons on Monday to visit with one of our clients who's serving a 16 and a half year sentence for a violent crime stemming from a severe episode of postpartum depression after she had a child as a teenager, was kicked out of her home and was dealing with caring for an infant who had severe medical problems by herself while sleeping on the trains or on friends' couch.
And she's now coming within a few years of her release from prison and was talking about how she doesn't plan on returning to Brooklyn where she was raised and where all of her friends and family are because of the increase in the cost of living since she's been incarcerated.
So after looking forward to going home, since she first got locked up at 19 years old, she's going to a new state to start over by herself.
And when renters have no real protections against the greed of big business and developers, this is what's increasingly happening to working families and especially women, single mothers, black families, people of color.
People are being pushed out of their neighborhoods and sometimes their cities.
So hopefully this has gone some of the way in arguing for why rent control legislation like the type that's being put forward today is needed with rent increases that are capped at the rate of inflation, that covers all rental units without loopholes like vacancy decontrol.
The protections that New York renters do have against corporate greed trace back to times when tenant and labor movements were strong.
both locally and nationally.
And the rollback and loopholes reflect subsequent goals in these movements when big business and landlord were able to swoop in.
And a victory in Seattle, even in the form of a trigger law, while the fight to repeal the statewide ban on rent control continues, would provide crucial inspiration and momentum for tenants and our movements everywhere, which is desperately needed in New York.
Thank you so much, Ella.
We really appreciate it.
We did have some audio issues.
I will make sure that.
Council Member Sawant, I'm sorry, it's really hard to hear you.
I'm not sure your mic is on.
Thank you.
Thank you for pointing that out.
Yeah, I was just saying that We had some audio issues so for those of you who couldn't hear Ellis, I mean if you know the audio is cutting in and out a little bit, then I will make sure that this allows a full written contribution she was good enough to send it to us and writing so.
we will make sure to post it on our council office website so it'll be available to and we'll share it with committee members as well.
I especially appreciate Ella bringing in so much detail about how the policy works in Seattle and or how it does not work in ways it does not work because I think that's very informative as we discuss this legislation here.
Rose, go ahead.
Yeah.
My name is Rose.
I'm a teacher in North Shore School District and a rank and file member of North Shore Educators Association, my union, and I currently live in Lake City.
I've rented my current place for about a year, and I've rented in Seattle for about almost five years now.
During that time, I've seen one-bedroom apartments increase the price of like what two-bedroom apartments used to be in a shockingly short amount of time.
The cost of renting in Seattle is ridiculous, and working people need strong rent control now to be able to survive in this city.
Last year, working people have struggled to battle inflation.
Reports have that inflation topped off at around 7% overall last year.
Along with that, over the last three years since COVID, the cost of renting in Seattle has grown by over 20%.
As a teacher in the Seattle area, I can't afford the average price of a one-bedroom apartment.
And like me, the majority of renters are stretched incredibly thin.
I've been in situ, oh, oh, it's still on.
I've been in situations where I've had to stretch out groceries over weeks to make ends meet.
And I know that I'm far from the only one.
Nationally, 39% of Americans say that they are forced to skip meals in order to afford housing payments.
And in a city with one of the highest rents in the country, I'm sure that percentage here is even higher.
Last year in Washington State, teacher resignation was at the highest level in three decades, with record numbers of teachers leaving the greater Seattle area school specifically.
We need teachers to be able to afford to survive, and right now that is not the case.
Teachers like me are being pushed farther and farther out and forced to commute long distances to work, on top of barely being able to afford groceries.
It's also worth mentioning, Now the same Democrats at the state level who have refused to lift the ban on rent control have also refused to tax the rich to fully fund our public schools, which are facing devastating cuts and even school closures in Seattle and across the state.
As a teacher in the Seattle area, I've seen how rents have affected students.
One of my teaching experiences in another district included a student whose father moved out of the county after a divorce because he couldn't afford rent on his own.
Needless to say, this negatively affected the students' participation in class, and due to the distance, sometimes their attendance completely.
There are hundreds of teachers who have similar stories of how rent and housing insecurity can bring devastation to students and educators.
This is one of the reasons why Council Member Kshama Sawant and a movement of renters, excuse me, I think you're dying.
This is why a movement of, movement of renters and working people fought to ban school eviction, school year evictions in 2021, preventing students
You're doing great, Rose.
Preventing students and any school staff from being kicked out of their homes during the school year.
It's shameful that in Seattle, while billionaires and corporate real estate cacoons use our city as a playground for the rich, 2,149 students, one out of every 25 in the district, are experiencing homelessness in 2021. Excuse me.
The Seattle Public School District reported these students were living in group homes, shelters, doubled up with other families, and in traditional housing.
Other students reported living on the street or in a vehicle.
Over the course of the school year, about 4,200 students experienced homelessness, one out of every 13. This situation comes at a time when corporate landlords are making huge profits while working people struggle to make ends meet.
Winning the ban on school year evictions in 2021 was not easy.
Just like every working class victory, we have fought for through Council Member Sawant's office.
Similarly, in April, Seattle renters, union members, and socialists alongside Council Member Sawant's office won a $10 per month limit on late fees landlords can charge for overdue rent and a ban on any junk fees attached to late fees.
This victory provided huge relief for workers, some of whom reportedly charge were reportedly being charged hundreds of dollars in late fees for paying rent even one day late.
We won that law, despite the opposition of corporate landlords.
One pivotal way that these movements have won are because of rank and file union members and the organized labor movement getting involved in political fights.
The endorsements, the mobilization of union members, and the resources that unions put forward to help build a movement and pressure that is needed to win.
I'm an educator and I'm in a teacher's union.
It is so clear to me and so many other educators that we need rent control.
This is a worker's fight.
If you are listening to me and you're in a union, please get in touch with council members from one's office to talk about passing a resolution in your union to endorse this rent control struggle.
And bring your fellow union members to the next committee meeting.
A majority of Seattle's working people are now renters, but even if not every union member at your job is a renter, other workers and other union siblings will very much feel the effects and be in solidarity with you.
Not a single member in my union was an Amazon worker, yet we passed a resolution supporting the Amazon workers at the Kentucky Cincinnati KCVG Warehouse who are taking up the courageously organizing to win a union because this wider solidarity is vital.
