Seattle may require mandatory inspection of rental properties

Alex Soldano's fourth-floor apartment has a balcony he's afraid to stand on. The wood is rotten, he says, and the whole thing is held together by quarter-inch brackets with the screws falling out.

"If you lean on it, it will shake, and I'm afraid to let anyone out there," he said.

Soldano, a junior at the University of Washington, says he doesn't have a lot of affordable options for housing. After calls to his landlord got him nowhere, he said he'd rather wait out the end of his lease than complain to the city, he said.

Soldano, an officer with the Associated Students of the University of Washington, testified in support of a proposed new mandatory rental-inspection program under consideration by the Seattle City Council. Rental properties would have to pass a city inspection every three years for landlords to keep their rental licenses. The inspectors would check for unsafe conditions and city building-code violations.

The city is hurrying to establish an inspection program before a new state law takes effect on June 10. The state law lays out eight broad standards for rental units, all of which have to do with the health and safety of tenants. The city wants its own inspection program, tailored to match its housing code. Inspectors would look for specific violations of the code as well as health and safety concerns.

If the city doesn't have a program in place by June 10, it must use the state's guidelines.

Opponents of the city's proposed law say Seattle is burdening good landlords to catch a few bad ones.

Even as it rushes to adopt the new requirements, the City Council is trying to honor a fragile coalition of tenant advocates and rental-housing associations which agreed, after several years of debate, on the state law this year.

Some council members ultimately were convinced that the city's renters need additional protections. Currently, the city inspects a rental unit only if there is a complaint, and rentals make up about half of the housing units in Seattle.

"When somebody is living in bad conditions and they don't have enough money, the idea that they're going to complain — that's not an enforcement mechanism," said Mayor Mike McGinn, who supports the bill.

But Councilmember Sally Bagshaw expressed concern about rushing forward. "I'm feeling that we're not listening to the people who came together and reached a solution," she said.

The new inspection program would pay for itself through the fees charged to landlords. It wouldn't go into effect until 2012, and some of the details are being put off in the dash to pass the legislation by the June 10 deadline. For example, it would have to train inspectors, set penalties and make guidelines for rental properties that change ownership.

The Rental Housing Association of Puget Sound says adding a mandatory inspection would be onerous for the owners of rental homes.

"We don't support mandatory inspections," said Sean Martin, a spokesman for the organization. "We don't think there's a need for mandatory inspections. ... There's a very small amount of housing that actually fits into a situation where it's unsafe or it's not up to par."

Other landlords who testified last week at a City Council hearing echoed his concern. Most of the city's landlords are responsible, said Julie Johnson, RHA's executive director. The new law would force them to spend money "on process instead of improvements."

The City Council Committee on the Built Environment voted 4-0 Wednesday in support of the bill. The full council will take it up Tuesday at 2 p.m.

Emily Heffter: 206-464-8246 or eheffter@seattletimes.com