AN ORDINANCE relating to residential and commercial tenant protections during the COVID-19 pandemic; and declaring an emergency.
And I'm unmuted now. I see. Can I get a nod or affirmation that somebody can hear me? Great. Thank you. Our next ordinance is acronym is ordinance 2020 191, which would provide tenant protections during the COVID 19 pandemic. My colleagues and members of the public are listening that we may need to go into executive session to discuss this item. Miss Sanders from our central staff is here to provide a staff briefing. Ms.. Sanders. All right. Thank you. For the record, April Sanders, counsel, central staff. The materials for this item begin on page 11 of your packet ordinance 2020 0191 and one provide tenant protections for prudential and small commercial tenants. And to this background, Governor Inslee signed Emergency Proclamation 2019 on March 18, which prohibited residential landlords from serving unlawful detainer actions , issuing a 20 day notice for unlawful detainer or initiating judicial action, seeking a writ of restitution for nonpayment of rent resulting from the COVID 19 pandemic. Governor Inslee subsequently extended that proclamation, adding additional residential protections and extending certain protections to commercial tenants. A list of the protections granted an extension can be found on page 12 of your packet. The extended proclamation expires this Thursday, June four. Subsequently, the city of Seattle passed a series of three ordinances making nonpayment nonpayment of rent due to COVID 19, a defense to eviction and providing for a payment plan. Options for residential and small commercial tenancies. Moving onto legislation in front of you, the proposed ordinance would create those tenant protections, modeled largely off of the city of Seattle's ordinances that I referenced previously, but amended to fit our administrative structure. The protections in the proposed ordinance would be available through September 1st, 2020, which marks six months for me from executive Constantine's Proclamation of Emergency on March 1st. Starting off with residential tenant protections. The ordinance would provide residential tenants with a defense to eviction if an unlawful detainer action were based on the tenant's failure to pay rent due . If the failure to pay were because of circumstances occurring as a result of the COVID 19 pandemic. These circumstances include the tenant's illness, loss or reduction of income, loss of employment, reduction in uncompensated, uncompensated hours of work, business or office closure. A need to miss work to care for a family member or child where that care is uncompensated or other similar loss of income due to the COVID 19 pandemic, the defense to eviction would be available to residential tenants if the eviction were initiated because of unpaid rent that was due before or by September 1st, 2020. Additionally, the proposed ordinance would allow a tenant who fails to pay rent due before or by September 1st, 2020, to pay the overdue rent in installments. If the tenant requests a written installment repayment plan, it would be negotiated between the landlord and the tenant. However, the repayment plan could not require the tenant to pay more than one third of overdue rent each month unless agreed to by the tenant. And all rental debt accumulated must be paid by September 1st of 2021. The landlord would not be allowed to charge late fees, interest or other charges. It would be an additional defense to eviction if a landlord refused the request to enter into a payment plan. Moving on to protections for small commercial tenancies, the provisions model the repayment plan I just outlined for residential tenancies. For the purpose of this ordinance, small commercial tenant would be defined as a business entity that is owned and operated independently from all other businesses and has 50 or fewer employees. Per establishment has either been forced to close to due to an emergency order issued by Governor Inslee or has gross receipts from the previous calendar month that are less than 70% of gross receipts from a same month in 2019. Additionally, it can either be a general sales and service business with ten or. More. Establishments in operation anywhere in the world, nor an entertainment business with five or more establishments anywhere in the world. That concludes my briefing on the underlying ordinance. Mr. Chair, there are amendments, a striking amendment and an amendment to the striker, and we have Gina Kim and Darren Carnell from the jail here to answer questions as well. Council member, W.T. Currie. How are you suggest we proceed? Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I would ask if we could treat this as a briefing for the moment. Have April read the amendments, have discussion and questions and answers. And then I would like to at that point consider what my motion would be. We have we have heard a few issues about the concept here, and some of them have been addressed in amendments. Some of them may be worthy of addressing in future amendments. And I would just like to think about how we proceed after I hear some of the Q&A from the members. So I would ask if you would allow the senators to complete their briefing, and then I'd like to say a few words about the ordinance. