Dan Breene and Lucille Carroll have heard buzz saws and the rumble
of construction equipment up and down their block over the last three
years. As older homes were bulldozed to make way for rows of identical
townhomes, they expected their small eight-unit building would
eventually change along with the rest of the neighborhood. Breene and
Carroll pay $950 for their spacious, wood-paneled, top-floor apartment
on the north slope of Queen Anne—complete with a fireplace and
views of Fremont and the ship canal.
Last July, Breene and Carroll’s eight-unit building was indeed sold
to a developer—Tony Mai—whom, they say, began work on their
building, converting it to condos, weeks before residents were
officially notified.
With the short notice and, they say, mounting pressure from Mai,
they began looking for a new place. They found one, for $1,200 a month,
but it wouldn’t be open until November. In the meantime, Breene and
Carroll—two of the three tenants left in the building—say
Mai notified them that crews will be coming into tear the walls out of
their bedroom, do electrical work on their unit, and remove the stucco
“skin” on the building’s exterior. Breene and Carroll asked Mai to hold
off on work in their unit until after they’d moved to their new
place—also in Queen Anne—at the end of October. He said no.
“We thought that if [our building] went condo, we’d have a lot more
rights than we do,” Carroll says. But they don’t, and neither do the
thousands of other Seattle residents at the mercy of the condo
conversion boom.
Tenants have few rights: Developers must give tenants 90 days to
vacate their units if they’re on month to month or buy out their lease.
Tenants are given first refusal, the “opportunity” to buy or pass on
purchasing their unit—here a $950 dollar a month apartment turned
$300,000-plus condo. Tenants who make less than $41,700—80
percent of Seattle’s median income—are entitled to $500 in
relocation assistance.
Breene and Carroll’s situation is a microcosm of what’s happening in
Seattle. The Tenants Union and the Seattle Displacement Coalition say
they’ve seen a steady increase in the number of calls from tenants
frustrated with condo conversions, asking what rights they have in
their own homes. “[The law] doesn’t protect tenants from the noise or
health effects that come along with living near construction,” says
Siobhan Ring, executive director of the Tenants Union. “The landlord
has to… provide [tenants] with a safe and habitable environment, but
that doesn’t mean he can’t do construction while they live there.”
In the last four years, condo conversions in Seattle have
skyrocketed. In 2006, 2,352 rental units were converted to condos, an
exponential increase from the 430 units converted in 2004. The majority
of units being converted are in Capitol Hill, Ballard, and Queen Anne,
but it’s happening everywhere. All told, Seattle has lost 5,829
apartments to condo conversion. According to John Fox, director of the
Seattle Displacement Coalition, most of the units being demolished are
affordable to those making between 50 and 60 percent of the median
income. When those units are gutted and rebuilt, they sell, on average,
for just under $300,000—a price affordable to those making over
120 percent of the median income.
In 2006, state legislation that would have potentially provided more
relocation assistance, extended notice of conversions to 120 days,
barred construction during the 120-day period, and allowed cities to
cap condo conversions seemed like a no-brainer, but it didn’t have the
votes. Now, condo developers—limited only by the depth of their
pockets—have gobbled up 3.5 percent of Seattle’s rental housing
market and there are no signs the boom is slowing.
Breene and Carroll assert their building hasn’t been safe. They say
they’ve encountered debris-filled stairwells and nail-gun belts strewn
around the building’s parking lot. Still, Breene and Carroll have to
wait it out until their new apartment opens up. Breene, 52, who has
multiple sclerosis and walks slowly with a cane, is on disability;
Carroll temps at the University of Washington. Because of these
financial and physical constraints, the couple says they’ve been forced
to live in the middle of a construction zone. Although they claim to
have tried repeatedly to negotiate with Mai—whom they say reneged
on an offer to reduce their rent after Breene asked a Department of
Labor and Industries inspector to come look at the building—their
unit is still slated for renovations sometime next week.
There’s not much Breene and Carroll can do. According to Alan
Justad, spokesman for Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development,
the laws regarding tenants’ rights to peace, quiet, and privacy are a
“gray area.” “We certainly have a code that requires that,” Justad
says. “But the developer has a right to develop reasonably when people
are still in the building.”
Mai did not return The Stranger‘s calls for comment, but
Breene and Carroll say they intend to stick out the next six weeks in
their apartment. They’re hoping they’ll get a reprieve from the
construction—and a little peace and quiet. “Our [other] choices
are to go camp out or stay on our friends’ couches,” Breene says.