Unions taking up social and political struggles only strengthens them and the entire working class.
I urge that every council member supports this.
Corporate landlords who are the main culprits for the spiraling rent have been swimming in profits, lobbying behind the scenes against workers, and have been making it near impossible to afford to live in the city.
I urge council members to side with workers, not with the real estate corporations, and pass this bill without any watering down amendments.
Thank you.
So much, Rose.
I think your testimony reveals how deeply you care about your students and how deeply your fellow teachers care about their students.
And I know that your fellow union members are going to be very, very proud of you.
And I want to, at the same time, thank Joe Sugru, who's your fellow union member, I think, in the North Shore Teachers Association.
So thank you both for being here, and I hope that Your union is able to come here in big numbers to support this bill the next time we meet as a committee.
And talking about resolutions supporting this bill passed by unions, we have Barbara to talk about that.
My name is Barbara Finney.
I'm a delegate for the MLK Labor Council for American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO Local 3197. and Council Member and Chair Sawant, I appreciate you as a rank and file union member yourself inviting me to join this panel today and this awesome experience of hearing testimony from so many people in favor of rent control.
I'm a retired nurse from the VA hospital and a proud rank and file member of AFGE 3197, which represents the bargaining unit of professionals, blue collar and clinical healthcare workers at the Seattle VA Medical Center.
Seattle VA is a diverse workplace, a federal workforce affiliated with the UW Medical School.
Veterans make up about a third of the VA employees.
Our patient population is entirely made up of veterans.
And it is a Medicare for all kind of system, healthcare system, not-for-profit.
civil service system.
Federal workers and their families, alongside everyone else, have struggled to pay the rising rents in Seattle.
One VA clinic worker and union member puts it like this.
Everybody in Seattle is affected by the high rent.
You can't get ahead.
You can't take care of your family because you have to pay the rent.
It absolutely affects our patients.
They're trying to pay the rent, trying to buy food, pay for gas to get to medical appointments.
Rent is just out of control.
Another union member describes the struggle of single parent co-workers working full time, paying the rent, then skimping on everything else, having to depend on the food bank to feed their families.
My own experience as a nurse coordinator for VA surgical section included working with patients being discharged home after surgery, but home is to a shelter bed because they're homeless.
Those situations happen too often before the pandemic and current sky high rents and inflation and current level of homelessness in our city.
Seattle's high rents are increasingly driving workers, veterans, seniors, the poor, the disabled, and families with children into debt, into moving, into eviction and homelessness.
AFGE 3197 members voted to endorse and support rent control legislation sponsored by the Office of Council Member Sawant.
The renters' rights and renters' protections already won with the leadership of Councilmember Sawant and our movement have been concrete gains for Seattle renters and put pressure on other cities and the state to follow suit.
I'm proud to have been one of the many union and community activists who over the last seven years for me, it's been seven years, it's been longer for the movement I know, have fought and won legislation to help renters in Seattle.
Wins like six months notice for rent increase, economic eviction assistance, winter eviction ban to protect tenants from being displaced during the three coldest months of the year.
and much more legislation that's made a positive difference for working people, including federal workers, but that's not enough.
Corporate landlords who increasingly dominate the Seattle rental market use every trick they can to raise rents to increase their profits.
Unaffordable rent has been forcing workers and their families across trades and wage brackets to have to move often out of Seattle.
A residential move ranks among the highest stressors of life.
Demands of stressors on the body pose a threat to physical, psychological, relational, and spiritual well-being.
The majority of the population of Seattle are renters.
The well-being of renters is inseparable from the well-being of our workplaces, our unions, schools, communities, and our city.
To the council members who are not chair of this committee, I say, many of you support unions and have joined us in fighting for better wages and benefits, but you're not protecting those gains we make if you let big landlords take away those hard-fought raises in the form of rent increases.
That's why fighting for pay raises and for rent control are two sides of the same coin.
If you support good pay for workers, then you need to support rent control with no exceptions and no loopholes.
And then together demand that legislators in Olympia lift the ban on rent control.
Progressive elective officials in Olympia have said for years that they want to support renters, but time and again, they fail.
The party in Olympia, which has substantial majorities in both houses, allowed two bills to repeal rent control to die in committee in the Washington State Legislature during this most recent session, and that's unacceptable.
All of us have a stake in this fight for rent control in Seattle.
We must use our momentum to pressure legislators in Olympia to rescind the anti-worker ban on rent control and then vote to cap rent increases at the rate of inflation.
Working people, unions, community, and faith organizations must fight together for rent control without loopholes, carve-outs, or exceptions, and for taxes on the rich to fund major expansions of publicly-owned rent-controlled social housing.
AFGE Local 3197 supports this effort to win rent control for the sake of our members, the veterans we serve, and all working people in Seattle.
My union stands in solidarity with our city's working class and low-income renters.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Barbara.
And I could not agree more when you said that fighting for pay raises and for rent control are two sides of the same coin.
In fact, I remember both during the Seattle Educators strike last year, I believe, and the strike in 2015, the thing that I heard the most when I went to the picket lines was the housing unaffordability.
And so it's absolutely true that this is a fight for the unions and I hope more unions will join us.
And I really appreciate AFG local 3197 joining us in this and also we'll see local 1495 that has joined us.
And in fact, both the unions have joined us in supporting this rent control public hearing that we're going to be holding on July 12th.
That's a Wednesday, July 12th at 6 p.m.
at All Pilgrims Church.
on Capitol Hill.
And those who testified today in public comment, you should please feel free to come again and testify because we will hopefully have many more Seattle renters there just because it's an evening time and more people will be able to make it because it's not going to be in the middle of the workday for many.
And Barbara, I think you also helped get the endorsement of 32nd District Democrats on this as well.
Thank you.
And thank you to everyone.
Go ahead.
Did you say something?
Yes.
There's rank and file Democrats who are supporting rent control, I'm sure.
And that is testified by the fact that the 32nd Legislative Democrats voted to endorse this rent control campaign as part of their platform several years ago.
And this endorsement is ongoing for that group.
Thanks so much, Barbara.