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms.. Sanders. Sure. So striking amendment S1 to the in the amendment packet the mark sent out, I believe today the primary change would change the sunset date of the provisions essentially from September 1st of 2020, which marks six months exactly as proclamation 2/1 of 2021, which marks one year from the executive's emergency proclamation. So the protections would be. Available to tenants. If the eviction were initiated because of unpaid rent that was due before or by March 1st, 2021. Additional technical corrections recommended by the panel and revise are reflected throughout the striking amendment, mostly where changes to change the some language in the CRL or most of that administrative structure. And then Amendment one to us, one would add a section providing the same protections offered to residential tenants to tenants of mobile and manufactured home parks. This includes COVID 19 as a defense to eviction and requiring a repayment plan if requested by the tenant. And that concludes the amendments. Mr. Chair, may I ask the question. As number one duty? Thank you. This year we have an additional amendment from one of the members as well. No, we do not. Okay, thank you. And if that's okay, I'll just go ahead and say a few words. Then I want to speak as the sponsor of this ordinance to the the concept and what we're trying to do. As has been correctly stated in brief, there is a statewide eviction moratorium that was meant to keep many thousands of households from suddenly losing their homes due to the really dramatic economic impact of COVID 19. However, at some point, that eviction moratorium is going to end, and at that point, we will be faced with truly a public policy crisis, a lot of individual crises. And I don't want to downplay the impact to individual families here because it won't. But for every person and family that does that will potentially lose their home. It is a huge challenge and a very critical moment. But as a public policy matter, it is a massive challenge for us as a government, for our constituents to have a large number of people suddenly lose their home. I would remind us that we are currently living under four emergency declarations that are specific to our county a homelessness emergency declaration, an epidemic emergency death declaration and economic emergency declaration. And now the issue of the protesting and some of the issues going on in the streets. So the last thing we need is a tremendous number of people to suddenly all lose their homes for them and for our entire community. The intent here was really rather modest, though it is, and it may not be the last word on policy around evictions, but when the eviction moratorium ends, what this is attempting to do is provide a kind of a glide path. So instead of suddenly owing all the money that was unpaid during the emergency due to people who have lost their incomes due to this due to COVID, it gives them some time and gives them the ability to negotiate a payment plan to pay off the arrearages as they're starting to, you know, sort of hopefully rebound and get income flowing again. And it gives a defense, not an eviction moratorium, not even for nonpayment of rent. Is this an eviction moratorium? What it does is it gives somebody whose landlord is looking to evict them the ability to say in court in an eviction proceeding, I couldn't pay because I lost my income due to COVID. And the judge can take that information and weigh it in making a decision. That's what this does. It's really quite modest, actually, and it's meant to keep people in their homes and start paying the back rent in a in a relatively quick way. So I know it's not perfect. And I have to say that there are questions that have been raised that we have not addressed yet, because we're moving relatively quickly since this has gone public. We've been working on it for a while, since it's gone public and smooth pretty quickly. For example, the comment about the No Cause eviction issue is it's a very good one. It's a very good point that if you can evict someone, if you can't fix someone because they haven't paid their rent due to COVID and they have a payment plan, if you also have the ability to evict them for no reason at all, that's just that is a loophole that the entire the entire protection fits inside of. I also have heard that we need clarity of heard from the Rental Housing Association on behalf of landlords, that the payment plan language has some lack of clarity in it. And there's a little confusion. And as I look at it, I see that they have a point and it would make sense to make sure that we're being very clear about what the payment plan does and doesn't do. So I would like to have a little time, whether between now and full council or now at another committee meeting to work on that a little bit more. I want to say that a few more things. The comments about we should provide rental assistance agreed. We should provide rental assistance. Rental assistance assistance in and of itself is not going to solve the problem. I think we're going to need a multi-pronged approach. And when we talk about the CARES funding that we have for community supports, I'm certainly going to be advocating in favor of rental assistance programs to help people stay in their homes and pay their rent. I heard the issue about not being able to enforce rules of conduct, and I will admit that in the first draft of this and it as as initially as we introduced it, the ordinance did have some language that one could read and think that that it did that that it removed the ability for landlords. To evict people because of behavior or other violations of their contracts. That was not the intent of this ordinance, and we removed that language in the striking amendment. So I think that we've done a balanced job here. I know there will be questions and comments from colleagues, but I want to commend this approach to everybody. I'm going to be listening carefully to what the members have to say. And, Mr. Chair, if with your indulgence at the end would call on me, I will at that time make a motion to be determined between now and then. Thank you. Politics can be rough. The rough? Oh, well, thank you, Mr. Chair. There was a lot of testimony and. Well, a lot of what I heard in testimony didn't match up with what I heard in our staff report for what this does. So I'm going to try being a non attorney here, April, to try to repeat back in sort of layman's terms. And one thing, I don't think you were clear on that. I think we know, but the public might is we might correct that we only have jurisdiction over properties in unincorporated areas. So this would only apply to