I’m a renter in the 43rd Legislative District, where 72% of residents are also renters. I’m also the executive director of Futurewise, a statewide organization working on progressive land use policy. As a renter and as the leader of a pro-housing organization, I’m calling on the Washington State Senate to pass HB 2114 to stabilize rents for tenants.
Futurewise has worked for years to increase Washington’s housing supply. We led campaigns to pass Seattle’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda from 2016-19, championed a complete overhaul of housing requirements in comprehensive plans (HB 1220 passed in 2021), and fought for missing middle housing options in cities across the state (HB 1110 passed in 2023). We’ve also led work to remove barriers to construction of new housing in Seattle, like removing parking requirements for new development (2019) and reforming the design review process to streamline construction of affordable housing (2023).
The tools that are in Futurewise’s core wheelhouse, the planning and land use systems we work in, are best suited to address housing supply. But academic research tells us that to fully address our housing crisis, we need a more comprehensive strategy that combines supply strategies with subsidies and stabilization policies. Futurewise believes that rent stabilization is a crucial component of a comprehensive housing affordability strategy for Washington state, complementing our existing efforts to increase housing supply.
Tenants need predictability now, but supply-based strategies will take years to affect prices because it takes time for new buildings to be built. If rents spike while we wait for this new housing, current residents will be displaced before they see any benefits from more housing supply. Additionally, at a statewide or regional level, supply brings down prices; but at a neighborhood level many tenants are worried about gentrification when fancy new buildings are built near their homes. Rent stabilization policies help mitigate that concern because, even if a new building makes a neighborhood more fashionable for wealthy people, existing tenants are protected from big spikes in their rents. This also helps reduce political opposition to new construction.
HB 2114 is a smart policy that will cap rent increases at 7%, increase notice periods for rent increases, and limit expensive move-in fees and security deposits. HB 2114 specifically recognizes the need to continue to increase our overall housing supply: that’s why new buildings are exempted from the policy for the first ten years to ensure that developers can rely on rents to cover the costs of new development.
Opponents of the bill point to failed policies in other cities, particularly San Francisco. I agree that San Francisco is a scary example of a housing market gone horribly wrong (I used to live in the Bay Area and experienced this personally), but Futurewise believes that dysfunction is mainly about restrictive permitting and zoning.
To start, San Francisco’s rent stabilization policy coincided with a downzone in 1978 in multi-family neighborhoods that reduced the development capacity of the city by about 180,000 units, limiting the development of new rental units. From 1990 to 1999, San Francisco’s housing production averaged 963 new homes per year, from 2000 to 2009 production averaged 2,302 homes per year, and from 2010 to 2019 it averaged 2,590 homes per year.
San Francisco also faces a multitude of obstacles to construction in the permitting process. Projects have to secure 87 different permits. Just the entitlement phase of the permitting process takes a year and a half, and then you have to start the building permit process. Many steps in this process are discretionary, meaning that the city can change the requirements mid-process and send a developer back to the beginning. This is indeed a cautionary tale, but it’s not about rent stabilization.
We can and must stabilize rents and build a lot more housing. Washington State has the opportunity to lead the way.
Alex Brennan is the executive director at Futurewise and a resident and renter in the 43rd Legislative District. He holds a Masters of City Planning from the University of California, Berkeley.
“that dysfunction is mainly about restrictive permitting and zoning. “
Which is exactly our problem as well. It is the problem in other cities across the United States too. Allow builders to build enough housing and you end not needing rent control. Add rent control to areas with overly restrictive zoning and you end up with dysfunction.
The overall problems with housing are not restricted to rental prices. When a 1 bedroom is about $2K per month, as a minimum, and home ownership clocks in at $900K for a house, that means most renters are consigned to renting forever.
Renters can barely afford to rent, let alone stairstep themselves to gain equity through home ownership.
If you are from the Bay Area, you must be familiar with Berkeley. Tell us about how rent control worked there. Start with how professionals stayed in their rent-controlled apartments forever and young people/those new to the area were not able to live there.
@1, 100%. You either embrace the “free market” for housing supply or you don’t. I also question what true rent control does to apply coming online – a 7% cap is pretty tame – but a moratorium on rental increases altogether would make developers think twice about juicing supply.
Er meant supply, not “apply”
Tldr- while these policies have failed everywhere they’ve been tried and in some cases like San Fran have made things worse we think they will work in Seattle because apparently the rules of economics don’t apply to us. Right.
@7: The only reason extremist policies have failed in the past is because those previous practitioners were not extreme enough. We, however, will be totally dedicated to total extremism. We will refuse all compromise, ignore all practicalities, and (with loudly deep regrets and publicly heavy hearts at having been pushed to this) absolutely destroy anyone and everyone who does not constantly and completely demonstrate our total dedication to our extremist cause. Only then WILL we succeed.
Shitty 1 bedroom apartments cost $3,500 in rent controlled Berkeley, CA
Shitty 1 bedroom apartments cost $3,900 in rent controlled Santa Monica, CA
Shitty 1 bedroom apartments cost $4000 in rent controlled San Francisco, CA
Shitty 1 bedroom apartment cost $5,500 in rent controlled NYC
And, you better have a 700+ credit score, great job, and incredible references if you even hope to qualify for a rent-controlled apartment
Be very, very careful what you wish for, or you may find yourself living in Auburn, WA for $2,500/month
No comments about the “successful” rent control reforms of 2019 in new york that have cause 10’s of thousands of rent controlled units to be zombified – unrentable due to their condition and unrepairable owing to insufficient returns. Its so bad that banks that lent on primarily rent controlled buildings are going out of business and per-unit prices for rent control buildings are down 50-75%. Vacancy rates on rent controlled units are in the 1-2% range.
No comments about the “success” of recent rent control policy in St. Paul – which was so extreme that developers basically stopped and the city council had to come in and exempt new construction and allow self-certified increases in excess of the 3% cap. Developers are now demanding tax breaks in order to build anything there. Meanwhile Minneapolis has been in in the throes of a housing boom that has – not just in real but absolute terms – REDUCED rents and INCREASED supply dramatically. No. Rent. Control.
How about Portland, ME with their DSA authored rent control policy. Its caused landlords there to withdraw units and become far more selective in screening. And with its extreme cap of 60% CPI – guaranteeing landlords to earn less every year on a given tenancy – housing expenses continue to increase as low cost units disappear and only higher end units are being built.
If this passes “pro housing” (really pro tenant, because rent control clearly reduces quality and quantity of housing) groups will just be back next year to reduce the caps, or eliminate vacancy decontrol, or gain succession rights.
To date I generally give 3-5% increases on in-place tenants. This has alwasy been a little on the low side so if rent control of 7% passes, then going forward that is what I am going to be giving without fail.
I’m a fan of Futurewise, but I have a simple question. Will this measure increase or decrease our housing supply?
Should this bill pass, we’ll have articles complaining about how people are shocked and angry over how landlords are raising rents by 7% every single year.
It failed.
https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2024/02/26/plan-for-7-statewide-cap-on-rent-increases-fails-in-washington-legislature/