If there’s already a process by which to uphold due process is yet another process – a sub-process if you will to, truth be told, five other processes, so that somehow realized is the cumulative purpose of all six processes – is that a solution in search of a problem?
Or is that just government?
Yes and yes.
Lakewood’s latest foray to expand its latitudinal and longitudinal plunder of rental properties amounts to little-by-little layered leverage making less-and-less the loopholes landlords might otherwise utilize to lean on hapless tenants living in hard-scrabble squalor throughout – or at least somewhere – in the City.
Lakewood’s leaders are contemplating the insertion of uninvited (it’d be required . . . or else) inspectors into 13,700 rentals beginning this fall.
Should the law pass, all landlords must register for the rental inspection lottery. Best hope you don’t win.
For those who would like not to participate in this gamble – before prize-tickets are printed – attendance at a July 5 Public Hearing on the Rental Housing Safety Program (RHSP) is encouraged where verbal concerns can be voiced and, in the meantime online, written comments submitted.
Where might this lead?
The City Council of Seattle, one of a handful of other cities after whom Lakewood has patterned it’s RHSP, just this past June 6th was unanimous in taking the next step down the road of so-called “tenant protections” in “forbidding landlords from raising rents until they bring their properties up to standards.” And that’s just the beginning. “A bill to cap move-in costs” is to follow, Councilmember Kshama Sawant promised. And, as if that weren’t enough, Seattle Councilwoman Councilmember Lisa Herbold advocated “for doubling down on tenant protections and repealing the Washington State ban on rent control.”
San Francisco has been there done that. Legislation in 2014 proposed “barring landlords from passing on to tenants the costs of upgrades to bring the apartments up to code.”
In 2015 SanFran supervisors passed amendments prohibiting rent increases and evictions based on the addition of occupants. Upon vacancy, landlords were further required to set base rents for the next five years. And, among other restrictions, landlords, seeking to retake “possession based on a nuisance,” must show the nuisance to be “severe, continuing or reoccurring.”
“Boiling water” is now claimed to be just such a nuisance.
In a San Fransico legal case “that tenants’ rights activists are concerned will set a worrying precedent” – and which illustrates how layered, and laborious, legislation as Lakewood is proposing with its rental inspection program can backfire, let alone boil over into the courts – attorneys representing the landlord are charging that “defendant’s usage of gas or electrical appliances is dangerous.”
When “no infraction (is) too small to escape the scrutiny of fine-happy officials” you get not only the unforeseen consequences and legal push-back in San Francisco but yet another legal tangle in Pagedale, a suburb of St. Louis, where “City inspectors even judge interior design decisions, (citing residents) for mismatched curtains.”
Lakewood’s RHSP architects acknowledge the existence of a most applicable State Landlord Tenant Law that addresses – already – everything remotely related to this issue.
“Instituting a robust tenant/landlord outreach educational program,” (p.9 of 12) was an option presented to the council. But in the cost/benefit analysis, on a scale of 1 to 6 with 1 being low and 6 being high, the benefit of communicating to the residents of Lakewood their rights, responsibilities and privileges whether renters or landlords received but a paltry score of 2, and cost 4, with the result that the whole communication concept was considered on the low end of priorities.
There is a solution already – and readily – available but ignoring it, opting instead to create government-inspector-approved tenant trolls, ‘sets a worrisome precedent’ for what is cumbersome, convoluted and contorted – making the relatively simple onerously complex – the cities noted here in this article being examples.
Thanks for your thoughts on this matter, Mr. Anderson. I am siding with you on this one.
I had heard the proposed new government fee is planned for $100 per unit. Does that mean if an owner has a ten-plex, he has to pay $1000 or is a ten-plex a unit for $100?
I can relate to this real property issue and am motivated to write my own article supporting your point of view. Perhaps I will.
Joseph Boyle
In the link provided below, which takes you to all things Rental Inspection as posted on the City website, the fee proposed “if this program is to be entirely fee-based, the fees would need to generate $175,000 annually. Usually (based on the means which most cities use) the charge is a base fee for the first unit and a substantially smaller fee for each unit thereafter.” Pasco is cited as an example where the charge for the first unit is $30, and $3 for each additional unit. Bellingham is $10 for the first 20 units and $8 thereafter. Mountlake Terrace charges $40 for the first unit, and $1.50 each additional.
“In all these examples,” Lakewood admits, the fees even for Mountlake Terrace are below what Lakewood says is needed to run Lakewood’s program, which includes things like hiring a Housing Safety Inspector ($93,900); a program manager ($49,720); purchasing a car ($30,000 – itemized as a start-up cost); creating a work station ($20,000 – startup); a Tablet ($1,000); and a Smart Phone ($50). Then the City throws in another 10 percent for overhead.
To make up the shortfall, one proposal (and there are more to be found on the link I’ll supply in my next comment) Lakewood says is to charge the $40 base fee but increasing the cost per unit to $5.
https://www.cityoflakewood.us/community-development/rental-housing-safety-program
Should you write an article Joseph, and I hope you do to keep attention focused on this issue, here’s a quote you’re welcome to use. It comes from the “Watchdog.org” website and concerns a different specific issue but I thought it appropriate for what Lakewood is considering with this Rental Inspection Program: “You cannot build a great city on coercion. You have to make it a place where people want to live.” If you want to use the quote in whatever you might write, my email address by which to obtain the link is communitymattersweb@gmail.com.
The fees mentioned in my other comment come from p. 3 of 5 at this city link:
https://www.cityoflakewood.us/documents/community_development/Rental_Housing_Safety_Program/City_Council_Rental_Housing_Update_Memo.pdf
In reviewing the documents on the city’s website, it wasn’t completely clear what the motivation is for this new government expansion. It doesn’t appear to be financial since it’s going to be a stretch to cover the costs. My guess is that there are properties that the city doesn’t like that don’t fall under the authority of existing laws.
If you drive up and down enough streets in Lakewood, you will find rentals that look pretty rough. The property owners probably can’t afford to make repairs and upgrades, so they rent to lesser and lesser qualified tenants. These tenants may add more problems to the property by abusing it or neglecting to keep it clean. Other tenants may not want to exercise their rights under the Landlord-Tenant Act because they can’t afford or qualify for any place nicer.
The end result of this new government program is that the tenants will be forced to move out of Lakewood and the property owner may be forced to sell the property or let it go into foreclosure.
Other landlords, will review every line of the inspection form and make sure that everything meets the standard and make improvements as needed to avoid being penalized by the city. Many older homes, which are perfectly nice, clean and safe, will not pass this inspection. The upgrade costs will ultimately be passed on to tenants.
The city manager and city attorney both agree:
There are five effective programs currently in use to address rental housing problems within the City:
– The dangerous building abatement program;
– Declaring a building unsafe under the city’s construction codes;
– The use of CSRT resources;
– Conditional business licensing; and
– Complaints received by tenants.
Hopefully, I’m wrong about this, but it appears that the only likely motivation is to get the lowest income members of the Lakewood community to move to somewhere else, permanently.