All right, good afternoon, everyone.

Um, the July 8th, 2026, meeting of the Housing Arts and Civil Rights Committee will come to order.

It is 204 p.m.

I'm Dion Foster, Chair of the Housing Arts and Civil Rights Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council President Hollingsworth.

Here.

Vice Chair Lynn here.

Chair Foster.

Here.

Chair, there are three members present.

Okay, please note that Councilmember Zuarez and Councilmember Rink have been excused.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments to relate to items on today's agenda or within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Currently we have 37 in-person speakers signed up, and there are seven remote speakers.

Okay, great.

Each speaker will have one minute.

We will start with the in-person speakers first.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?

Public comment period is up to 60 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they are registered.

We will begin with in-person speakers and then move to remote speakers.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call in the next speaker.

The public comment period is now open.

We will begin with the first speaker on the list.

Okay, fantastic.

And I will read the first two speakers.

Um, and so we have a couple of different mics that folks can come up to.

So just ask when I call your name, you can kind of cue up.

So our first speaker is Super Liv Morgan, and then our second speaker is Taylor Far.

Oh, Taylor Fervey.

Yeah, any mic is fine.

Good afternoon.

My name is Super Lib Morgan.

I am a tenant renter in Seattle Housing Authority.

Uh, Seattle Housing Authority is starting to institute a 250 dollar fee for every false fire alarm on every single SHA tenant.

When I heard this, I was beyond boiling.

This is not right.

This is not fair to have tenants.

Even SHA is getting into the game of the junk fees.

Ban junk fees.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, our next speaker is Taylor, and following Taylor, we're going to have Skylar Parenthow and Michelle Thomas.

Hello, my name is Taylor Farley.

I'm with Queer Power Alliance.

With this bill, as renters will know exactly what they are paying and applying for when they are applying to rent a place.

Landlords won't be able to hide fees or make decisions about renters' financials by changing their arbitrary fees that don't really cost have a cost to them.

It does have a cost to the renters, though.

With this new uh flex with the new flex of trans people coming in and moving to Seattle, we also know that this will help them to find places more affordable, and then it is important to pass this legislation at this time.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Um okay, next we'll have Skylar and Michelle, and following that we'll have Lydia Felty and Noah Williams.

Hello, my name is Skylar Parento.

I am a renter living in Capitol Hill at this moment in time.

And I urge the council to take action by holding landlords accountable towards reducing hidden and unnecessary rental junk fees.

I am in a very privileged position in my area in Capitol Hill, being able to live without junk fees, and I am struggling.

If I am struggling, I know that my neighbors who are not as lucky who have heard horror stories from are barely able to pay for things outside of rents, such as groceries, being able to get pet care items, and so on.

And I want to mention that banning junk fees would also be of benefit to the city, because that means that the money that us as citizens of Seattle that we wouldn't have to pay towards junk fees would be money that we hold in our pockets and be able to spend on groceries, pet supplies, other items that we need for gas, all that would be within Seattle limits and bring up the money.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And just so folks know when the time goes off, you still have 10 seconds left.

Um, so just so everyone knows that, and the clock will be up there.

Um, okay, next we have Michelle Thomas, and following Michelle, we have Lydia Felty.

Hi, I'm Michelle with the Washington Housing Alliance.

I live in District One, and we have advocates in every city in the district.

Thank you, Mayor Wilson and Councilmember Foster for bringing forward legislation to address junk fees that tenants in the city are being gouged with.

Fees are a growing issue in Seattle, and you are to be commended for tackling this now.

Tenants are being forced to pay unfair, excessive, and oftentimes deceptive fees.

This matters as a basic issue of fairness, but also because junk fees are making our housing crisis in Seattle worse and are exasperating race-based housing inequities.

Squeezing tenants like this is an unfair business practice, and it needs to stop.

The enforcement mechanisms uh enforcement mechanisms in the bill are critical, and we applaud its inclusion.

We're dismayed though with the long implementation date.

Tenants are hurting now, and gouging will likely increase over the next year.

But irregardless, please move the bill forward quickly, and please do not accept any amendments that would weaken the protections.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So next we have Lydia Felty and Noah Williams.

Following that, we are going to have David Hill and Lam Ho.

Hi, my name is Lydia Felte.

I'm a renter in D3, as well as the co-chair of the Seattle Renters Commission.

The Seattle Renters Commission supports banning junk fees to reduce hidden and unnecessary housing costs.

From landscaping and lease renewal fees to in-unit appliance and pest control fees.

Our commission has heard time and time again from constituents that junk fees have a significant impact on housing stability.

