AN ORDINANCE modifying Ordinance 126081 concerning repayment plans for rental arrears accrued during or within six months after the termination of the civil emergency declared on March 3, 2020.
Thank you, Madam Clerk. The resolution is adopted and the chair will sign it. And, Madam Clerk, please affix my signature to the resolution. Let's move to item number two. This is out of the Sustainability and Renters Rights Committee, a committee that customers want chairs, but customer staff will be presenting on her behalf today. So, Madam Clerk, can you please read item two and to the record? Agenda Item two Council Bill 120305 Modifying Ordinance 1260 81 Concerning repayment plans for rental arrears occurred during or within six months after the termination of the Civil Emergency declared on March 3rd, 2020. The committee recommends the bill passed. Thank you, Councilmember Strauss. I thank you, council president and thank you for I know that the chair of the committee is not present with us today, and I appreciate the fact that we're able to bring my bill before us today. I also appreciate that. So, again. I just said anytime, buddy. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Oh, I love this. Anyhow, I really also appreciate the public commenters today who called in, which is why I, along with Councilmember Lewis, created small landlord workgroup. And I know that there are some snags in getting that set up. And I can tell you that we both met about it this week to get it moving faster. And we both set up the rental market, rental housing market study. We funded that so that we could have that information for the first time since 2018 when that started, so that we can back up and so that we can have the data that is with us today. It's important for us to have this data so that we can back up the stories of the mom and pop landlords who are selling their properties with the data before us so that we can make decisions with all the information. The bill before us today helps us ensure that landlords are made whole and tenants have a reasonable time to repay their debt. The tenant does remain responsible for repaying any and all debt that they've incurred. This bill is a technical correction to the legislation we passed in 2020, which was passed two months after the pandemic began. In May of 2020, the Council adopted ordinance 126081, which required that tenants with unpaid rent from the pandemic be offered repayment plans that lasted 3 to 6 months, depending upon the amount of rent owed. Today is April 26, 2022. If this was 2020, the pandemic would have started last month and we would have passed the underlying the original bill next month. At that time, we believe that the pandemic would only last two weeks and then two months, and we definitely did not foresee it lasting two years or more. We did know then when everything was shut and many people's line of work suddenly froze, that people needed time to address the debt incurred during that that closed down the following legislative session. The first legislation was legislative session in Olympia. Once the pandemic began, the state passed a similar repayment legislation. If we were in 2021, this bill would have passed. Nine days ago. The Legislature had the benefit of having a year longer to understand that the pandemic was going to last longer than two weeks or two months. The reason I refer to this modest bill as a technical correction is because the legislation before you today is a mirror of our state's legislation. There are some very small differences that come from the original bill and require and this bill requires a reasonable repayment plan for debt incurred during the COVID 19 state of emergency. Colleagues, I know I brought this up at council briefing before yesterday, and again, I'm happy to answer any questions. But are there any questions for Council Member Strauss? Right. Not seeing any. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage? I'm sorry, Councilmember Nelson. And here you. Right? Yeah, go ahead. So I have to say thank you very much for bringing this forward, because I do believe that clarity in repayment plans is necessary. And I will admit that I missed the conversation in the in the Sustainability and Interest Rates Committee, and that's on me. However, that this legislation was was heard in committee only a couple of days after introduction, and we only had one meeting to discuss and vote. But regardless, what's important to me is that landlords had the ability to weigh in on this before we discussed it, and I'm told that was not the case. But basically this bill is characterized as a technical fix to bring us into alignment with state statute. And, you know, digging into this, since then, I've learned that it's it's it's not quite in perfect alignment and it would likely lengthen the time, the arrears specified in the in the repayment plans longer than the within the state statute provides for. So I'll just read some comments from central staff when I asked about this. This bill is tied to the end of the civil state, civil emerged cities, civil emergency, not the state's public health emergency and extends for six months after the end of the city's civil emergency, where the state statute does not extend past the end of the state public health emergency. The state ended its eviction moratorium on June 30th, 2021. So this has gone on much longer than that, and this would cover arrears that are incurred after six months, during the six month period after the end of the civil emergency or after the end of the eviction moratorium. There is much more detail in here. But the bottom line is that I am concerned about losing rental housing stock, particularly that of small landlords who have less resources to to weather the eviction moratorium and unpaid rent that is ongoing. And so they we require them to keep their properties in in good condition for their renters. And I'm just concerned about prolonging the time that that these small landlords will have to get that money to to maintain their properties and add additional uncertainty about when that might happen. So I, I again, apologize for bringing up these concerns at the last minute, but I will have to vote no on this on this piece of legislation. Thank you. Customer NELSON Thank you for sharing your policy reasons for your vote today. Is there anyone else? Okay. Not seeing anyone else for the please call the role. Council member Mr. High Council member NELSON. No. Council Member. Petersen. I. Council member Strauss. Yes. Council member Herbold. Yes. Council member Lewis. Yes. Council member Morales. Yes. Council President Suarez. I. Seven in favor. One opposed. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The bill passes. The chair will sign it. And, Madam Clerk, please affix my signature to the passage of the bill. To the bill. Moving on to item number three, we have Councilmember Peterson from the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.