Note on date: The provided date for this meeting is September 17, 2025, but the agenda, minutes, and transcript all indicate the meeting took place on Tuesday, September 16, 2025. The summary below reflects the actual meeting content from September 16, 2025.
The Olympia City Council held a study session covering four major agenda items: a briefing on tenant screening policy options, and three presentations on chapters of the Olympia 2045 Comprehensive Plan update (Land Use and Urban Design, Community Values and Vision, and Introduction). The meeting began at 6:00 PM and adjourned at 9:28 PM. Councilmembers discussed proposed policies, heard survey results, and provided direction to staff. Mayor Dontae Payne presided, with Mayor Pro Tem Yến Huỳnh excused.
Good evening and welcome to the Tuesday, September 16th, 2000, 2025 study session of the Olympia City Council. For the record, we have a quorum with Mayor Pro Temwin excuse tonight. So we have quite a few items on our agenda to get through tonight. That includes the tenant screening outreach and policy options briefing, followed by several presentations on our comprehensive plan chapter updates, which includes the land use and urban design chapter, the community values and vision chapter, as well as the introduction chapter of our comprehensive plans. So at this time, we're going to begin with the tenant screening outreach and policies options briefing to be presented by Crystal Lenson. Hi, Krista. Good evening. So I'm here to provide a briefing on tenant screening policy options, community input on proposed policy, and some potential approaches that council might consider taking to address this issue. So both the city's housing action plan and Thurston County's assessment of fair housing set out goals for the city to implement tenant protections and reduce barriers to housing access. The strategies and the plan were developed after gathering community input about housing challenges and gaps in our community. Strategies and the assessment of fair housing include educating tenants and landlords about how fair housing laws relate to the screening process, exploring ways to partner with and incentivize rental property owners to accept higher barrier tenants, and exploring policy solutions to reduce barriers to access housing. So HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity has released two key guidance documents that relate to tenant screening. One relates specifically to criminal history, and the other relates to criminal credit and rental history. So that's something that I'll be continuing to track and can provide more information as I have more to share. So staff reviewed both HUD guidance and sample policies from other jurisdictions to develop proposed policy elements that were shared with the land use and environment committee in May of 2025. So basically, those sample policies followed two different approaches. One is an individualized assessment made on a case-by-case basis. And one approach would be setting limitations on what aspects of a person's background may or may not be considered, basically to create some guardrails against having overly restrictive practices. Due to concerns discussed during that land use committee meeting regarding city enforcement and whether we could enforce individualized assessments adequately. By setting clearer standards for what is and isn't allowable, it helps both landlords in the community to comply and staff to be able to implement and enforce the policy. So the policies that will be presented in the briefing tonight follow that second approach. At the discussion at land use, they also felt there might be more support for some educational approaches, and there may be more support for policy elements to address in particular the income to rent ratios and possibly the use of social security numbers and tenant screening. So we actually did uh prior to that May 2025 meeting, there was a land use and environment committee meeting in November of 2024, where just the income to rent policies were addressed and considered. Um, and at that time, land use directed staff to draft a sample policy. And so that draft ordinance is also included in your packet. So for today, I'm looking at the proposed policy elements that align with land use's recommended approach with the topics listed on the slide. And then I'll provide some just some background information about each policy element and then the input that we heard via an Engage Olympia survey. And then there'll be an opportunity for you to discuss each policy after each one is presented. So all of these policies can be adapted further given the community's feedback and what changes they suggested that council might want to consider. So it would also be helpful to have direction today from council on whether they'd like staff to pursue the policies further, either with land use or with full counsel, or whether there's an alternative approach that you'd like staff to take, whether that's educational or programmatic, in addition to or in place of policy action. So just some background on the community survey that happened. This was open for three weeks in July and August. There was a survey for landlords and property managers, and a survey for renters and community service providers. And there were 283 total respondents to that survey. So in the Engage Olympia survey, landlords were asked about what types of screening they conduct and why. One thing that I particularly heard was that landlords are really interested in stable and verifiable income, and that they have concerns when they see things like self-employment, temporary or seasonal work, gig work, or a history of layoffs and frequent job changes. 80% of respondents perform a credit history check, primarily to review the tenants' history of bill payments, debt to income ratios, patterns, late payments, any active bankruptcies, previous liens by landlords, outstanding utility bills, and their overall ability to manage finances. 75% of respondents perform a criminal background check to ensure that tenants are not a threat to the landlord, neighbors, or don't have a history of property damage. Generally, landlords express the need to carefully screen in order to mitigate their risks. And many landlords cited how much more difficult and lengthy eviction processes have become with statewide just cause eviction standards and right to counsel within the last few years. So with that, they've become more cautious in their screening of tenants. Renters and service providers were asked about reasons that they or someone in their household has been rejected in the screening process. So 55% reported that their housing applications have been rejected due to their income being too low. Renters and community service providers were also asked to describe how they've been impacted by tenant screening processes. So common themes from more than 10% of respondents include experiences of being stuck in substandard housing conditions, housing instability, abusive situations, and homelessness because they were unable to qualify for housing opportunities. Renters and housing case managers have experienced or witnessed barriers in the screening process that prevent unhoused individuals from being becoming housed. And respondents shared how housing denials perpetuate homelessness, increase mortality rates, and are a public health issue. Respondents shared about how housing denials are costly due to paying application fees again and again and demoralizing for people who are unhoused or seeking housing. Some shared experiences of depleting their savings while they were staying in hotels because they could not qualify for housing. So I'm going to pause here and just see if there's any questions before I go into each of the proposed policies.