Information

Small Housing Provider Roundtable at Seattle City Council Economic Development Committee Meeting, March 22, 2023

As of summer 2023, city council has not discussed or moved forward with any issues and solutions brought forth by small landlords at the Economic Development roundtable in March 2023 or the Fall 2022 SDCI stakeholder group. All legislation continues to move through city council's Sustainability & Renters' Rights Committee, which consistently excludes any housing provider input.

This 21-page document is the result of a staff and stakeholder group process that convened in summer/fall 2022 to advise the City on regulatory and rental market challenges for small landlords and their tenants. The group was asked to:

This 15-page document was submitted to Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections at the outset of the Small Landlord Stakeholder Group, a series of 6 meetings that took place between late August and early November 2022, as requested by Seattle City Council in their Fall 2021 budget. In the document, we provide an overview of the mission, goals and concerns of Seattle Grassroots Landlords; detailed legislative and administrative suggestions for how City of Seattle can improve conditions for local independent rental housing; and background research links featuring local and national sources. 

Noted Safety Flaws & Suggested Amendments for Seattle's "Just Cause" Eviction Law, May 2021

Seattle small housing provider Charlotte Thistle (who rents rooms to tenants in her shared Columbia City home) worked with attorney Ryan Weatherstone to convey serious flaws in Seattle's Just Cause law re: inability to protect from harrassment and other safety issues, compounded by city council hastily passing a new mandatory lease renewal law.

City council declined to ever follow up on this topic and it continues to negatively impact landlords and tenants throughout Seattle.

Important Findings from 2018 Rental Housing Study, May 2021  By: Seattle Grassroots Landlords (A. Gerrald)

In 2017, Seattle’s Office of City Auditor conducted a Seattle Rental Housing Study (SRHS) to understand the experiences of renters and landlords in the Seattle market and to gather baseline data that could be used for future evaluations. The study was a requirement of a suite of new landlord policies enacted by Seattle City Council in 2016, hurriedly passed without sufficient time to conduct impact evaluations. This document summarizes key findings from the study and links to relevant source material.

Seattle Small Landlords & the Legislative Tsunami: A Five-Year Recap, May 2021  By: Seattle Grassroots Landlords (A. Gerrald)

From 2017 to 2021, Seattle landlords experienced a tidal wave of complex new laws, with numerous pending ordinances continuing to unfold. This constantly changing regulatory landscape has rapidly increased the burden on small mom-n-pop  landlords, who have traditionally provided some of the most affordable and flexible local rental housing. This document recaps the five-year onslaught of legislation that is dramatically decreasing rental housing availability, affordability and stability of small-scale, community-owned rental housing in Seattle. (Note: this recap was published in 2021 and quickly became out of date, as Seattle City Council has continued to pass numerous additional regulatory changes, with no housing provider input. Want to volunteer to help update the "tsunami" recap? Contact us at seattlegrassrootslandlords@gmail.com.)