I think that's a very important point that Barbara just made, that the rank and file of those who identify as Democratic Party supporters are strongly in support of this.
Hopefully other legislative districts of the Democrats will also support this as we go forward.
As far as the discussion is concerned, I had a few questions off the start, and please, committee members, you should feel free to raise your Zoom hand or in Council Member Nelson's case, if you wanted to speak, let me know.
One point I wanted to note is how in, you know, and thank you, Ella, for sharing with us the reality of what happens when there are loopholes in rent control.
And Ella, did I hear you right that you said that in obviously New York's population is what, eight and a half million, something like that.
You said there are 16,000 apartment or rental homes that are rent controlled?
Yeah, exactly.
The rent control that actually establishes a maximum rent, that's only 16,000 apartments that have that.
And then 1 million have the less restrictive stabilization, but that's 1 million out of like 3 million total housing units.
Right, that's a pretty stunning number.
And I think that points towards why we are insisting, as we have in the draft legislation that we have, which is making sure that rent control applies to all rental homes, regardless of size, regardless of location, regardless of which year the building was built.
I mean, we've seen corporate landlords carve out all kinds of loopholes.
Like in California, one of the things that has undermined, among the many things that has undermined rent control policies there is saying that buildings that were built after a certain year are going to be treated differently than buildings that were built before.
But we don't care because it's still renters and human lives that are being affected by unaffordable housing.
So all units should be rent controlled.
And then the other very important point you made Ella was the kind of loopholes that landlords are trying to figure out, even though vacancy decontrol was removed, which obviously that's the first step.
It's very important.
That's why our proposed legislation here does not have vacancy decontrol.
And I know in the central staff memo, there's a powerful statistic that was actually shared by some of the people in public comment, which was useful.
which I won't mention now because we'll come to that.
But you're saying that even though we now have vacancy control in New York City, landlords are trying to get around that by this practice of warehousing.
Yeah, exactly.
And yeah, like we still have vacancy decontrol for the actual rent control departments, those 16,000 that are actually capped at a maximum rent.
But yeah, for the rent stabilized apartments that was repealed in 2019. But yeah, there's this practice that I think is especially taken up by big landlords who, you know, have these other buildings that are not often have these other buildings that are not regulated where they can charge this guy high rents.
And so rather than fill a rent-stabilized apartment after it becomes vacant, because now they would have to keep it rent-stabilized even with the vacancy, they just don't advertise it anywhere so that no one knows that it's available.
Which, yeah, as I said, I think in 2022, it was found that there's 20,000 big rent-stabilized apartments, which is obviously an egregious waste in a city where there's 70,000 people living on the street.
Right, and do you know in that appeal that they did where they won vacancy control for rent-stabilized units, why did they not include the rent-control units?
So you're saying that rent-control units still have vacancy decontrol.
I don't know specifically, but I mean, I imagine the real estate lobby in New York and the politicians that are beholden to them would put up quite a pushback against applying that to rent control as well.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And just to make sure everybody who's watching this is on the same page, because these are sort of technical terms, vacancy control and vacancy decontrol.
You know, vacancy decontrol is the corporate loophole that we are opposed to.
Vacancy decontrol means that when a renter tenant moves out of a rental home, the landlord can then increase rents as much as they want because it's no longer controlled, which basically, in my view, defeat the purpose of rent control because And it's move out all the time, that mobility is always there.
And so we need vacancy control.
Just one last question on this issue, and I think we should come back to it later is, and this is to Ted Verdone, who's the policy analyst in my office, is how, so what happens when landlords, as they're doing in New York, they're just doing this warehousing practice, like what are the protections that renters can have?
First, we will of course see every attempt at loopholes.
Anytime working people fight for and win something, we'll see big business look for every possible loophole.
Just like in New York, they fought for and and one closing the vacancy decontrol loophole.
And then suddenly, we see what they call Frankensteining, where they take two apartments, smash the wall between and say, it's new.
And it's no longer controlled.
Or this warehousing, where you'll have a big landlord company, which will oftentimes own units in the building that are not controlled in the same building as other units that do have the rent stabilization.
So then when they refuse to rent out the stabilized units, they create this manufactured scarcity so that they can force people into the market rate ones that aren't controlled and make even more money.
In our legislation, we've got a lot of protections against that.
Most importantly, the fact that it covers all the units means that there's not market rate units that the landlords can force people into by keeping the rent controlled ones off the market.
That's the main thing.
We also have, in terms of the Frankensteining loophole, we've got protections against that, making it clear that redevelopment does not, in its varying forms, does not break the chain of rent control, and also if they take, if they if the landlord temporarily says, okay, this is not a rental housing, this is a condo, oh, now it's back to rental housing, that also doesn't break the chain unless it's a very long time and truly changed purposes for a while.
Thanks for yeah thanks for explaining that dead and and I totally agree that the best protection that we have against practices like warehousing would be for all rent rental homes to be rent control because how many units are corporate land is going to reinforce I mean warehouse and they need profit and the profit comes from the rent.
And if they don't rent the apartment, they're not going to make profit.
In the case of New York, they're able to do that because only a small fraction, tiny fraction of the total units they own are rent stabilized.
And so they can afford to warehouse them.
And I believe they're warehousing them temporarily.
in the hope of winning a lawsuit that they have filed, maybe a counter lawsuit, maybe an appeal on the vacancy control decision from the state courts or city courts.
I'm not sure which courts ruled on it.
But yeah, I think that that's the best protection.
If all the units in the city are rent controlled, then how many units are they going to warehouse, which is basically not rent, and for what period.
So that all provided a real understanding of why we have the law written in the way that we have written.
Those were my initial questions about some of the points that the panelists brought.
Do council members, committee members have points before we go to the central staff memo?
I don't see any council members asking to come in for now, so we will go to the discussion with the central staff presenters.
Please go ahead.
Good morning, council members.
I'm Asha Venkatraman from your council central staff.
I'll pass it over to Jen.
Good morning.
I'm Jennifer Labreck, also with central staff.
Maybe just a moment to share my screen, pull up the presentation.
Okay.
Is that visible to everybody?
Great.
So, as has been discussed, we are in discussion about Council Bill 120606 about rent control.