In a city where nearly half of renters are cost burdened and a quarter spend at least half of their income on rent, knowing that housing costs, knowing our housing costs up front ensures that renters are able to plan and budget appropriately, rather than being surprised by mandatory monthly fees that were not disclosed up front.

This legislation is about transparency and predictability, and it's about upholding the renter protections designed to protect renters from price gouging.

This comprehensive ban on fees, which does not prevent landlords from setting fair market rents or charging for opt-in services with its enforcement mechanisms is imperative.

Please pass this ordinance without any weakening amendments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we have Noah Williams and then David Hill.

Good afternoon, Council members.

Um, Chair Foster, my name's Noah.

I'm a renter in West Seattle, and like other commenters who hear from, I'm charged a fee to pay my rent.

But all things considered, I have it pretty good.

Reasonable rent for a one-bedroom and a competent property manager who's not a jerk.

Sadly, my friend Wes, a renter in Northgate, isn't so lucky.

He lives with his wife and their small dog, and between the three of them, there is only one income in their household, which he couldn't join us today for because he has to keep his employer happy.

On top of his nearly $3,000 rent, Wes has to pay rent for his dog who doesn't earn an income, an amenity fee for providing access to the common areas like a delivery room, and a mandatory fee for the dog water internet that barely works, one for the building's access control system.

Yes, he has to pay a fee to unlock his building's front door.

Wes also pays electricity and natural gas bills for the common areas under rubs, which, if I am not mistaken, is an illegal fee that the landlord had to have the audacity to put into writing.

Please pass this bill banning the shadow rent increases and pass a follow-up that defangs the internet service provider cabal in Seattle so that Comcast can't charge a fee to every tenant in the building.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

We have David Hill, Lam Ho, and Parker Nichols.

Good afternoon.

My name is David Hill.

I'm a renter living in Roosevelt, and I'm here representing the transit riders union.

True strongly urges the council to pass the mayor's proposal to ban junk fees exactly as introduced, and to fiercely oppose any amendments that would weaken it.

Corporate landlords who tack on hundreds of dollars in hidden costs, administrative fees, and pet fees are actively exploiting renters and driving economic displacement.

They're using these backdoor charges to claim artificial baseline rents and skirt existing renter protections.

As a dog dad, I experience the absurdity of this firsthand.

In my building, pets are not driving maintenance needs.

Yet I am forced to pay pet rent for my little baby girl Maggie, even though I already pay an extra security deposit for her.

Charging a dog rent is asinine.

It's a cash grab, and it goes straight into my landlord's profit margin while doing nothing to improve the tenant experience.

Please stand with Seattle renters, pass these renter protections without loopholes.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, Lam Ho, Parker Nichols, Jake Mason.

Good afternoon.

My name is Lam Ho, and I am the general manager for the Transit Writers Union.

Prior to being the general manager for True, I was the executive director of a legal aid organization, Beyond Legal Aid, which represented hundreds of tenants every year.

For 18 years, I've represented tenants.

And I wanted to speak about the enforcement component of this bill, one of the strongest uh enforcement uh sort of mechanisms that you'll see in Seattle.

And I really want to uh urge the council to not dilute those enforcements.

Don't accept any amendments that will uh make it not as strong.

Um, as an attorney, as I mentioned, for 18 years, I saw just how essentially worthless um uh policies were or or laws were if there was not enough teeth to the enforcement.

Here you have uh a three-pronged comprehensive approach to enforcement, which is absolutely necessary, not only for lawyers but for tenants to be able to be self advocates, and that is a critical piece to making sure that we can genuinely ban junk fees.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All righty, Parker Nichols, Jake Mason, and Danielle Durall.

And apologies if I say anybody's name wrong.

Hi.

Hi uh good afternoon.

My name is Parker Nicholson.

Oh, sorry.

Thanks.

Uh good afternoon.

My name is Parker Nicholson.

Uh, born and raised Seattleite.

Uh, I'm a developer of housing in this city and this region.

I have about 700 units uh of housing under construction, most notably not in Seattle, and there's a reason for that.

Uh the institutional investors who fund our projects are uh afraid to put capital to work in this city due to the constantly evolving and changing policy on the ground.

I'm not against transparency in how rents are charged in this city.

I think it can be done in a way that's fair and transparent, but I am against just the continued uh sort of focus and scrutiny and ever-changing policy that makes it unpredictable to put money to work in this city to build more housing.

And the only way we're gonna actually reduce rents in this town is to build our way out of the housing crisis.

And, you know, continued pressure uh and scrutiny on our business is counterproductive.

Gotta look to places like Austin, Texas.

Rents are going down.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You if you have more comments, you can leave them in that bucket right there.

Thank you.

Appreciate you.

Um, okay.