rental properties in unincorporated King County, not in any city. Correct. That's what I thought. And then. And and forgive me, I haven't dove into this that I'm sort of stating the obvious here to help communicator, but also to get my head around it. Is it correct? What concern about duty said that we're not extending any prohibition on evictions. We're simply giving that if someone is evicted and they go to court, that they have the chance to argue and demonstrate to a judge that their failure to pay was due to COVID. And if that's the case, there's an option for there need to be a repayment plan. Okay. Okay. That doesn't sound as scary to me as I also happen to be a landlord and not an unincorporated. But. I'm interested in learning a little bit more about the details and mechanics as cancer buildup, she said. But I kind of want to repeat that back and remember to make sure I understood it. Given there was so much testimony about. Things unrelated to. Payment to you, no ability to pay. But if this is focused on if you're looking for feedback cuts, we're about to see if this is unincorporated areas. It doesn't extend the moratorium and is simply a defense in court. If you're being evicted and you can demonstrate due to COVID and you have to pay the money back, but it's on a conservative payment plan. I'm I think that sounds eminently reasonable. And to clarify, there are two defenses to eviction to pay because of nonpayment of rent and if a tenant requested and a landlord refused to provide a repayment plan. So both are defensive to eviction. Thanks to my example, I use the hallway. Council members. Hello. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have similar questions to Councilmember Up the Grove, and they're just clarifying questions. Does anything in this ordinance say that tenants can live for free in their homes? No. Councilmember does anything in this ordinance. Forgive or cancel back rent payments? No. It still be on. Does anything in this ordinance or the amendment say that landlords cannot evict, quote unquote, bad tenants if they have a good cause for doing so? No. If they have a another reason for eviction, it would still be allowed. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I felt like. I personally was just very confused by the public comments from the landlords and I hope that the clarifications that we're providing right now are helpful moving forward. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member. Lambert. Council member Lambert. Thank you. So a couple of questions. You know, this says you can go to court. Our courts are backed up months and months. So and going to court is expensive. So especially if you have to wait months and months to get in. So then that means it's only longer that the person living in your property. So sending more work to the courts right now, I don't know. That's a good idea. You we need to have some arbitrators or and come in and handle this work. And specifically, I listen to what the people said about checking on whether or not the people had gotten unemployment and any other income. I think that some fine verification would be important if somebody is getting unemployment and as you that it's been supplemented with $600 extra week of I know that standing it should have been at least paying something. And then the comment that's already made about this is putting these problems on the back of individual citizens. As council member said, he's a current landlord. I am a recovering landlord, never to be one again because I got left with a tenant who had been a long term benefit and still promised that they would pay me back when they were no longer ill. The bill came to $10,000 at that point and then they went into bankruptcy and therefore I never got that money back. So I think we need to deal with some issues about can they just go in and file bankruptcy? And then in my case and like in my case, you just don't get your money back ever. So I think we need to look at what we're doing to small landlords and giving them a few more protections than what I see here. I I've read this and I can understand why a person who is is reading these would say it's confusing because it it was even confusing to me and I read this all the time. So. So I think if we're going to do some rewriting in the next couple of weeks, I think it's a really good idea. I think going back and trying to make it have more clarity and less Bigley's and more clarity so the average person can understand it might also be helpful. Thank you. Councilor calls. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think we all led some very carefully to all of those who provided public comment and was confirmed. The issue that was brought up by council member of the group about this covering only the unincorporated areas of the county. But I do think it's really critically important to understand the plight that the smaller landlords, the mom and pop landlords can be in. If there were not precautions for them, then I have been working with my colleagues and my co-sponsors. I'd like to file amendments for this, but also for the possibility of using Cogan. Excuse me, cars funding in our next COVID omnibus emergency budget. So this is something that I just want to confirm that we are listening to. We understand the situation that has been brought out, and I hopeful that we can reach some agreement on addressing those important issues as well. Thank you. You know, Tasmanian devils. