Tacoma voters to decide on controversial tenants’ rights measure

Tacoma voters will soon decide on an expansive renter-protection proposal that has sparked a fierce debate about the balance of power between landlords and tenants in the city.

Initiative Measure No. 1, on ballots due Nov. 7, would require more advance notice of rent increases, limit evictions during the winter months and the school year, and require landlords to pay tenants who move out after certain rent hikes. 

“We need to restore balance,” said Ann Dorn, a member of the Tacoma for All steering committee, which supports the measure. “There’s an imbalance in favor of landlords.”

Property owners and Realtors are mounting an expensive fight against the measure. The opposition campaign has raised $293,000, more than double the $120,000 raised by the campaign in favor, as of the end of October. 

Opponents argue the regulations are overly burdensome and will push landlords to sell their rental properties. At a raucous debate on the measure this month, Sean Flynn, head of the Rental Housing Association of Washington, called the proposal “a train wreck.”

Rent hikes, fees and evictions

Initiative 1 would add a suite of new renter protections in Tacoma. They include: 

• Rent increases: The initiative would require landlords to give two notices of rent hikes: one at least six months in advance and the second one at least three months in advance. Tacoma law currently requires four months. The initiative would also bar landlords from raising rents or evicting tenants if their unit violated health and safety rules.

• Relocation assistance: If a landlord raised the rent by 5% or more and a tenant opted to move rather than pay the higher rent, the initiative would require the landlord to pay relocation assistance after a tenant requested it. Assistance would range from two months’ rent for 5% increases to three months’ rent for increases over 10%. Initiative drafters say that scale reflects the time it takes to find new housing when a renter is paying significantly less than market rate. The rule would include some exemptions: a landlord and tenant living on the same site when that site has four or fewer units; tenants who have lived in a rental for less than six months; and landlords temporarily renting out their primary homes during active duty military service.

• Fees: The initiative would limit move-in fees such as security deposits, last month’s rent and background check fees, at one month’s rent; pet deposits at 25% of monthly rent; and late fees at $10 per month.

• Eviction limits: The initiative would give tenants a defense in court against certain evictions during the school year and winter months. That would apply to all renters between November and April and households with educators, parents and guardians or children during the Tacoma Public Schools school year. These limits would not apply to certain evictions, including those for health and safety reasons, sexual harassment, drug-related nuisances or when the landlord wants to move into the unit. The initiative would also bar landlords from evicting tenants because they have a family member living in their rental, unless they violated legal occupancy limits, or because of their status as a senior, health care provider, educator, first responder or member of the military.

• Legal recourse: The initiative would give tenants the right to sue their landlords for violations of the new rules and to seek penalties up to five times the monthly rent per violation. A landlord could request an exemption in court if they could prove a rule created an “undue and significant economic hardship,” constitutional violation or was preempted by state or federal law.

Many of these proposals mirror rules on the books in Seattle and other nearby cities. 

Seattle requires six months’ notice of rent hikes, limits fees and gives tenants defenses against certain winter and school-year evictions. Kirkland, Burien, Redmond and other suburbs have approved extra notice of certain rent increases, caps on move-in or late fees and other tenant protections.

But the proposed relocation assistance program would set Tacoma apart.

Seattle recently began requiring relocation assistance when landlords raise the rent 10% or more on tenants making 80% or less of Seattle’s area median income — that’s about $67,000 or less for a single person. Seattle pays tenants in those cases three times the monthly rent and requires landlords to reimburse the city. Tacoma’s measure would be open to all incomes and would apply to smaller rent increases, 5% instead of 10%. Landlords would pay tenants directly.

Opponents argue the requirement is a heavy burden for landlords. “To place the responsibility on the landlord, on small mom–and–pop landlords, is absolutely not fair,” said opponent Corey Hjalseth, a loan officer who has been a landlord for 35 years in Tacoma.

Supporters say they wanted relocation assistance to be accessible to more renters. Landlords “could avoid paying that cost by not raising rent over 5%. … They’re in control of whether they are ever in a situation where this is triggered,” Dorn said.

Tacoma isn’t the only city weighing tenant protections this fall. 

Bellingham voters will decide on an initiative that applies to rent increases of 8% or more. That measure would require landlords who raise rent 8% or more in a year to give tenants four months’ notice of that rent hike and to pay relocation assistance if a tenant opts to move, with some exceptions.

Tacoma leaders have also pursued another set of renter protections. 

The Tacoma City Council approved a package of rental regulations and sent those to the ballot alongside the Tacoma for All-backed initiative, setting up a competition for voters. The city’s rules were less restrictive than the ballot measure, requiring four months’ notice of rent hikes, tightening some rules around tenant screening and income requirements and limiting late fees based on rent, up to $75.