What we'll do is do a quick discussion of the state of the rental market, and then I will talk about what the legislation itself does, and then pass it over to Jen to talk about both analysis of the policy choices that are made in the legislation, as well as comparison to other cities.
I know this is a long presentation, and as you probably know, the memo was a little bit lengthy as well, so we'll try to stay at a high level, but please let us know if you want us to dig into any of the details specifically.
So at the moment, when talking about the state of the rental market, we're looking at a population in which more than 50% of Seattle residents are renters.
Rent prices have increased over the past several years, but really, since 2010, you can see that median Seattle rents increased by about 80%, and the region's rents increased closer to about 91%.
excuse me, 92%.
And so the idea and intent of rent control is intended to help moderate rent increases to maintain housing affordability through this policy lever.
Council Member Nelson, I see your hand up.
I'll pause for a moment.
Please go ahead.
I'm not seeing this presentation on the agenda.
Did I miss it in the email?
Because I like to go along with a print version.
Thank you.
Ted's getting it, thanks.
I should add, Council, Madam President or Madam Chair, I didn't receive it either, so I don't need it right now, but if you could send it, that'd be great.
It came out pretty recently.
It contains the same basic information as the memo, but I'll forward it to committee members now.
Go ahead, Asha.
So we'll do a quick summary of the legislation, starting with the pieces around effectiveness, and then moving into what types of housing units the rent control program would apply to talk a little bit about the limitation on rent increases, what new rental units, or what is applicable to new rental units, talk about the rent control commission and district rent control boards, the potential for petitions for emergency rent control exemptions, and then move into the administration enforcement pieces.
In terms of effectiveness, and I believe this came up during public comment, there is current state legislation that prohibits the regulation of rent in any city, which does include Seattle.
The way that this bill is structured is such that if this bill passes, it's effective only after the repeal of the prohibition against regulating rents at the state level.
So if that were to happen, The repeal would trigger an 18-month period in which rents would be frozen, and then these provisions around rent control would go into effect.
If the state were to repeal the prohibition against rent control, but then preempt the city's regulation of rent, this program, this legislation would not go into effect.
And as you'll see reflected in the recitals, the intent is to move forward with the charter amendment to be able to make rent control commissioners and elected office, and then we would need to likely future amends this legislation to reflect that new election structure.
We'll get into the terms of the appointments of the commissioners in a moment, but as in terms of effectiveness, that charter amendment would impact and transition from appointments to elections.
So the rent control program, this legislation, would apply to almost all types of rental housing units, with a few limited exceptions.
It would not apply to short-term rentals, so like Airbnb units.
It wouldn't apply to transient lodging, such as hotels or motels.
It would not apply to shelter or transitional housing, any government or housing authority-owned housing, or any units that are otherwise exempted from city regulation.
Just 1 note about the government or housing authority on housing.
That is a specific exemption.
It does not include housing that is affordable housing, either through nonprofits or through city funding.
It's very specifically narrowed to ownership by the government or housing authority.
Next, in talking about the limitation on rent increases, the basic calculation we're looking at is no rent can be increased over what's called the maximum annual rent increase over a 12-month period.
And so that first that the 12-month period applies either to a one single rent increase or the result of cumulative rent increases.
If for whatever reason someone is increasing rent every three months, cumulatively, the amount of that rent increase can't exceed the maximum annual increase.
And we calculate the maximum annual rent increase by multiplying the rate of inflation by the average monthly rent over the previous 12 months.
So for example, if somebody was paying $1,000 over the previous 12 months, and let's say, for example, inflation was 10%, the maximum annual rent increase would only be $100.
So rent would only be able to be increased total to $1,100.
The legislation provides for what happens if utilities are included in rent versus what happens if they aren't included in rent and how that factors into the maximum annual rent increase.
And as mentioned previously, this limitation applies to rental units specifically, not each tenancy, which is referred to as vacancy control.
The vacancy piece refers to what happens between tenancies.
Given that the provisions here are intended to apply to the units themselves, somebody moving in or out of a unit would have less impact on the ability of a landlord to increase rent outside of the maximum annual rent increase.
Moving into new units, there are a few circumstances in which the initial rent limitation would not apply.
So in general, for rental units that are offered for rental on the market, there would be a limitation over the rent increase.
But when setting new rent for a unit in these particular circumstances, there wouldn't be any limitation to how much that amount would be.
And so that's for newly offered units that are replacing previous rental housing on a site that did not have, excuse me, in which the rental housing was only on the site more than 10 years before this newly offered unit is happening.
So in other words, if somebody were to rent out a new unit in 2023, if the last time the unit on that, excuse me, if the last time the parcel had been used for rental housing was back in 2010, the landlord would be able to set that initial rent at any amount.
The same applies if the area was never used for rental housing at all.
We'll get into this a little bit in the next slide, but if there is rental housing on the unit that exceeds the square footage of the previous rental housing that was on the parcel.
Once that initial rent is set, it is subject to the limitations on subsequent rank increases.
So, once that initial rent is set by the landlord, the maximum annual rent increase would then apply to whatever increase the landlord wanted to make in rent moving forward.
There's also a one-to-one replacement requirement.
And this basically means that the limitations on the initial rent that is charged in rental housing would apply when any unit on the site had been used as rental housing previously.
So as in the previous example, if a new construction happens and a rental unit is going on the market in 2023, but previously there had been demolished rental housing units that were taken down in 2018, then those new units would be subject to the maximum annual rent increase.
And that increase could not exceed the most recent charge, excuse me, recent rent that was charged for the union in addition to the cumulative maximum annual rent increases between the year the units were demolished and the new year.
It's a little bit confusing, but for example, if the demolished units were in The previous units were demolished in 2018, and let's say there were three 400-square-foot units.
New units that were built in 2023, and let's say there were four 300-square-foot units, that new unit would exceed the amount of replacement housing, and that unit would not be subject to the rent increase limitations, but the existing three units would be.
The intent is for the landlord to match the new units to the previous units in terms of comparability and figure out which units are replacement units that would be subject to limitation and which units are new units that would not be subject to the initial rent limitation.
I'll pause right there real quick for questions.
I know that's not the, there's a, there's a lot of math in that 1. and so.