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the sponsors for bringing this forward. And I appreciated some of the clarifying comments as well and as well as the testimony. One thing that I am looking at here with respect to the defense, to an eviction and the residential portion are the enumerated reasons, including an illness or uncompensated care. And one thing I would be interested in exploring is whether or not we could add a materiality component to that. In other words, there could be, as a result of the enumerated factors, a de minimis reduction in income. And as written, it doesn't ask the court in considering the defense to an eviction, to look at whether or not the enumerated factor was a material or or proximate cause of the inability to pay the rent, if that makes sense to use on legal terms. And I I'm reluctant to set a percentage. I know in the repayment program there's a 30% number. You could set a percentage, but maybe it should be up to the judge considering all of the factors to address that. And but I think we could give some guidance to the court and tighten that up a little bit to say that the enumerated causes there had to lead to the inability to pay pay the rent. I would also be interested in. Exploring whether or not the defense or the court should also consider the hardship that might result on the landlord and the equities there. I think it's very hard in developing a law or policy of general applicability to account for all situations. But you could have a landlord that might be imminently facing foreclosure if the rent doesn't come in, and she could demonstrate that that would be a problem that I would hate to create by trying to solve a real public policy crisis with respect to housing. But I think if we empowered a court looking at these to balance the equities and way the equities, I would I'd be interested in that. I'm a little bit interested in the math with respect to the repayment deadline of September 2021 and the 30% maximum factor. And I just I can't I have a process at all. But I wonder if there's a a scenario where so much rent, acute accrued accrues is due and owing, but the limit on the monthly repayment results in a situation that there's no way to repay at all by September 2021. And how that works, I think Customer Rather is smiling. She's probably solved that now. I'm looking at April because she had pointed this out earlier. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. And then finally and I'm just looking through it, there are some exemptions for certain industries, entertainment at a certain size for a while. And I just wonder what the what what's going on there, the rationale behind that in the commercial section. Appreciate it. Thank you. And Councilmember, just a note for the repayment plan and it's clarified a bit in a striker, those concerned about that, she noted there she is pursuing other other clarifications, but it's one third of the total rent due. So you could only pay you can only require the tenant to pay one third of the total rent due per month, the overdue rent. So not one third of a month's payment, if that makes sense. I think I understand what you're saying. You're saying there's no mathematical way he wouldn't be able to recover the the payments within the time frame in the ordinary? Hypothetically, at most, it would take three months, if you like. Oh, I got it. Yes. Thank you. And it had some of the quotes there. But then I just thought from a legal perspective, and I know we may have an expression on this, I do wonder about the contract clause where we're eliminating white T's and things like that, and whether we can impose those sort of contractual rewrites by ordinance on the on private parties. I would suggest that. If we're doing that, if we're going to require that folks in the private sector, perhaps we ought to apply the same rules to ourselves in the collection of property taxes. Where I think we are, at least to date, aren't waving interest in and late charges when people can't pay their property tax bill. So I. Think we should. We should at least think about that, particularly where we might do something here, where a property owner needs to pay their property taxes, maybe can't can't get in a paying tenant because we would again, may be accruing, but collection of the debts a different thing. Can't replace a tenant with a paying tenant because of the eviction moratorium and then leads to a default either on mortgage or property taxes and accrued interest in county there. That's that's something we have to think about. That's number one. Councilmember Dunn. Reagan. You're muted. You're not here, you. There appear to be unmuted now. Joe, can you? Yes, we can hear you now. So the AT&T ad. Reagan. We just lost you. I'm assuming Councilmember Dunn is going to call back in re reconnect. Is there another question in the meantime? Councilman Brown is confirming that he's getting in, that he's reconnecting. But I'd be happy to take a question in the meantime. All right, we'll pause for a number done to reconnect. It's below. Yes. Currently the hall is pausing for a moment. Councilmember Dunn has a question. And I had technical difficulties and was reconnecting to the meeting and I'm meeting him. Can you hear me? Yes. Thanks. Can't remember. Down the hall is yours. Thank you. And I apologize that I had some technical challenges there. And I don't want to go into an executive session to prolong this meeting, but has there been an analysis done on the aspect of regulatory takings and or tortious interference with contractual relations that someone can talk me through at another time with respect to this piece of legislation, if it were to pass. Ms.. Sanders, you're on mute. Sorry about that. We can either do that in executive session or I can schedule a meeting where we're done. Darren and Gina to go through that analysis. I that's fine. Fine with me. Unless other members want to do an executive session, I don't think there's any need to prolong it. And then the other question may be to the maker of the motion is, did you. Consider if they're the idea of maybe providing some kind of taxable incentives of some kind for those landlords to engage in these kinds of payment plans to deal with things like interest, late fees. And it's a devised program that might help ease the burden on those that have to delay the income issues. Mr. Shearer, for me. As a member of our duty. Thank you, Mr. Chair. There's no motion, but as the sponsor of the ordinance, I will. I'll answer that. I think the magnitude