Next up is Jake Mason, Danielle Durall and Ethan uh Steiger.

Good afternoon.

My name is Jake Mason.

I'm here with the Washington Multifamily Housing Association.

Here today in strong support of the transparency provisions included in the proposed rental fee regulation and in strong support of a collaborative policymaking process aimed at holding bad landlords accountable, banning junk fees, allowing pets and bringing more housing to the Seattle market to bring rents down.

Unfortunately, the proposal in front of you uh raises rents.

The proposal in front of you ties good landlords up in red tape while failing to go far enough to hold bad landlords accountable for deceptive practices.

The proposal in front of you reduces opportunities to bring more housing to Seattle and will continue to keep new housing development out of our city.

It was clear to me in the stakeholder meeting that was held with the mayor's office as well as here in the hallway that there is significant overlap in the uh in what we can accomplish with tenants' groups, and I stand ready as a as a partner in a collaborative process moving forward.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right, Dan Yo, and then Ethan Steiger and Taylor uh Shanahan.

Great.

I'm Danielle Duval, the executive director of Credo, Washington State, formerly NAOP, the commercial real estate development association representing industry professionals delivering and operating much of the market rate multifamily housing this city needs.

Thank you for your leadership and focus on housing affordability.

We support transparency and agree renters should clearly understand the cost associated with their housing.

Our concern is that the proposal goes beyond transparency and adds another operational requirement at a time when housing providers are already facing rising carts and complex regulatory environments.

New regulations increase costs, reduce flexibility, and make housing more expensive to provide.

Restricting them doesn't mean those costs disappear.

The question is about fairness and how those costs are recovered.

In many cases, those costs will get folded into base rent and spread across all residents, regardless of who uses those particular services and amenities.

Market rate multifamily housing also depends on private investment, which we need to meet our growing housing needs.

We know that the most effective way to improve affordability over time is to build more housing.

Thank you.

And if you have more comments again, you can place them there or you can send them via email.

Thank you.

Okay, next we have Ethan, followed by Taylor and then Randy Banneker.

Good afternoon, Council members.

I'm a community organizer for your city and a Roosevelt renter.

I'm here today to urge you to take action towards reducing hidden and unnecessary costs and holding landlords accountable by supporting the proposed rental junk fee ordinance.

Renters deserve straightforward pricing that reflects what they will actually pay out of pocket.

As a community organizer, I've spoken to hundreds of people who are rent burdened because of unexpected costs.

Renters are the majority in Seattle, and tens of thousands of Seattleites are affected by junk fees, but today you'll only hear from fraction of them.

Housing is a human right.

Yet these costs serve as barriers to housing, box people out of the city they call home, and turn bright creative Seattleites that want to contribute to the cultural fabric of this great city into people who work, pay rent, and hopefully afford groceries.

Council members, please pass this ordinance without any weakening amendments.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

So we have Taylor, Randy Banneker, and then Alec Musante.

Great.

Thank you.

My name's Taylor Shanneman.

I'm here on behalf of the Seattle King County Realtors, commenting on the homeowner privacy and protection legislation.

Realtors want to work with you and the community to stop unwanted calls to homeowners and to shut down predatory home buying and wholesaling practices.

Those practices target vulnerable homeowners and can strip away home equity by offering far below a property's true market value.

Those practices harm your constituents and they also harm the clients and communities our members serve.

We are asking for a reasonable middle ground, one that protects homeowners from predatory conduct while preserving legitimate, transparent communication from licensed real estate professionals.

As drafted, the ordinance risks chilling responsible communication by licensed brokers through the threat of fines while doing little to stop boiler room tactics by unlicensed wholesalers who are difficult to identify and hold accountable.

We have offered suggestions to refine the definition of solicit.

We also urge the city to be bold in addressing predatory whole wholesaling in Seattle by targeting deceptive and high pressure uh practices.

We ask that you would line this proposal with the predatory homebuying ordinance from last year, collaborate with us to identify predatory home wholesalers, and align the ordinance with already existing national job call registry.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And you can put those in the chat or the chat bot.

In the in the bucket if you didn't get to finish.

All right.

Randy, Alec, and then Khalil.

Sure, Foster uh council members.

Randy Banniker also here on the behalf of the Sale of King County Realtors regarding the homeowner privacy and protection ordinance.

Can you hear?

Um I just uh underscore what uh what Taylor uh the previous speaker just said, and that is we do want to work with you on uh stopping the calls to to homeowners.

We think the way to do that is to go after the wholesalers, and we'd like to work with you to pair last year's ordinance on predatory home buying with this ordinance, which would couple office of civil rights and FAS in enforcement and really going after those wholesalers to stop it because the list isn't gonna stop it.

