The city of Port Townsend is looking to limit local landlords’ ability to increase rent costs without additional written notice to tenants.

Port Townsend City Council unanimously approved an ordinance in its Monday meeting that will block landlords from being able to increase the rent of a tenant by more than
3 percent unless the landlord provides written notice of the increase at least 120 days before it can take effect.

Any increases at or below 3 percent would be served in accordance with state laws.

“The goal here is not to be making it that the landlords can’t raise rent, but that because we are in a very low vacancy rental market here in Jefferson County … [the ordinance] gives people a lot more options and hopefully reduces homelessness, reduces kids suddenly changing schools, etcetera,” said Councilmember Libby Wennstrom.

The idea for the ordinance was first put forward by Port Townsend resident Connor Bouchard-Roberts to the city.

“This ordinance is a gesture of compassion as well as a recognition of our current reality,” Bouchard-Roberts said via public comment to the city.

“This ordinance will have nearly no effect on already existing positive landlord-tenant relationships. But the added notification period will have an incalculable impact on our neighbors who, having been priced out of their existing rentals by negligent landlords, are looking to stay (and work and make a life) in this town,” Bouchard-Roberts said.

While Washington state’s Residential-Landlord Tenant Act underwent many revisions this year and in 2021 to strengthen legal rights for tenants, the city’s new ordinance will further boost protections for renters.

The new tenant’s rights ordinance was discussed and reviewed in a recent Port Townsend Council Culture and Society Committee meeting prior to going to the city council.

During a mid-September meeting to talk about the proposal, three members of the committee discussed the ordinance extensively, unanimously approving a recommendation for it to go to the council for approval.

City Councilmembers Ben Thomas and Owen Rowe, along with City Attorney Heidi Greenwood attended the meeting, and discussed how educating landlords on the requirement would be a key focus of the ordinance.

“Most of the enforcement from our code enforcement officer would probably be around the term of education for landlords who may find themselves not giving tenants the appropriate amount of notice for any rent increase,” Greenwood said.

Another section of the ordinance will require landlords to inform renters of major increases along with a 180-day buffer before enacting rent increases above 10 percent.

As for enforcement of the code, landlords could be subjected to financial penalties of up to two times the cost of monthly rent for their rentals for violating or ignoring the ordinance, though city officials stated that the code enforcement would follow an education-first approach before the penalties are enforced.

“The code enforcement side would focus much more on education for landlords. In which case, what you would say is ‘Landlord, you didn’t give me appropriate notice,’ and that would basically just say ‘OK, we have to wait a couple more months before we impose this rent increase,’” Greenwood explained. “It always starts with education in our code enforcement process, and that’s really what that process is intended to do.”

After Thomas inquired about the potential consequences of violating the ordinance, Greenwood expanded on legal outcomes after the educational phase.

“Depending on what the violation is, it can jump to something immediately … but it starts with a requirement for voluntarily compliance. It moves on to a notice and order, and then civil penalties, and then, finally, criminal charges if we get there,” she said.

“I do think timing matters here, because I think we’re still at the worst of the market,” Thomas said.