‘Unprecedented’ number of people plead with Tacoma council on tenant’s rights
Hundreds of people turned out to comment at the Tacoma City Council’s Dec. 2 meeting as the council develops amendments to a contentious set of voter-approved tenant protections.
Mayor Victoria Woodards described the turnout as “unprecedented,” with close to 100 speakers in-person, about 20 online and 160 written comments. The comments came as the council held a preliminary discussion on potential amendments to the tenant protections, also known as the Landlord Fairness Code Initiative or “Tenant Bill of Rights.” Voters approved the measure in 2023, which set a ban on evictions for certain tenants during the winter months and the school year, a $10 cap on late rental fees and more.
The amendments, which the council has yet to finalize, range from technical changes in the interest of legal clarity to more substantial changes to reduce the amount of time that a cold weather eviction moratorium would be in place.
The public comment period at the meeting was filled with speakers from a variety of backgrounds – nonprofit affordable housing providers, renters, community organizers, landlords and representatives of the Rental Housing Association of Washington, which advocates for landlords. The comments included profanity-laced speeches criticizing the council for attempting to roll back the protection, emotional explanations of how the tenant protections have helped renters, and pleas from landlords for the council to implement the amendments without any further changes.
“We are facing an unprecedented affordability crisis in this country from inflation, tariffs, SNAP cuts, the premium rises that are coming later this year, and our focus should be on building more affordable houses, not piling more burden onto the working class neighbors,” speaker Matthew Coryea said at the meeting.
Attendees at the meeting filled the seats and lined the walls, some holding signs that read, “hands off tenants rights,” and “tenants at the table.” Several commenters urged the council to delay voting on the amendments until the new year, arguing that the new members of the Tacoma City Council should be the ones to vote on such significant changes. With this year’s election, the nine-member council will see two new faces in 2026 — former council member Anders Ibsen replacing Woodards as mayor, and newcomer Latasha Palmer replacing at-large council member Kiara Daniels.
“It is not appropriate to make this decision on your way out the door,” commenter Anita Latch said. “The citizens have spoken, and the council should respect your constituents.”
Organizers with Tacoma For All, which helped get the measure on the ballot in 2023, spoke about the importance of maintaining the core protections in the Landlord Fairness Code Initiative. Tacoma For All’s co-director, Tyron Moore, warned the council that if it moved forward with rolling back some of the measure’s strongest protections, the organization might seek to reinstate those protections through a citizen-led ballot initiative in 2026.
“This is not our preferred outcome, but our view is that we want this council to step back from the brink, stop this rush to repeal and bring any controversial rollbacks back to the table with full stakeholders present,” Moore said.
Though attendance waned as the meeting stretched into the late hours of the night, the council chambers were packed in the early hours of the meeting, with most attendees present to discuss the Landlord Fairness Code Initiative. The meeting lasted for about six hours. As the council arrived at its discussion of the measure around 11 p.m., District 2 council member Sarah Rumbaugh commented on the duration of the meeting.
“This is the main event,” she said with a small smile. “This is why we had three hours of public comment. And there are 3 people in the audience right now.”
Now that two years have passed since the measure’s approval, the council has the authority to repeal or amend the voter-approved measure without voter approval. The council is poised to make a final decision on amendments at its Dec. 9 meeting. The original proposal included amendments like shrinking the time frame for a cold weather eviction moratorium – currently Nov. 1 to April 1 – to Dec. 1 to March 1. Council members have been revising the amendments since the council has discussed them at study-session meetings and after pushback from commenters at recent council meetings,
The latest proposal suggests that only tenant households that are at or below 120% of the area median income can claim the cold weather eviction defense. At-large council member Olgy Diaz proposed an amendment to eliminate that condition entirely.
The measure also requires landlords to provide relocation assistance for tenants if they choose to increase rent by more than 5%. Diaz outlined a second proposal to allow tenants to be eligible for relocation assistance if the 5% rent increase occurs gradually within a 12-month period.
District 1 council member John Hines also said at the meeting that he plans to bring forward an amendment outlining a process for tenants to return relocation assistance to their landlord if they receive it but do not move within a certain time period.
“I think a lot of good work has gone into the research on the underlying proposal, that’s why I sponsored it,” Diaz said. “And then I just have these last two amendments that I think are going to get us to a really good spot.”
This story was originally published December 3, 2025 at 12:38 PM.