of this problem is so large that we probably need to use all tools to hand. And I will certainly support and have already advocated for rental assistance approaches and would absolutely support other programs to help small landlords that are in financial distress to continue to be able to provide housing. But I don't think that's an or I think it's an and so that that was my thinking in terms of proposing this. And I don't know if you were on at the beginning, but I, I as I've been thinking about what this what this ordinance is meant to do, it's meant to provide a transitional period, kind of a landing glide path from folks who have been unable to pay their rent and have been accruing back rent during the eviction moratorium, which will end on one day. I mean, one day it will end. And to try to allow some ability for them to not be all or and mass immediately evicted, but rather to work out a payment plan. And I do think we have a role as a government in helping to provide financial support into this problem as well, in whatever way makes sense . So I support that. But I think it's an and modern more. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay. Thank you. Dombrowski. Councilmember Dombrowski. Thank you. Following up on that last colloquy there between councilman well, duty and done and the timing, this would run through, I think, September 1st. Would there be any expectation to extend the protections afforded here if things continue to get worse? Given this, the intention here, the thrust by this is as a transitional piece of legislation. I worry we get to say August or September. What's the rationale for not continuing to extend the eviction moratorium and then the impact that might have on those who own property and have obligations to pay? Mr. Chair, I'll jump in if that's all right. So just a reminder for everyone that the more of the eviction moratorium comes from the state so we don't control whether it will be extended or not. It will be the governor's decision whether to extend or not. In fact, it might expire before we complete this legislation. And if it is extended for a long period of time, we might have to come back and have that discussion. I would note that the Stryker would extend the protection period already from September one to March one, 2021, in recognition of the fact that this has already we're into the fourth month now since we really started. Oh, we're almost into the fourth month since the Governor's proclamation. And and given the phased ramp up period, this is likely to be economic impacts are likely to go on for quite some time. And I guess I then I'll just fall back on one of my cliche responses and paraphrase myself, anything you can make with an ordinance, you can change with an ordinance so we can always come back in and change it if necessary. How that answers your question, Councilmember. Does I appreciate your noting that it would extend the defense. When I say moratorium, I mean the defense to the eviction process outlined in this ordinance, at least I do in that case. So it would take it to March of next year. I see. I appreciate your optimism about being able to change things with an ordinance that are that are put in place where. But people need a plan. And people need to understand how the lingo of the legal landscape and I think some consistency and stability in our laws is appropriate. So again, I would feel more comfortable with some materiality requirements, particularly given the contemplated timeframe for these new defenses, which I think have merit at their core. I want to say that I think there is merit here, but some some some balancing of the. Impacts to the other side of the equation. I think it could be helpful. Lambert. Councilmember Lambert. Thank you. The bouncing equation. Great to my heart as a former math teacher, so thank you for balancing the equation. I liked what I heard earlier from the start of the Senator Carl Wells, but Councilmember Cole Wells about using some cares money for this. And I think if we're going to do this, we need to have some balance so that we're not seeing what's a social problem on the backs of individual citizens. And I think that there needs to be some more clarity on what was said earlier about some of the factual rewrites. So I think this is something that maybe we should go into executive session about and maybe we need a little more time on. Councilmember Lambert has had a request to go to the executive session to discuss issues appropriate for executive session. Yes, but I thought we should do that at the end of the meeting. Are we planning on taking action on this today? The sponsor has said that any marketing might be dependent on the conversation we've had in council today. Okay. And Dave, tell me logistically how that works. When we're doing it remotely, we have you know, we have get a number of we have to go on and then come back again. How does executive session work? Yes. Yes, that that is how it works. We have a separate scope for them. If we have an if we have an executive session. So. Okay. That's that's a lot of work getting in and out of that, and that slows things down for everybody. Councilmember Lambert Getting the job done is what's important as well is what's important here. Good attitude. Yes. I think we should go in and really talk about some of these things that I have some concerns. Okay. I want to be clear. That will be an executive session to discuss with legal counsel litigation or potential litigation for the county is or is likely to become a party where public knowledge regarding the discussion is likely to result in an adverse legal and financial consequence to the county. The committee will be in executive session for approximately. I'm going to start with 15 minutes until about 415. I'm asking KTVT to please post the viral meeting to that effect, and I'm asking all the council members and county employees directly necessary for the discussion to join the executive session by Skype at this time. Thank you.