Less than a month after the Seattle City Council approved a resolution asking the state Legislature to overturn the state ban on rent control, Councilmembers Kshama Sawant and Nick Licata are proposing an ordinance that would

prohibit the imposition of rent increases while [a] rental property suffers from any defect that makes it unfit for human habitation.

The summary from Councilmember Sawant references Seattle Municipal Code (SMC) 7.24.030 before getting to the actual text of the proposal. This portion of the code regulates rental agreements, including a requirement that notice be given to renters if their rent is to be raised by 10 percent or more. Presumably they are suggesting that this new ordinance is of a piece with these notification requirements, rather than rent control.

But the proposed ordinance deals with SMC 22.208 (buildings unfit for human habitation). The ordinance would prohibit “the implementation of any rent increase when the unit suffers from any defect(s) enumerated in SMC 22.208.010.” Under the code, these defects form the “conditions for declaring a building or premises unfit for human habitation or other use.” They include things like damaged flooring, inadequate waterproofing, lack of running water, pest infestations, etc.

Under the proposed ordinance, when a tenant is notified of a rent increase, he may provide the landlord with a written list of such defects. The landlord would then have to

remedy such defects before implementing the rent increase. If the landlord disagrees with the demand and wishes to implement the rent increase without remedying the alleged defects, the landlord may request that the Director [of the Department of Planning and Development for the City of Seattle] investigate the allegations pursuant to SMC 22.208.030 . . . .

Currently, the Director “may investigate any building or premises which the Director believes to be unfit for human habitation or other use” (SMC 22.208.030). Should the Director determine that a building is unfit for habitation, the building may be required to be repaired, vacated, or demolished. No one is allowed to rent units in such a building.

So is this new proposal rent control? The text explicitly prohibits rent increases in certain circumstances. But, according to the Seattle Times, “Sawant said city attorneys have reviewed it and found it to be substantively legal.” Additionally,

“The ordinance doesn’t include any rent controls,” [lawyer Knoll] Lowney said. “The landlord can still adjust the rent based on market conditions. But the unit must be (made habitable) before the increase is implemented.”

Whether this particular proposal is determined to be rent control or not may be beside the point. Heidi Groover writes, in the Stranger:

One big thing to know about this bill: Yes, it is a new renter protection, but it’s also a chance to invite a lawsuit that could call the whole state rent control ban into question. If landlord interests file a lawsuit challenging this bill and lose, that could be a quicker route to lifting the ban on rent control than waiting on the state legislature. . . .

If landlord and developer groups argue in favor of allowing landlords to raise rents even on buildings in terrible shape, Licata told me today, “They’re going to make it easier to overturn the [rent control] ban in Washington or amend it” by showing how it is “abused.”

“It opens a door they should be very reluctant to open,” Licata added later. “They’ll be entering a battlefield that we have defined and anyone familiar with military tactics knows you want to choose the battlefield, not your opponent.”

(Emphasis in original.)