Possible required licensing for landlords causes stir on Alabama Hill

Alabama Hill landlords and tenants prepare for a potential new policy requiring licensing for property owners.

The Alabama Hill Association, AHA, neighborhood meeting took place Tuesday evening, fueling discussions over a potential license requirement for landlords. According to the executive summary of the “Options for Rental Housing Licensing and Quality Inspection Program in Bellingham” half of the homes in Bellingham are rentals. The summary calls for a shared responsibility among tenants and owners, a universally applied policy, the right to regulate the business of renting, and a least-cost design to achieve policy goals.

The program was introduced by JD Marris of Keller Williams Realty, president of the Whatcom County Realtors Association. Marris explained the four different methods of approach used when implementing the new policy, the “recipe for regulation” includes: focusing on nuisances, targeting housing quality and safety, regulating tenancy situations, and making efforts to engage universities in cooperatively solving problems with off-campus rentals.

Increased complaints about tenants call for addressing nuisances

According to Marris, the number of complaints called on Bellingham rentals has gone up; he calls for a solution focused on dealing with nuisances. The program would require annual checks on rental homes, a local landlord group with an area representative, and a 5 point system of nuisance violations, where tenants could potentially be evicted for a series of complaints against them.

The licenses would likely be costly to achieve, and would require the employment of more city officials for increased enforcement, the cost on average of a city employee is 70,000 dollars, said Marris.

Marris’ concern is mainly in regards to students “60 percent of the WWU population is off-campus and youngsters that attend local colleges like to…misbehave,” he said while addressing the AHA, the issue is “parties in close proximity to neighbors who frown on such activities.”

Richard Maneval, chair of the Assocation of Bellingham Neighborhoods believes the problem lies elsewhere “I’ve never had a problem with students,” said Maneval, who is currently a Bellingham landlord, “the problem is not with students, it’s with people who have dropped out, or who are not attending school.”

Health and safety also a major issue among Bellingham homes

This prospective plan has been discussed in Bellingham before, “a lot of things were promised, but nothing was done,” said Richard Conoby, affiliated with the Campus Community Coalition at Western Washington University.

Out of the 35,000 living units in Bellingham, 17,000 are rental, and at least 8,000 are rented by students, said Conoby, he believes something needs to be done about rental housing in Bellingham, but the problem is not students, its safety, “this is not just about students, not just about nuisances, this is about health and safety,” he said.

Sharon von See, resident of Alabama Hill has a daughter living in rental properties, “I think it’s a good idea,” she said of the proposed plan “my daughter lives in places I would never live in, landlords would raise the rent, but they would also have to take care of them [rental units].”

The executive summary states that the program would be based off of a similar plan executed in Pasco, Wash. where – according to Conoby – inspectors discovered 85 percent of the houses to have problems, 15 percent to have serious health and safety concerns, and at least 10 percent to be molding.

Neighborhoods slated to be at risk of depreciating

“The issue for us is about health and safety,” said Conoby, and we don’t want to “change the nature of the neighborhood” with deteriorating houses, he said.

According to Maneval, in Alabama Hill half to one of every ten houses is a rental unit, the neighborhood is making an effort to not let rental houses affect the quality of the neighborhood like what has happened in surrounding neighborhoods, he said.

Maneval is fighting to keep the nature of Alabama Hill alive. Unsafe rental houses “create an unhealthy environment, and devalue the neighborhood,” he said. After 15 years experience dealing with “slumlords” and a legal system that is of no help, something needs to be done, said Maneval. There is uniqueness about Bellingham that comes from its renting population, if this proposed plan is applied, we’re going to need to educate and enforce it, he said.