You'll stop us, you'll chill our our uh our voice unless we can get some safe harbor, but you won't stop the wholesalers until we can work together and get them out of business in Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Next we have um Khalil Um Hamdu uh Cleo, I'm sorry.

Oh, I oh actually, did I just skip somebody?

Next we have Alec.

Okay.

And then we have Khalil and then somebody who's just listed as Dom.

Hey there.

Uh my name's Alec.

I'm a rent.

Oh.

And we'll just we'll restart your time.

You can use this mic if you want, but just speak right into the mic.

Okay.

Hey there.

My name is Alec Monsante.

I'm a renter in downtown Seattle, and I support the ban against junk fees.

Uh, one such fee that I'm affected by uh every month is uh pet rent fee.

Uh I pay an extra $50 per month on top of my base rent just to keep my cat and uh with me.

And this $50 doesn't like help at all.

Like it just goes straight to the landlord.

I still take care of all my cat's amenities, his food, his litter, etc.

etc.

And also every year I have to pay a pet screening fee where I file a bunch of paperwork on vaccines uh that I take him to the vet for and pay for myself, and it's just another tax on my ability to live in this city, and I would very much like to do so.

So I council members, I urge you to support uh the full ban on all junk fees uh for renters in Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, next we have Khalil Dom, and then we have Anitra Friedman and Caroline Russell.

Good afternoon.

My name is Khalil Hamid Udine.

I'm with SCIU6.

Banning junk fees is a critical step to making Seattle Seattle affordable for everyone.

I applaud Mayor Wilson and the council and council member Foster for taking action to address the affordability crisis in this city.

SCIU6 represents 10,000 members, 7,000 plus work in Seattle, and 3200 of them live in the city.

Our members are janitors, security guards, and airport workers who provide critical services to the city and region.

By and large, our members would love to live in the city they work in, but way too many of them just can't afford it.

Our society is at an existential crisis where prices increase without the thought of can people afford it.

My question to landlords is simple.

If no one can afford to live in the city, who's gonna pay the rent that you all keep increasing?

I look forward to seeing what next steps the council and mayor take to make this city affordable for everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you, Khalil.

Okay.

Dom, Anitra Freeman, Caroline Russell, Jeff Paul.

Hi, my name is Dom.

I believe junk fees are a major contributing factor in our homelessness epidemic here in my hometown, the city we love Seattle.

I live in a tent city.

Most of the people I know on the streets, myself included, have not always been homeless.

And often we have stories which include being evicted, being slammed with tons of fees, especially pet fees, making it more difficult and sometimes nearly impossible to find housing.

If you want to help solve homelessness, if you want to keep people housed, and if you love Seattle like me, you love living in a city that believes and rights for all, housing for all.

If you love Seattle like me, you'll end junk fees.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Great.

We've got Anitra.

Oh, there you are.

Okay, great.

Anitra Freeman.

Thank you.

Uh my name is Anika Freeman, and I am a participant in Wheel and Share homeless organizing efforts.

Um, homeless and formerly homeless people working together.

I'm one of the formerly homeless.

My homeless friends also want to be renters.

Junk fees make it harder.

Make it twice as hard.

You can a lot of my friend homeless friends have jobs and they're saving up money.

But you think you have enough money to get uh an you know, a rent that was advertised.

You go in and you pay the application fee, and you get down to signing the lease and find out that it's actually several hundred by that.

I appreciate the work that you put into this, council member Foster.

Don't let anybody weaken it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

We have thank you, thank you, thank you.

We have Caroline Russell, Jeff Paul, Sanjay Katapali, and then Kevin Schilling.

Hi, Council.

My name is Caroline Russell.

I'm a D3 resident.

Uh my first apartment in Seattle was one in Capitol Hill.

Uh, it was a beautiful apartment.

I lived there for two years before the costs of rent and fees became too high for me to continue paying.

Uh during that time, I was charged a total of $60 for the privilege of paying my own rent, $144 for a key fob system I didn't ask for, $372 for a gym I never used, and $1,200 for a seven-pound cat who did no damage to my apartment at my landlord's own admission.

For the last three years, I've now been living in a beautiful apartment in the same with the same square footage in the same neighborhood where I pay less in rent.

This landlord did away with pet rent right after I moved in.

They renovated our laundry room and they charge us no fees to use it.

And they in fact only charge us for the things we actually use, and they still make plenty of income off of my rent.

So I know this can be done.

Landlords will tell you about unpredictability, but what about the unpredictability of not knowing whether you'll be able to stay in the house that you love, in the city you love, in the neighborhood you love.

This is what really matters.

I urge you to pass this legislation with no changes, span junk fees.