Real quickly, we'll just pause quickly to see if anybody has any questions.
Moving into the rent control commission.
So there was intended there's intended to be a city wide rent control commission that has 42 members total 35 of those members would be renters and seven would be property owners, and as we'll discuss when we get to the district rent control boards that that 42 members is split up into districts.
The idea is for them to meet quarterly so that they can solicit community comment, make recommendations to the council and the mayor about rent control policies and regulations, see if there are any changes that they would recommend about the calculation or the amount of the maximum annual rent increase, and then to hopefully ensure fair and consistent application of rent control regulations.
As I mentioned earlier, initial appointment for these is for two years, but if the charter amendments were to be in effect and then this legislation was amended, these would transfer to elected rather than appointed offices.
The District Grant Control Boards are a division of the Rent Control Commission and essentially divided into the seven council districts.
Each is intended to have five renters and one landlord, all from the district that they represent.
And the intent of these boards is to hold hearings on the emergency rent control exemption petitions, and then make a decision about whether a petition should be granted.
These petitions, which we'll get into in a moment, are intended to allow landlords to ask for exemptions from the maximum annual rent increase that apply to those rental housing units.
And so petitions themselves would be heard within the district where the rental housing unit was located.
So within that appropriate district rent control board geography.
And the rent control board would be looking at a couple of things.
First, to be able to apply for this exemption, the landlord needs to have incurred some financial hardship from the cost of repairing major damage that comes from unforeseeable events.
So things like earthquakes or floods, that sort of thing, and have incurred that financial hardship in a way that keeps them from completing property repairs or for paying for completed repairs without an exemption being granted.
The board is not intended to be able to look at regular sort of wear and tear or foreseeable major repair of units.
This is narrowed to those units, excuse me, those repairs that come from unforeseeable events.
And the board is also required to look at financial hardship to the tenants if the petition itself is granted.
In general, and this is stated in the legislation, a board is not intended to be able to grant that exemption if it means that granting the exemption would be reasonably expected to result in one or more tenants being unable to remain housed.
And that's not just, you know, it's not just if the tenant is unable to remain housed in that specific unit, but in general across Seattle.
The next couple slides are about administration and enforcement.
So the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections would be the department that is enforcing these regulations.
And there are a couple different ways in which they are doing that work.
One is to prevent landlords from retaliating against a tenant for trying to exercise their rights.
So the same sort of anti-retaliation protections that the city has in many of its code provisions.
And there is a presumption already baked into the bill that makes a, that presumes that retaliation has occurred if a landlord takes any of these specific actions within 90 days of a tenant's exercise of their rights.
The next piece, oh, sorry.
Sorry, don't interrupt me.
Before you go on, Council Member Nelson has a question.
Yeah, thank you very much.
I'm going back to the charter amendment issue.
Can you say more about that?
I'm wondering why it wasn't, why the need for a charter amendment to effectuate elected offices included in the body of the legislation, because that seems significant.
And I'm thinking that maybe you could just read that recital for people that don't have it in front of them.
When would that occur?
I mean, after how many terms of the appointed offices do you think?
that would occur.
Sure.
Let me just find the right section here.
In developing this legislation, this recitals about intention.
The intention is to have these rent control boards that have these powers to become elected bodies.
But doing so is legally and legislatively very complicated.
To have a new elected body requires changing the charter because the charter lists all the elected bodies.
And so the actual content of the bill, what it actually does is it creates a board that is not elected, that's appointed just like the other boards and commissions in the city.
The recital states that intention to actually carry that out would require new legislation.
And it wouldn't make sense to, we determined it wouldn't make sense to build it into this bill at a time when the effective date of the legislation hadn't been triggered yet because it's a trigger law.
having the rent control board in operation before the rent control policy is in place and having it be an elected body with all the, with all everything that entails would not make sense until this legislation took effect.
So that recital, so it would require a new legislation to create an election structure for the rent control board.
And that recital simply states the intention for that.
So would that be six new offices per district?
Because I'm just doing the math, 42 divided by seven.
Or how would that be allotted?
Yes, six per council district, not counting the citywide council districts.
So six in each of the seven council districts.
So five renters and one landlord in each of the seven council districts.
Thank you.
Go ahead, Asha.
I'll just add just to read the recital itself.
It just says, whereas the council intends to pursue amendments to the city charter to allow election of rent control commission members.
OK.
So looping back to administration and enforcement in terms of violations, the SECI would be able to enforce this legislation through a variety of different paths to getting to compliance.
So they can issue warnings, citations, notices of violation, or ask for criminal penalties, which would go through the city attorney's office.
Warnings are the first lowest level, and then we move up to citations, and then additional violations are determined in terms of enforcement, either citations or notice of violations based on SDCI's discretion.
A first violation is $500 under a citation, and then each subsequent violation would be $1,000 within a five-year period, and that is subject to cumulative penalties until compliance is achieved.
The alternative criminal penalty would only come into effect for a landlord who violates or has failed to comply with two or more citations and one notice of violations within three years.
So the city attorney would be able to file charges against a landlord for a misdemeanor.
Lastly, on this slide, the legislation does include a private right of action for tenants against the landlord.
So they would be able to sue in a part of the right jurisdiction to enforce their rights.
On this last slide about administration and enforcement, this is mostly about registration under the Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance, so this REIA registration.
The intent here is for landlords to include both the amount of rent that's been charged over the past 10 years, any rent increases since they first registered, and the current rental amount at the time of registration.
Before we move into analysis and comparison, I'll just pause again for questions, and then I will turn it over to Jen.
I don't see questions, so Jen, go ahead.
All right.
Thank you, Asha.
All right.
So we will now move on to central staff's analysis of various rent control policy levers, which will include info or information on other jurisdictions with rent control policies.
We will also look at the race and social justice impacts and implications for rent control, along with some financial and implementation challenges.
Next slide.
So as part of our analysis, we did look at four other cities with rent control along with Oregon's law, which is statewide.
And we will go into some specific details on those cities as we talk about different policies.
So just a little orientation first to the research that is available around rent control.
A lot of the research is from traditional economics literature.
which generally finds that rent control is an ineffective or counterproductive policy.
However, when there are empirical studies done on real life examples, results can be more mixed.
