City of Tacoma could roll back parts of ‘Tenant Bill of Rights’
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Tacoma council plans vote to amend 2023 Tenant Bill of Rights in December.
- Proposed changes narrow eviction moratorium and adjust late fee cap.
- Amendments exempt small landlords and some affordable housing providers.
The Tacoma city council is poised to vote on whether to roll back parts of a contentious set of renter protections that voters approved about two years ago.
Voters approved the measure, known as the Landlord Fairness Code Initiative or “Tenant Bill of Rights,” after it appeared on the ballot in 2023. Organizers with groups like Tacoma For All that were part of the effort to get the measure on the ballot have called it the strongest renter protections in Washington, including a ban on winter and school-year evictions, a $10 cap on late rental fees and a requirement that landlords pay tenant-relocation assistance if they increase rent by 5% or more.
The city council has the authority to repeal or amend the measure without voter approval two years after a citizens’ initiative has been enacted, according to the city charter. Organizers were previously concerned that the city would repeal the measure in its entirety, but the city council appears instead set to vote on amendments to the measure.
Evictions have increased in Pierce County since its adoption, but the measure’s impact has been difficult to ascertain because county eviction data isn’t specific to a city or address, The News Tribune reported in January.
The council will discuss the item at their Nov. 18 study session meeting. The ordinance could appear on the city council’s agenda for a first reading as early as Dec. 2, according to the city.
The proposed changes seek to roll back certain aspects of the measure, to better align them with the city of Seattle’s policies, to exempt certain affordable housing providers, to clarify some language and to better align the measure with the city’s rental housing code.
The city’s community vitality and safety committee, which proposed the amendments to the full city council, plans to work on bundling the Landlord Fairness Code Initiative and the city’s Rental Housing Code into one item so residents can find guidance on landlord and tenant issues in one place, according to city documents.
Here’s some of what the proposal suggests:
- Shrink the time frame for a cold weather eviction moratorium, from Nov. 1 to April 1 to Dec. 1 to March 1, per the city of Seattle. Landlords who own interest in four units or less would also be exempt from the policy.
- Change the cap on fees for late payment of rent from $10 per month to 1.5% of the monthly rent with a limit of $75.
- Where the Landlord Fairness Code Initiative requires two written notices of rent increases between 210 to 180 days and 120 to 90 days, the amendments would only require a 120-day written notice.
The changes also include an exemption to the code for affordable housing providers. The exemption comes after a group of affordable housing providers have in recent weeks publicly called for the city to exempt them from the code, saying that it has exacerbated the amount of debt that tenants who are behind on rent owe affordable housing providers.
“We share the goal of Tacoma’s Landlord Fairness Code: to build a future in which everyone has an affordable, safe, and nurturing home,” the affordable-housing providers wrote in a statement last month. “However, after two years of operating under the Landlord Fairness Code, we continue to experience negative, unintended consequences that impede our ability to do our work and serve our community.”
On the heels of litigation
The Landlord Fairness Code Initiative has also been a subject of litigation in the years it has been in place. The voter-approved renters’ protections law is facing legal scrutiny over allegations it violates the constitutional rights of property owners. In August 2024, the Citizen Action Defense Fund, a nonprofit that advocates for constitutional rights and government accountability, sued Tacoma on behalf of an apartment complex in the city.
Due to federal claims alleged in the lawsuit, the case was later moved from Pierce County Superior Court to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, where a federal judge on Oct. 10 dismissed the suit on technical grounds.
U.S. District Judge Tiffany Cartwright ruled that the plaintiff, North Pearl Street LP, lacked a legal basis to sue Tacoma on its federal claims because the city doesn’t enforce the initiative. Cartwright sent the case back to Pierce County Superior Court.
“In our view, this is a tie. We are essentially being sent back to the court that we filed the suit in originally,” Jackson Maynard, executive director for the Citizen Action Defense Fund, said in an interview on Oct. 13. “The judge made a special point that she was not ruling on the (lawsuit’s) merits.”
The nonprofit, which claims the so-called Tenant Bill of Rights is disrupting the residential housing market, had sought in federal court to block the initiative through a court order preventing the measure’s enforcement and requiring the Tacoma City Council to repeal it.
City spokesperson Maria Lee declined to comment on the federal case’s dismissal, but the city has rejected the nonprofit’s allegations. In a response to the lawsuit in May, attorneys for the city argued that the nonprofit had offered erroneous legal positions and lacked adequate support to seek an injunction.
Citizen Action Defense Fund is seeking unspecified damages on behalf of the plaintiff, North Pearl Street LP, which owns the Westside Estates Apartments at 922 N. Pearl St.
Maynard previously told The News Tribune that the lawsuit targeted the city because the “city is the entity that you sue to block enforcement of an ordinance.” On Oct. 13, he noted that the nonprofit could potentially add another defendant in order to make the issues more clear and move beyond technical issues so that the court could rule on the merits of the case.