Jeff, Sanjay, Kevin, and then M.

Smith.

Good afternoon, Council.

My name is Jeff Paul.

I'm the interim co-executive director of Houser Neighbors, and apologies for anyone who is at the press conference.

This might sound a little redundant.

But today I'm here to talk as a renter who has moved eight times in the last nine years, including one time into my car, over $90.

I'm here to talk about what it's like to live paycheck to paycheck with no savings in the city, which is a very normal experience.

In 2018, I was barely making ends meet when my employer illegally stopped paying me for months.

I didn't have the savings to float the difference, so I got temp jobs on the side, doing dockwalking, stocking shelves overnight, and everything I could to pull the cash together to make rent.

But it wasn't enough.

Unfortunately, I didn't know my tenant rights, like many renters in the city.

Uh and that $90 gap ended up pushing me out of my house and into my car.

Um so when landlords tell me that they can't afford us banning these fees, my simple response is that we can't afford to pay them.

I certainly couldn't have floated the hundred and fifty-dollar fee that Mayor Wilson mentioned in her press conference.

Uh and many other people can't either.

Let's protect our most precarious renters and ban these junk fees.

Thank you.

Okay, Sanjay, Kevin, M.

Smith, Spencer Rawls.

Hi, my name's Sanjay, and I'm a graduate student researcher at the University of Washington and a member of UAW 4121.

The union which represents nearly 10,000 academic workers at UW.

The majority of UAW members like me are renters in Seattle.

My colleagues and I carry out life-saving research on cancer, genetics, wildfire mitigation, and more.

It should be these critical issues that keep us up at night, not worrying about making rent next month or new fees from our landlords.

Some of our members are only paid for nine months out of the year and are forced to stretch these paychecks and fight to secure precarious temporary employment for the summer.

With recent federal funding cuts, less positions are offered every quarter.

The council has the opportunity through this bill to mitigate the incredibly regressive system of landlords passing on opaque costs to renters.

This bill is absolutely necessary to protect tenants, and we urge you to pass this bill in its current form.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

We're gonna we're gonna keep moving, Kevin.

Good afternoon, council members.

Kevin Schilling with the Rental Housing Association of Washington.

Let's be clear.

Renters deserve transparency.

They deserve to know the full cost of housing before they apply.

We support that.

But this ordinance doesn't just require disclosure.

When you ban a cost, the cost doesn't disappear.

It moves into rent.

The renter who doesn't use the services pays.

Everyone pays more.

That's not affordability.

That's cost shifting.

Even the city's own expert acknowledged advertised rents will increase.

Then there's enforcement.

A paperwork mistake can trigger penalties and lawsuits.

And to fund it all, the city wants to impose a new fee on every rental home, a new fee to regulate fees.

Seattle keeps adding costs mandates and legal risks to housing.

And every time the result is the same, less housing, higher costs, and fewer choices choices for renters.

To keep the transparency provisions, require disclosure, require honesty, but reject the fee bans, the cost caps, and the private right of action.

Because transparency helps renters hire rents do not.

Thank you.

Thank you.

M.

Smith, Spencer Rawls, Harper Nally, and Fendon Pop to you.

Hi, my name is M Smith.

I'm a renter in Seattle.

I'm a member of Labor Militant.

Uh the council needs to ban these junk fees and do it without loopholes, without any watering down.

We have uh corporate uh representatives of the real estate industry coming up here, crying crocodile tears.

When the three biggest landlords in Seattle, Essex, uh Equity, and Avalon Bay made $3 billion dollars of profit last year.

Uh, if they're arguing, if they're threatening to push these costs onto renters in the form of increased rent, we need to fight for rent control.

We need to fight for public housing, we need to fight to ban other junk fees which aren't included in this legislation, like rubs, which is a junk fee.

Landlords are pushing the costs of utilities that renters aren't using onto us, including for vacant units.

Uh, if any Democrat on this council had courage and was wanting to fight for renters, they would introduce an amendment to include a ban on rubs in this legislation.

Uh, we need to fight for this.

The Democrats aren't doing this because they fight for renters, they're doing it because of the pressure of our movement.

We need to escalate, we need to fight for more.

We need to fight for rent control and the full renters' bill of rights.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

Spencer, and I'm gonna try to keep us moving, folks.

We have one committee member who has a hard stop at 4 30.

We have two presentations after public comment.

Spencer, Harper, Fendon Pop 2, Steph Haggerty.

Thank you.

Hi.

My name is Spencer Rawls, and I rent a microappartment in Capitol Hill.

The advertised rent of my unit was $12.95.

The total I pay after fees is $14.88.

That is an absurd difference.

Part of that is pet rent, which we all know is just a blatant scam.