Overall, it is difficult to predict the impact of specific rent control policy decisions, because the impact will depend on a number of factors and local conditions, such as zoning, the housing market, or the economy.
Next slide.
Based on the limited empirical data that is available, there is a field of recommended best practices related to rent control, and we've already heard some of that from the panelists.
This slide has recommended best practices by policy link.
CB120606 does generally incorporate these best practices.
I do want to note that it is beyond the scope of the central staff assessment to determine whether or not tenant protections are robust, which is the second item here.
Next slide.
I'll now talk through a couple different specific rent control policy levers or policy decisions.
The first one is around what units should be covered by rent control laws and what units should be exempted.
As already noted, this bill that we're discussing today covers all rental units, including new construction.
There are few, if any, existing rent control policies in the United States that cover new construction.
So there's really no empirical data about what the impact might be of covering new construction with rent control on what that impact would be on the rate of new construction for rental units or on the overall housing supply.
I'm covering some, but not all rental units can create what is called a partitioned market.
And I think we heard some of that from the panelists from New York.
Sometimes that partition market can have unintended consequences.
For example, prices might be higher in the uncontrolled portion of the market than if rent control did not exist at all.
I think that's one of when classical economics literature finds rent control to be counterproductive.
That's one of the implications that they're talking about.
It may also be that it is the highest capacity or highest resource tenants who are able to secure the limited supply of controlled units.
Next page, please.
Another key policy is around vacancy control.
And I know there's already been quite a bit of discussion about this.
As a reminder, vacancy decontrol is when a rental property owner can establish any rent upon a vacancy.
And vacancy control is when the same maximum annual rate increase applies, whether or not the unit is vacant.
And CB, I'm sorry, I forgot the bill.
This bill before us today, that has a vacancy control provision.
Let's see, it is possible that vacancy control may suppress rent prices over time, creating units that are more affordable to low-income tenants.
In our review of those five jurisdictions with rent control policies, we actually saw a range of practices related to vacancy control.
Some jurisdictions had the same policy as this proposal where rent stayed the same.
Others allowed property owners to reset rents with a cap, so for example, They could increase rents, but it could not be more than 20% of the prior rent that was charged on the unit.
And some jurisdictions just allowed a total reset of the rent with no cap.
I think that's it for that.
Next slide, please.
Of course, another key policy lever when it comes to rent control is what the maximum allowable rent increase should be.
As you've already heard under this proposal, the maximum annual rent increase would be tied to the change in the consumer price index, or otherwise known as inflation.
For the five jurisdictions that we looked at, we again saw a range of practices, some tied also just to CPI, some allowed CPI plus an additional factor like CPI plus 2%.
You know, some just set a set percentage, St. Paul, Minnesota said 3% every year, regardless of what's happening with CPI.
And then, interestingly, some calculated a percentage of the annual change in CPI.
So 60% of the change in CPI, if CPI was 10% or the change was 10%, then the annual allowable increase would be 6%.
Just for some context on CPI, it can, of course, be variable.
Looking back at the last 12 years in this region, the change in CPI was 1% in 2010, but a little over 9% in 2022. Next slide, please.
Some rent control policies do allow property owners to petition for rent increases above the annual maximum for reasons such as capital improvements or substantial rehab.
This is not allowed under the proposal before you today, although the cost is expected, unless the cost is unexpected or unforeseen, such as from flood or fire.
This would protect tenants from sudden and sharp rent increases due to petitions but may not allow sufficient funds for property owners to be able to maintain or repair their property.
Next slide, please.
In the next, as Asha just mentioned, there is a decision to be made or part of rent control policy is what the oversight and administration will look like.
Several of the jurisdictions that we looked at do have an oversight board.
formed with community members, similar to what is proposed here.
Those oversight boards were smaller, so less than 10 members, and had different makeup.
So one board had no requirements around property owners versus tenants, and another required a mix of two rental property owners, two tenants, and then three people who were neither.
Next slide.
And finally, one finding was that rent control might result in property owners opting to convert their buildings to owner occupied units, essentially taking the units off of the rental market.
There are other factors that could also impact a property owners decision to convert their units and that could include things like the legal liability associated with condo construction, and it is not clear at this point how this bill would impact the condo conversion rates.
And I did want to take a moment to talk about the recent social justice impacts of this proposal.
Renters are disproportionately low income and BIPOC households.
Rent control could reduce rent prices and reduce cost burden, the percentage of their income that tenants are paying towards rent.
That's what we mean by cost burden.
However, that is not a guaranteed outcome.
It really, if this were to have to benefit low income tenants and BIPOC households, those households would need to be able to access rent controlled units and the rent control policy would need to produce rents that support economic stability and lower cost burden.
The bill before us does contain elements that would increase the likelihood that rent control would benefit low-income and BIPOC households or BIPOC tenants.
Next slide, please.
And I'm going to turn it back over to Asha for the final two slides.
Thanks, Jen.
I'll talk a little bit just about the fiscal impacts and implementation challenges.
A lot of this is reflected both in the memo and in the summary and fiscal note.
But we've been talking to SCCI about what it would take to be able to stand up a, the infrastructure and the staffing needed to be able to stand up rent control, and their indication is that they can't yet accurately estimate those costs, and a lot of that is because we don't know when this program would actually go into effect since it is dependent on the statewide repeal of the ban on regulation of rents, given that labor costs, IT costs, consultancy costs, all of those have changed over time.
The closest general comparable estimate that SDCI compare this program to was setting up the Rio program, maybe about 10 years ago.
And at that point, it costs about $5 million.
And so while that is not a perfect apples to apples comparison of costs, it is sort of a general estimate about what this would cost at a minimum for the city to be able to stand it up and do all of the enforcement, the staffing of both the boards and the commissions, as well as staffing phone calls that come in.
about rent control for the property owner and tenant assistance group to be able to field all of those inquiries.
One thing that this bill does do is build in about 18 months between when a rent freeze would happen and when the rent control program itself would go into effect.
And some of that was built around the assumption that any repeal of the state legislation would likely happen and go into effect by about July 1st, giving SCCI and the executive a chance to then figure out how much it would cost to stand up this program.
have a conversation in the annual budget process about that, and then hopefully get any potential appropriations to the to SBCI to be able to start standing up infrastructure, July 1 of that, excuse me, January 1 of that next year, with the anticipation that 12 months later this, this bill would go into effect.
