I wish we could have an honest conversation on some of the ordinances passed by the previous council. There was little or no data that supported many of them other than landlords/business bad and renters/workers good. In some cases they were first of their kind in the country. If you want to try things you need to be open to the concept they may not work or have unintended consequences and should be repealed. Instead we get TS who treats every ordinance that came out of that period as akin to being handed down from Mt Sinai and is thus carved in stone for all time. As Hannah has noted several times, many of these defenses/policies are little used however there is ample evidence they are causing friction for housing providers as they are unable to obtain financing for projects or have trouble meeting the operating costs of the building. They should be repealed absent compelling data they are doing anything to help.

Its amazing how the stranger can make such a reasonable, realistic set of refinements to clearly failing regulations that are driving out of business even NONprofit housing providers - thus forcing them to do the unthinkable of aligning their interested with market rate providers in demanding the ability to manage their own properties and control who lives in them.

If I understand correctly right now seattle's rule on rent increases is a 10% increase triggers the punitive relocation fine and tenant's right to break the lease. SO if I read this right they are dropping the percentiage to 8% for the right to break lease. Thats more favorable to tenants. This in exchange for modest inflation-tracking increases not needing over half a year of planning. How evil.

The winter (and school year) moratoria are both a ridiculous joke. If they are so infrequently used they would not be missed. They are only used as HJP stated when their normal strategy of avoiding the actual merits of the case (which they know they will LOSE 95% of the time) and instead deploying ever increasingly complicated bureaurcratic and procedural minefields fails. That is effectivley malpractice and they should all be disbarred. If the landlord substantially complies with the process then the suit should be tried. No delays.

So why is LL's proposal to build a tenant assistance fund using public money so terrible? Stranger and Lefties in general are always demanding more subsidized housing. This would just be more of the same. No, the real problem here is it might take from some other, probalby less effective part of the subsidized housing industrial complex, and the system would be more fair to private landlords stuck with un-evictable, nonpaying tenants.

Finally, yes most tenants pay rent on time. There are some however that chronically do not, for no good reason. A $10 late fee is barely more than a latte and won't convince somebody with $2000 rent to pay on time if it is more convenient for them to procrastinate however long they feel like it. $50 isn't much better, but it may at least cover the cost of serving the notice.

We've had these far left rules long enough to see that they are undeniably causing severe problems for housinig providers, even the formerly gold-starred by the left nonprofits. I welcome them over to the evil empire where we can all work to repeal or refine some of these laws so that they are fair to everybody.

I have a friend who is a local entertainer and one of the most generous people you will ever meet. This person rented a room in their home to a hateful person who refused to pay rent, refused to leave, and threatened to sue. It took about two years to get rid of that person, in part because all of the well-intended protections that we put in during Covid.

My friend is not wealthy. Not only did they miss out on the rental income for two years, they had to spend money on an attorney who helped them get rid of the horrible tenant. There are horrible landlords out there, but there are also really rotten tenants.

HDC are far from problem landlords. As far as I can tell they are actually who we want developing new housing. I'm pro-tenant on principle but willing to hear out this group as opposed to the massive for-profits or Jaskaran Singhs of the world

@5, Hannah and The Stranger really stepped on their own tail on this one, arranged their firing squad in a circle, pick your metaphor.

FFS!

For all the “YIMBY” we are, policymakers lost sight of the fact that housing suppliers are also landlords. There is a place for reasonable protections, but we’re operating in a very dysfunctional rental market that favors some bad apples. I open to hearing what the champions of low income housing have to say.

I thought building DADUs was going to solve the housing problem!

Progressive think if the punish and make it very risky to provide housing, housing will be become plentiful and affordable.

The harsh reality: Seattle lost over 10,000 affordable mom-and-pop rental units in just 2022 alone. Those units have been sold to 1) developers and turned into the $900K townhouse and 2) sold to owner occupants

The loss is housing has been fill by new, expensive Corporate/Wall Street landlords. So, if you're excited about paying $3,000/month for a 'urban one bedroom' that's 500SF--keep buying The Strangers absolute bullshit.

The Stranger is screwing over renters, big time.

housing-as-commodity's
a Failed relic of late-
stage capitalism

kinda like cars
big oil & our
Biosphere's
last gasps

we're at a pivot point
with a Golden Huckster
at the Helm a Bird Flu just
Waiting to fully Take Off and
(maybe) Wipe Out America. who
knows, perhaps a paradigm-shifting
Catastrophe or Two's all's we really Needed

NOT gonna Welcome it,
just the same, thnx.

@8 both a City audit and a UW study found no support for your claim that progressive policies are pushing "Mom and Pop" landlords out of Seattle:

https://publicola.com/2023/12/26/decline-in-mom-and-pop-rentals-driven-by-national-trends-not-local-renter-protections-city-audit-finds/

https://publicola.com/2023/12/04/no-renter-protections-arent-driving-out-mom-and-pop-landlords/

That UW sociology study from fall 2023 is such a sad, biased piece of ideological malarkey. The sociologists got wildly creative and came up with their own "novel data," completely ignoring the city's rental registration database. No peer review. No economists or real estate researchers ... or god forbid any landlords ... involved. Meanwhile, the City Audit confirmed the losses and that the majority of people who removed rentals from Seattle (sold or otherwise repurposed property, especially for small-scale rentals) did so because of Seattle's regulations. Very clear survey data.

Doesn't work well to rely on ECB's hot takes. She's writing to her own narrative. No curiosity or balance. Doesn't pay the bills nearly as well as crowd-funding amped-up moral high horses and division.

If Seattle wants to expand diversity and affordability of rental housing, housing advocates (and activist rags like The Stranger) will need to accept that working pragmatically with housing operators is part of the solution. Jamming fingers in ears and proclaiming demonizing political narratives isn't solving things.