That should be banned.

Um, part of that is a flat $125 utility fee.

Now, of course, I don't expect not to pay utilities, but there are several problems with that model.

One is it should be advertised as part of the fixed costs because it is a known fixed cost.

Um, the landlord tries to have it both ways, treating that utility fee as part of rent when it's convenient for them, but only when it's convenient for them.

Um, three is that it doesn't adjust when major appliances are out of order and not using any power.

Uh the heat pumps in my apartment have been out of order since November, and so they haven't been using any power, but we're still paying the full the full utility fee.

Uh ban junk fees and require um you know disclosure.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Harper Nelly and a resident of district three.

Uh, and I pay an extra 40 dollars in rent, essentially.

Uh, as does everybody else in my apartment building.

Uh we pay $10 to pay rent, and we pay $30 for Wi-Fi that does not work.

Uh this is I mean, we've heard that uh rents will go up.

Uh I don't really see how that's different than what I already pay.

Uh it may not be called rent, but it's rent uh because every single one of us pays it.

It's not a uh it's not doesn't change depending on who uh uses this or not.

I can't uh not pay the Wi-Fi fee uh even if I don't use it.

But so that means that this is rent.

So when these uh landlords are coming up and talking about how our rents are going to increase because uh we're banning fees if we ban fees, uh that's doesn't really make a lot of sense.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, Fendon staff.

Then we have Lexi Salas and uh Raul or maybe Paul Esteris Esteves.

Uh hi, my name is uh Ferdin Paptia, um, and I'm a student organizer, and I'm here to encourage the passage of this bill without any loopholes.

Uh Seattle is in a severe protracted housing crisis, and it is killing the state, and it harms us on many dimensions.

Uh, unaffordable housing means that renters are saddled with uh hidden fees that they can't account for when looking for housing.

Uh beyond that, it hurts people out of state, trans people, immigrants who come to the state because they're being harmed by hostile federal and state governments, don't know what kind of housing market they're getting into, and are faced with a very precarious situation.

And finally, on an unaffordable housing market hurts our state representation.

It makes people want to leave, makes people want not want to live here.

Uh, you cannot have abundance without affordability, and even if this bill passes, we still have a lot further to go in the state.

So thank you.

Thank you.

All right, Steph, and then Lexi.

Hi there.

Hi there.

My name is Steph Haggerty, U District renter, and speaking today in support of banning junk fees.

Junk fees are unaffordable, not fair, and they hurt my friends.

I'm speaking on behalf today of some of my friends who can't be here because they're working to try to pay rent and junk fees.

One of those stories is my friend Allison, nonprofit worker in Columbia City, pays $40 per month.

That's just one example junk fee to access the privilege of accessing the landlord's property management portal and paying rent.

That's a landlord business expense, but it's called resident benefits on her bill.

She can barely afford to live in that apartment, and that's nearly $500 a year that makes impacts her ability to make it in the city and wasn't transparent in advertised rental price.

Um, this is just one example of many, but you know, these fees are prevalent across the city as we're hearing today.

Um, the rent to dam high, so are the junk fees.

We as renters deserve freedom from price gouging and deserve pricing transparency.

Seattle is over half residents and increasingly we are your constituents.

Please ban junk fees without weakening amendments to make Seattle more fair and affordable.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Lexi Salas, are you here?

Lexi, okay.

We'll try to come back to you.

Uh Paul or Raul.

Okay.

My name is Paul Steves.

I'm a renter in District 3.

Uh, just wanted to thank you for considering this piece of legislation.

It's badly needed.

Uh, you know, price transparency is uh it will eventually lower uh rent in the long term.

Uh, just wanted to counter the narrative that uh we're okay with the rent going up.

It's better than seemingly unlimited fees.

Uh that's what's happening in the current situation.

Um the most egregious of fees is rubs, the utility uh billing system is completely unfair.

Um, I think the mayor's uh rental survey uh demonstrated that.

Um, the current situation I'm in now, it seems like I'm paying for laundry uh both per use but also the utilities running that machine.

I don't think that's fair.

Um, we don't water down any of the enforcement mechanisms in this bill.

In fact, we need more.

Uh, I think we need an actual housing court.

We need to do things like ban pocket service for uh default judgments and evictions.

Thank you.

Lexi, and then we have Heather Fancher and Leah Salerno.

Hello, my name is Lexi Salas, and I'm a renter in District Three.

I'm here today to urge our city council to support the proposed rental junk fee ordinance without any weakening amendments.

I moved to Seattle over three years ago to free myself from domestic violence.

It's really important for me to support myself and my dog independently so that I don't have to make decisions that compromise my emotional and financial well-being.