Lastly, in terms of next steps, as Council Member South mentioned, there's likely a special committee meeting on July 12th about this legislation.
We would request that council members submit any of their amendments by July 13th to central staff so we can prepare them and get them ready for a vote on July 21st, which is the next regularly scheduled sustainability and renters rights committee meeting with the intent of voting the legislation out of committee at that time.
And if this committee does recommend that this legislation move forward, it would likely be in front of the city council for a vote on August 1st.
With that, I will stop.
Oh, sorry, wrong way.
Stop sharing the screen and happy to take any questions that you all might have.
Thank you, Asha and Jen.
Are there questions from council members?
Madam Chair, I'm sorry.
Go ahead Council President Juarez and then Council Member Nelson.
I was just going to make a comment before wrapping up.
I don't have any questions yet.
I know that you and I have talked offline.
Asha, I just wanted to to share that, first of all, thank you, customer SWAT for bringing this forward, that we did have an opportunity to read your rent control FAQ, the legislation itself, the summary and fiscal note, and Asha's memo.
Thank you, Asha.
And went back and looked at the RCW 3521830, which is a 1981 law outlining rent control.
And Ted, thank you for forwarding us the PowerPoint.
That's very helpful.
I'm going to hold off on some questions, Madam Chair, at least for now.
And again, thank you for the presentation.
Thank you, Council President Juarez.
And yes, you and I talked before the committee, and please let me know personally or to Ted if your staff want to contact Ted in terms of Any questions that you might have in the coming days?
Council Member Nelson.
Thanks.
I asked central staff if this would apply to our city funded affordable housing providers.
It wasn't clear to me in the memo.
She said, yes.
And so I asked if HDC had been outreached to, and she said she didn't know.
And so I'm asking if they have been, have you talked to them about it and about how This might impact them.
Not yet, but we are planning to.
And also, I'm assuming that they're watching this because this is very relevant to all of them.
Got it.
And then another question I had, Jen, you mentioned something about the fact that new construction, I understand the section in the legislation that I think is the last three digits.
Sorry, Council Member Nelson, can you get closer to the microphone?
Can you please tell me more, Jen, about the new construction?
And because I did read that in the legislation, I think it's section 0.080, and the one-to-one replacement would also apply to new construction.
But then I think you said also in your presentation that that is new or other jurisdictions haven't done that.
Can you talk a little bit more about that?
My reference was so in in this bill, there is no exemption for new construction.
So, the moment a unit is created or built, it is subject to rent control, unless it, you know, there's sort of two scenarios that can happen when a new unit comes on.
rental housing on that site in the previous 10 years, then the property owner is going to be restricted in terms of the rent that they can charge.
It's going to be whatever rent was charged before, plus those annual allowable increases since it was demolished.
I think I got that right, Asha.
I see you nodding.
OK.
The second scenario that could happen is that a new unit is built.
There is no rental housing there in the previous 10 years.
The property owner can set the initial rent on anything they want.
when that new unit initially comes online.
But thereafter, that unit is subject to rent control to the same annual restrictions on rent increases.
In our research, what we found is that there are very limited, if any, jurisdictions in the United States that cover new units or new construction with rent control.
I think in almost all other cases, new construction is exempt from rent control.
And those new construction exemptions vary.
You know, in Oregon, it's any unit built, I think, within the last 20 years.
In other places, it goes much further back.
So it might be, you know, any unit built before like 1985. So it does vary depending on the jurisdiction in terms of how they define new construction.
And this would be future construction?
This is, it's kind of a look back and future, right?
So for example, in Oregon, if as of today, any unit that was built within the last 20 years is exempt.
So if your unit was built between, before, gotta do some math here, 2003, if your unit was built after 2003, it's exempt.
And if you comes online today, it's gonna be exempt for the next 20 years.
I'm sorry, that's St. Paul, but that's another example of how it might work.
Thanks, Jen.
And Ted, do you want to add something?
Uh, yeah, uh, these, um, uh, these exemptions based on when the building was built are one of the main ways that cities have created the partitioning, uh, what the memo talks about as partitioning of the, of the rental housing market, where some units are subject to rent control and some aren't.
And if you're lucky and you get into the rent control departments, then you have affordable housing.
And if you're, and if you don't get into those then you're, then you're stuck paying market rate, and with all the expensive housing that that entails.
So, this, this legislation has a structure for for making it.
So that not only does rent control cover all the housing today, or when it goes into effect, but also what happens the next year and the next year and the next year.
In New York, the rent controlled units that are now down to 16,000 units out of a city of millions is because every year it becomes fewer and fewer.
It becomes fewer and fewer of the units.
So, until it becomes an almost negligible portion of the of the housing.
So, in terms of what happens the next year and the next year and the next year this bill has a structure for incorporating newly built construction into the.
rent control structure.
So the first rent that's set, while there's no way of saying this is the inflation adjustment on that because it's new, it's brand new, it's never been rented before.
So that first rent, the property owner gets to choose the starting rent.
But from that point on, they get to raise the rent no more than the rate of inflation, just like every other rental housing in the city.
OK, so you're basically saying that other cities pick a date and they say new buildings or buildings that are built past this date are subject to rent control.
But you're but you're saying that this is the first jurisdiction that we know about where newly built future that will apply to future.
Units.
That's what's different.
I would say it's just to be clear, both.
Most jurisdictions sort of say any unit built as of this date in the past or before this date in the past is covered and anything built after is not covered.
So there might be like a 20-year look back, for example.
Anything built before 2003 is covered.
Anything built after is not.
So you have sort of your finite set of units that are covered, anything built before 2003. I'm just making this up.
And that's kind of a finite pool that's not going to grow.
And then you have everything that's going to get built after that date that will not be controlled.
So that's one particular approach that it seems many jurisdictions have tried.
I'd have to go back and see if there are others that sort of set like a 15 year limit, but then maybe as properties become 16 years old, they roll into being rent controlled.
I'd have to go back and see if that happens or not.
Thanks.
