Spokane landlords who haven’t registered with the city will soon be unable to raise rents or evict tenants in most cases.
At their meeting Monday night, the city council voted five-to-two to impose those tougher penalties on rental property owners who aren’t registered — and therefore aren’t complying with the law.
Speaking to SPR News before the vote, Councilmember and ordinance cosponsor Kitty Klitzke said it’s a common tactic used by cities to get landlords in compliance with their ordinances.
“It's really hard for me to understand how this really puts a burden on landlords,” Klitzke said. “Because as part of all the paperwork you would do for an eviction or raising someone's rent, how hard is it to also do your license and your registration?”
Other proponents of the ordinance pointed out that every other profit-garnering endeavor in Spokane requires a business license and that it’s just as important for landlords to comply with the law as it is for tenants.
“We have a lot of units that have registered. We have about 22,000. But there's an estimated over 40,000 units in the city of Spokane," Councilmember and fellow cosponsor Paul Dillon told SPR News before the legislative meeting Monday night. "And so for those who've already registered, they have nothing to worry about. This won't affect them. But we really need to get into compliance with the ones that have not.”
Councilmembers Michael Cathcart and Jonathan Bingle voiced their dissent. Both said they support the rental registry itself. However, Cathcart asked why the council was jumping straight to what he called a “nuclear” option, and Bingle suggested that they could have considered a series of fines or similar penalties.
“We went straight to ‘you cannot evict people’. And so my opposition to this isn't the registry itself, isn't the business license, isn't the inspections, right?” Bingle said from the dais. “It is the draconian penalties that we're going to be imposing on people.”
During council commentary, Cathcart said the city should do more to educate landlords on city policy before imposing the penalties in the ordinance.
“When we've done things the same way for 150 years and suddenly we change it, I think there's some deserving of a grace period in there for folks to be able to catch up,” he said. “And we probably have some responsibility in making sure that they understand how to catch up.”
The city council passed a measure mandating business licenses and registrations for residential rental properties in February 2023.
In an interview before Monday’s legislative meeting, Dillon said, “There's been numerous notices that have gone out to property owners. And so at this point, there's really no excuse [for not registering].”
Several members of groups for rental property owners used the public comment period on Monday night to voice their opposition, including Steve Wareham with the Landlords Association.
“It's another form of rent control. What you should be looking at is trying to keep the landlords whole too,” Wareham said. “It should be a win-win all the way around. Not looking at the small percentage of tenants and trying to protect them.”
During public comment before the vote, CJ Johnson of Spokane said landlords shouldn’t complain about losing evictions as a tool for being unregistered.
“This does not prevent them from doing anything. This having to register does not affect them in any way, shape, or form,” he said. “They can still evict people when they get registered. If they're committing crimes, you call law enforcement on them.”
Terri Anderson with the Washington Tenants Union also spoke in support of the bill.
“It benefits tenants because a rental registry keeps the housing safe,” she said during public comment. “Tenants can complain when their repairs aren't made, and landlords benefit because the inspections maintain the condition of rental housing, meaning there's more life to the housing and they can make more money renting it out. So it seems like this is a win-win for both sides.”
The ordinance goes into effect Friday, Nov. 15. Residential landlords can register at the portal on the city’s website.
