Tacoma council greenlights controversial changes to tenant protections
After an “unprecedented” showing of public commenters and hours-long meetings on the matter, the Tacoma City Council in a 7-2 vote at its Dec. 9 meeting approved a controversial set of changes to the city’s tenant protections.
The changes amounted to relatively minor updates after an extensive back-and-forth as council members traded amendments and changes to the amendments. Though the final changes don’t radically upset the city’s renter protections, the possibility of that happening drew hundreds of renters, landlords, property managers and affordable-housing providers to turn out to either support or oppose the changes.
The Dec. 9 meeting saw about 50 people turn out in-person to comment on the changes. That was more than usual but less than the roughly 100 people who turned out to speak at the Dec. 2 meeting when the council discussed the item for its first reading.
“Through authentic outreach and listening to community, we landed in a better place for tenants and a better place for affordable housing providers,” Council member Olgy Diaz said in a news release following the vote.
The changes range from technical updates and clarifications to more controversial changes like the shortening of a prohibition on cold weather eviction moratorium. Until now the moratorium was in place from Nov. 1 to April 1. When the updated language goes into effect Jan. 1, 2026, it will be in place from Nov. 15 to March 15.
The tenant protections are part of the Landlord Fairness Code Initiative, a measure that activists with Tacoma For All got on the ballot in 2023 using the city’s Citizen’s Initiative process. The measure received a majority vote at the polls in 2023, and the council has the authority to repeal or amend the measure without voter approval now that two years have passed.
An initial draft of the proposed changes included one in which the moratorium would apply only to tenants who fall under a certain percentage of the area median income, which received pushback from tenant organizers. Diaz on Tuesday night proposed eliminating that requirement, and the final set of changes does not include income conditions.
The changes also include an exemption for any housing unit owned or managed by the Tacoma Housing Authority or a nonprofit that is held as deed-restricted affordable housing, after affordable-housing providers told the council that some of the city’s tenant protections have increased rates of delinquent rent which has negatively impacted the providers’ finances. It also caps late fees at 1.5% of monthly rent instead of a flat $10 a month cap and requires landlords to provide tenants with relocation assistance if they increase rent by 5 percent or more within a 12-month period.
“Despite the Landlord Fairness Code Initiative’s intentions, it has had dire consequences for our city, most notably on our low-income housing providers who provide housing to those with the greatest need,” Council member Sarah Rumbaugh, who spearheaded the revision effort, said in a news release.
After an amendment from Council member John Hines, the newly approved changes also require that tenants must repay landlord-provided relocation assistance within 10 days if they fail to relocate by the end of a lease.
Landlords and representatives of groups like the Rental Housing Association and the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce turned out at the Dec. 9 meeting to urge the council to approve the changes.
“The 5% cap on increases can be difficult in some years if the property taxes and insurance rates exceed this 5%,” a landlord said at the meeting. “Having the cold weather and school year moratoriums are extremely damaging to the small landlords, losing rent for multiple months is not sustainable. We still have to pay the mortgage, rent and taxes.”
Organizers with Tacoma For All have criticized the city for seeking to roll back protections that voters approved. It has made the case that any sort of rollback would hurt renters.
“The Landlord Fairness Code was the compromise,” Tacoma For All organizer Zev Cook said at the meeting. “Any rollbacks or exemptions are a step in the wrong direction.”
Among Tacoma For All’s top concerns was the potential for the cold weather eviction moratorium to apply to people at a certain income level, which Tacoma For All steering committee member Karyna Boykin said would “add to our unsheltered crisis.”
Organizers with Tacoma For All and other groups like the Tacoma Democratic Socialists of America and Indivisible Tacoma have also criticized the City Council for rushing changes to the Landlord Fairness Code, as Mayor Victoria Woodards and Deputy Mayor Kiara Daniels’ terms will come to a close in a matter of weeks.
Voters last month elected Anders Ibsen to replace Woodards as mayor and Latasha Palmer to replace Daniels in 2026.
“I truly hope there’s not enough votes to rush these repeals,” Boykin said at a rally before the meeting. “Housing is a human right. We as tenants should be at the table when these decisions are being made and when this is being discussed.”
Ty Moore, co-executive director for Tacoma For All, previously said that the group would consider bringing another citizen’s initiative forward in 2026 that would eliminate any income requirements for the cold weather eviction moratorium if the council maintained that requirement in its final vote.
Though the council struck that requirement, Moore said the group still is considering bringing forward another citizens’ initiative that would focus on enforcing the Landlord Fairness Code – or even rolling back the other changes that the council approved on Dec. 9.
“It’ll be a democratic decision of our membership whether we go forward with that initiative or not, and a lot of the details we’re furiously trying to work out and study what other cities have done and what is currently on the books in Tacoma,” Moore told The News Tribune after the meeting. “We don’t know for sure if we’re going forward with that yet, but that’ll be a decision of our membership and coalition partners.”
This story was originally published December 10, 2025 at 12:47 PM.