It was stressful figuring out my housing budget with so many hidden fees, and it was challenging to find a home that didn't penalize me hundreds and hundreds of dollars for having a pet.

So far, I've paid $950 in pet rent.

I know too many people who stay in dysfunctional and abusive homes because they cannot afford moving costs and they cannot afford rising rents and hidden junk fees.

We all deserve homes free of violence and coercion.

Our housing should never be held over our heads as a form of control, and that includes from landlords.

That's why I urge City Council to ban junk fees without any weakening amendments.

Thank you.

Heather Fanscher and then Leah Salerno and Carl Nelson.

Heather, are you here?

Good afternoon.

I'm Heather with Tent City Three and the Share Wheel organization.

We're working on housing and would like to be a renter someday.

However, we can't afford it.

Remove the hidden junk fees so that housing can become obtainable for those most in need.

We need to pass this legislation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh we have Leah Salerno, Carl Nelson, Casey Burton.

Hi, uh, I'm Leah Salerno.

I'm an attorney, the current vice chair of the Seattle Social Housing Developer Board, and today I'm speaking in my personal capacity as a longtime renter in Seattle.

I'm here in support of the legislation to ban junk fees and to urge that it's passed without any amendments weakening it, because we need to ban junk fees and make sure there is strong enforcement of these protections.

I have a support animal that helps me maintain stability and complete several of my activities of daily living.

A couple years ago, my landlord decided to add on a pet screening junk fee through a third party.

They insisted I needed to reapply for my reasonable accommodation they'd already approved by handing over even more medical information to that third party in order to avoid the twin junk fees of pet screening and pet rent.

As an attorney who spent much of my career working in disability civil rights, I was able to handle it, but it took me hours.

We need enforcement mechanisms to make sure others can also enforce their rights.

Thank you.

Carl, then Casey and Kate Rubin.

Hello, members of council.

Thank you.

My name is Carl Nelson.

I'm a 17-year renter here in Seattle, a board member of the Seattle Social Housing Developer, and the co-chair of the Cedar Crossing Tenants Association in District 4.

I'm here in my personal capacity today to speaking uh speak for the banning of junk fees and for robust enforcement measures to make sure this legislation is effective.

As a renter and attendance organizer, I have seen firsthand how landlords only take rules seriously when there are actual penalties to breaking them.

I have also seen firsthand the way small and not so small fees, superfluous fees add up to burden and sometimes unhouse our most vulnerable population.

Housing is factually a human need, and in a just society, we should treat it uh as such, especially before it is prioritized as an investment.

This legislation is about transparency, fairness, and consumer protection.

I urge the council to adopt this legislation and specifically to make sure the enforcement measures remain intact and unaltered.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Okay.

Casey, Kate Rubin, Howard Gale, Olivia Lindstrom.

Thank you for oh, that on.

Just come really, that one's fine.

Just come closer to it, like closer than you think.

Closer than it is.

There we go.

Thank you.

My name's Casey Burton.

I am a renter in district two.

Uh I live in a large apartment complex and pay many junk fees.

My landlord charges residents a number of fees, including a dollar a month parcel locker, even if you your package doesn't end up in a parcel or you don't want it, or pardon, in a parcel locker.

Uh, we pay $30 a month valet trash fee.

They don't actually take our compost though, they only take some of our trash.

We have to take the rest out.

Uh they pay, they make us pay a $70 technology rent fee for internet that we didn't ask for, don't need, don't want it.

And they also charge people $95 a month for pet rent.

Now, my dog is 14.

He spends most of his time sleeping on the couch or on what has become his armchair.

He can't pay rent.

He's very cute, but he's incapable of paying rent.

And we really need to make sure that we are protecting the families that we have and the households we have.

Further, it's really important that we invest in enforcement because otherwise tenants are going to be on their own and they're funding.

Thank you.

And if you have more comments, you can put them in the box.

Kate Rubin, Howard Gale, Olivia Lindstrom, Daniel Gallagher.

Hi, I'm Kate Rubin.

Um, I'm a renter living in District 2.

I am the co-executive director of B Seattle, an organization that serves renters, and I am co-chair of the Seattle Renters Commission.

Today I would like to specifically address pet rent, as that is a scam, and it's kind of one of the longest running junk fees that we have.

Um landlords have argued that uh they need to charge pet rent because pets cause damage to the unit.

Um, but uh tenants are responsible for paying for that damage regardless how much pet rent they paid.

So if they paid thousands of dollars to the landlord, they still have to pay whatever damage costs without without getting that money attributed to the damage.

Additionally, they say, well, it's just for it's for maintenance uh from the wear and tear of having pets come through or from maintaining the property.