Those rules remain law in Tacoma, but a Pierce County Superior Court judge kicked them off the ballot as an alternative to the Tacoma for All initiative. If the initiative passes, any portions of the city law that conflict with the initiative would be repealed, a city spokesperson said after the ruling in August.

Landlord opposition

With less than a week until Election Day, opposition advertisements are focusing on those new, less restrictive regulations the Tacoma City Council passed. “Celebrate Tacoma’s recent victories for tenants. … These reasonable laws now protect our good-neighbor residents,” says the voice-over in a 30-second ad against Initiative 1.

Opponents’ concerns about the initiative are more far-reaching than just protecting the city’s existing rules, though.

Landlords say they worry the regulations will push small property owners to sell, which could remove single-family homes from the rental market and transfer apartment buildings to large companies that may charge higher rents or offer renters less flexibility. 

“Those are big corporations. … They can absorb some of these financial hits that small landlords cannot,” said Hjalseth, the Tacoma landlord. 

“If we really, really want to help people who rent,” Hjalseth said, “let’s provide more housing and let’s try to step up the enforcement of deadbeat landlords or slumlords.”

Donors to the opposition include statewide landlord groups, a local realtor association and the campaign’s largest donor, the National Association of Realtors. Real estate agents are worried about the measure because many of them own or work with clients who own investment properties, said Sean Martin, CEO of the Tacoma Pierce County Association of Realtors, which opposes the measure.

Opponents point to Seattle, where landlords have long complained that city regulations are pushing them to take their investments elsewhere.

Evidence for that claim is mixed. A report this year from the city department that oversees rental properties found a 14% decline in rental properties registered with the city from 2018 to 2022, largely due to single-family homes and small rentals no longer being registered as rentals. Even so, the total number of rental units remained steady because larger buildings came online. 

The city’s Department of Construction and Inspections says multiple factors could be at play: Some property owners may have sold or redeveloped; others may have failed to renew their registrations because the city softened enforcement due to staffing issues during the pandemic. The city’s data “cannot provide a complete picture of rental market characteristics” because it’s not clear how many landlords are still renting their properties out but not registering them as required, the report said. 

In Tacoma, Hjalseth owns four rental properties he hopes will contribute to his retirement. He worries most about proposed limits on evictions during the winter and school year because he fears that could force him to go months without rent or make it difficult to get rid of a nuisance tenant whose behavior falls short of the exemptions in the initiative. 

Hjalseth said he believes most tenants will keep paying even if the Tacoma initiative passes, “but there will be a small percentage of renters who understand the rules, know the rules, and use them to their benefit to the great disadvantage of their landlords.”

Initiative 1 supporters say Tacoma needs stronger renter protections because the stakes are higher for tenants who could lose their homes than for landlords worried about their investments. 

“We believe the circumstances in Tacoma are really serious for tenants,” said Dorn, with Tacoma for All.

The average cost of a one-bedroom apartment in Tacoma has climbed 61% in the last decade, according to the real estate data firm CoStar. A 2021 city report found that median rent in Tacoma climbed 21% from 2016 to 2019, while renters’ median income climbed just 12% in that period.

Tacoma for All donors include the Democratic Socialists of America, local unions and small-dollar donors. Labor groups and progressive organizations such as the Transit Riders Union and Washington State Low Income Housing Alliance have also endorsed the measure.

Dorn herself faced eviction in the nearby town of University Place in 2018 when her landlord opted to sell the home she was renting, she said. With just 20 days’ notice required at the time, Dorn didn’t have the savings to quickly cover the costs of moving into a new rental.

As she and her 11-year-old daughter couch-surfed, her daughter’s grades dropped. “You can’t put into words the effect that has on your life,” Dorn said.

Limits on school-year evictions would have helped avoid that chaos and stress, she said. “I don’t want that for anybody else.”

Supporters acknowledge some landlords may sell.

“It would be disingenuous of us to say there would be absolutely no effect on the rental market,” Dorn said. “I don’t think it will be the bloodbath that’s been predicted.”

Final days of the campaign

In the final days before voters decide on the measure, both sides are waging an intense campaign.  

Opponents report spending $353,000, largely on TV ads, online ads and mailers. 

In a complaint to the state Public Disclosure Commission, Tacoma for All accused opponents of a “shadow campaign” in which they failed to report funds they raised for their fight against the measure as required. Opponents disagreed.

Tacoma for All has so far spent about $84,000 on staff, legal expenses, yard signs, campaign literature and text banking. 

Ballots are due Nov. 7 by 8 p.m.