Yes, Jen is absolutely right that you see both examples.
I just want to be clear though that regardless of how they try to carve out you know whether it's whether rent control of the losses that rent control applies to buildings.
built before a certain date and not the ones that were built later, or rent control applies to all the buildings built after a certain date, regardless of the way it's done, it's a corporate loophole.
Because at the end of the day, the purpose of such exemptions is to ensure that Many like a big chunk if if not the majority in some cases, maybe the majority is like in New York, a big, big chunk of rental housing is not covered by rent control.
That is the intention of these kinds of exemptions.
So, you know, exemption makes it sound innocuous.
It's really a corporate loophole and you have Many examples, the central staff member talks about some.
One of the most startling ones is what came to be called as the Costa-Hawkins Act in California, which is a statewide policy that was passed in 1995, which was a major attack on renters.
And that was passed by, I believe, a Democrat and a Republican senator, state senator.
I believe that's what their names are, Costa and Hawkins.
One of the, I mean, it was a big attack, as I said.
One of the things it said is cities can't pass vacancy control.
So it was a statewide policy, something akin to a rent control ban.
They couldn't actually do a ban because there were many cities in California that already had rent control.
But what they did was have a sweeping law statewide that severely curtailed what municipalities could do in California.
So one of the things that the Costa-Hawkins Act said is the cities can't pass vacancy control.
The other thing it said, cities can't extend rent control to any condos or single family homes that are rented out or any housing built after 1995, which was a major attack, which has meant that increasingly there's swaths of renters who are not covered by rent control.
Any other questions?
I don't see any.
So yeah, I really appreciate Jen and Asha, both of you for doing a very thorough memo because a lot of the aspects are already covered in the memo.
And then also the PowerPoint slides.
And so I would urge council members, committee members to, you know, to let us know, as I said before, let us know of any of your questions that come up about the policy.
And I also wanted to highlight one more thing that was already highlighted by people who spoke in public comment, but something that has been included in the central staff memo, which is Varsha Panjwanii, Ph.D.: : And I mean as Jen and Asha said, there are many different these so called exemptions or what I would call loopholes in the different rent control laws around the country.
Varsha Panjwanii, Ph.D.: : One of the stars, one of the startling most startling examples of what happens to renters or how renters are adversely affected when you have loopholes is this example from Santa Monica, where before vacancy decontrol was established, before a corporate loophole was established, rents for 83% of rent-controlled homes, rental homes, were affordable to households that are low, very low, and extremely low income.
And in contrast, since vacancy decontrol was established, less than 4% of the stabilized rent control units, rental units today are affordable to the low, very low and extremely low income.
So it really shows you that it directly adversely affects some of the most vulnerable people.
And I think it should be emphasized in contrary to what some of the landlords were saying in public comment, that somehow that for Black and other communities of color, rent control is bad.
It's actually the exact opposite.
If you look at how much the housing unaffordability crisis affects communities of color, it's disproportionately.
In other words, within the Black community, a greater proportion of the Black community is affected by not having rent control, not having social housing.
And so, as a matter of fact, it will have a disproportionate, in fact, positive effect if we have rent control for communities of color.
And then just one other point I'll make in closing before I adjourn the committee is just to reiterate a comment that was made by one of the renters who spoke in public comment, Ellen Anderson, who said, you know, I'm paraphrasing them, but basically that those who go around calling themselves small landlords, and I'll explain why I say that, say it that way, they don't have a monopoly on smallness.
If you really want to talk about smallness, we need to talk about the vast majority of renters who are small, as in just ordinary people who are absolutely struggling to get by and are barely able to make ends meet now, especially with the unprecedented inflation.
So let's make sure we remember who the small people actually are.
And as far as small landlords are concerned, I think that I think we have to be careful in terms of how we interpret some of the numbers that are bandied about by the landlord lobby.
One is when they say small landlords, they mean something very different than what we as renters and working people mean.
When we think of small landlords, we often think of somebody, you know, like we know some union members own an extra home and then they rent it out to another working person because it helps them supplement their income because everybody's wages are so not keeping up with inflation.
That is not what many landlords come and say they're small landlords.
That's not what they mean.
They often own five, 10 extra homes.
Imagine not only owning your own home, then on top of that owning five or 10 homes.
That is unimaginable for most people.
So I'm not sure how you define smallness, but I don't define smallness in that way.
Smallness in my book is if you are barely able to put a roof over your head, that's a small, an indication of smallness.
If you own five or ten units, you know, you're not, if you own five or ten units, you're not Goodman Real Estate and you're not Invitation Homes, which are, you know, big corporations, but you're also not a small person.
Let's be clear about that.
And then the other problem we have to take into account in terms of how we technically interpret this data is that A lot of the big corporations, and Ted has made this point in our committee on previous occasions, many of these big landlords, big corporations actually end up devising shell companies, smaller subsidiaries, and you will need to quit your job and do full-time research in order to find out the chain, the thread where who actually owns these homes.
And so on the face of it, you may think it's a small company, but in reality, it's a subsidiary of a large company.
So ultimately, we have to understand that the term small landlords is used extremely loosely.
But having said all that, the bottom line is big or small, nobody has the right to exploit another person.
So that's why we know.
And committee members staying it was somewhat of a long committee but we had anticipated that because we knew many renters and also landlords came to speak.
It is a very important issue so we expect that there will be a lot of commentary on this.
And I appreciate Council Member Nelson and Morales who have already agreed that they're coming to the committee on July 12. I will, as I've said before, I will urge other committee members to also come if you're able to.
As you know, the Zoom option is available to you as per Council rules.
except if you're in person, then the committee is at All Pilgrims Church, which is on 500 East Broadway at 6 p.m., July 12th.
I urge everybody who's watching this, everybody who testified today, your friends and family who are facing rental crisis, please come and join us.
Let's hear one another.
And then after that, of course, for committee members, I would just reiterate Asha's appeal that you send whatever amendments you might have by, what was your deadline, Asha?
July 13th?
July 13th.
Great.
Thanks so much.
And again, please committee members reach out to me personally or my staff if you have questions or if you have proposed amendments.
I appreciate everybody's patience and I will go ahead and adjourn the meeting.
Thank you.
Thank you.