Uh there are lots of ways that properties get damaged.

Um it's not just pet owners and uh renters shouldn't vary the carry that burden.

Thank you.

Howard Gale.

Olivia, Olivia Lindstrom, Daniel Gallagher, Gordon Haggerty.

Hi, howard Gale.

For the people here today representing landlords and greed.

130 years ago when New York City was first trying to protect public health with regulations on food.

Operators and trade groups protested laws requiring mechanical refrigeration, hand washing sinks, safe food storage, arguing these mandates were economically prohibitive, unenforceable, or driven by anti-competitive motives.

We've been here before.

You know, we need protections.

The legislation before you is a minimal, it's a floor.

What I would say is most lacking in this legislation is the enforcement.

SDCI has a conflict of interest.

They represent landlords and developers.

So the most important thing this legislation could do to move the ball forward is to actually take is to take the enforcement out of SDCI.

And just like we have the Office of Labor Standards, we should have an independent office in the city that is actually answerable to renters and protects renters without the confound that SDCI has.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Olivia, Daniel Gat, Daniel Gallagher, Gordon Hagerty, and Tetra Bingham.

Hello, I'm Olivia, and I'm a renter living in Beacon Hill.

I'm here to urge City Council to take action to hold landlords accountable and reduce false advertising and unnecessary housing costs by supporting the proposed rental junk fee ordinance.

In October 2025, my husband and I spent weeks searching for housing in Seattle and applied to lease our apartment, which was advertised at $2,285 per month in red, and an equal amount for security deposit.

When it came to sign our lease, after we had already played paid to apply, we were surprised to see a charge of $70 per month in pet rent, a $540 pet deposit, and last month's rent were all required prior to move in.

However, apartment advertising did not explicitly list these costs prior to the lease signing.

So before we even occupy the apartment, we had to pay an unexpected amount of rent totaling $2,895.

Renters are straightforward pricing that reflects what they will actually pay out of pocket.

Please pass this ordinance without any weakening amendments.

Thank you.

Daniel Gallagher, Gordon Gordon Hagerty, Tetra Bingham, Rachel Snell.

Thank you, Council.

My name is Daniel Gallagher.

I'm a Seattle based developer of workforce and affordable housing.

It's good to see you all today.

I encourage you to be very, very aggressive in rooting out landlords who break the law or fail to be transparent in their leasing activities.

No question there.

That said, I encourage you to be very careful in considering the unintended consequences of broadbands on fees based in particular on optional uses, including, for instance, pet bans or sorry, pet fees.

Banning fees, as others have said, doesn't make the expense goes away.

It just causes it to be layered into base rent and spread across the entire building, including renters who don't have pets.

Pet fees are an instructive example here.

Take it from me.

Having pets in our buildings can be very, very expensive.

On average, they cause damage.

I know yours doesn't, but on average they do.

It's optional to have a pet, and we have to be able to charge pet fee owner or pet owners fees for that damage.

I do not contest that it's very expensive to live in the city, but making it harder to build and own buildings will only increase rent over time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Gordon Hagerty, Tetra Bingham, Rachel Snell.

Gordon.

Good afternoon.

My name is Gordon Haggerty.

Uh thank you for this opportunity to speak.

I've been a housing provider in Seattle since the early 1970s.

I've enjoyed uh being a provider.

Uh I've had good relationships with our uh residents, and our heart and our desire is to provide a good quality living space for them.

Uh I fear that this uh legislation is actually going overboard, even though I totally agree with uh providing clear, transparent, upfront uh disclosure of all of the costs, and we do our best to to uh to do that.

But some of these uh uh so-called junk fees are actually uh uh providing uh offsetting costs for those, which will be buried in the rent and not be uh specifically included.

So I think we're very important on this.

I believe Katie Wilson has exposed herself with her own junk fee on housing uh providers called the rental regulatory fee, and her fees for me, but not please and if you have more comments, you can please put them in the box.

Thank you so much.

Tetra, Rachel Snell, Amy uh Worthington.

Good afternoon.

My name is Tetra, um from Tent City 3.

Um, and I just want to say for the sake of our younger generations and their safety to remove the hidden fees to make housing more affordable for the people.

Thank you, Tetra.

Um Rachel and then Amy, and then we'll go to our online speakers.

Hi, good afternoon, uh, Chair Foster and members of the Seattle City Council.

My name is Rachel Snell, and I sit on the executive board for the 37th Legislative District Democrats.

And I don't have much prepared today, but I just wanted to say I strongly support uh banning um banning junk fees in a time when uh cost of living is um is increasing and many people many of us have to choose between rent, health care, health care bills, and grocery shopping, and a whole lot of other unexpected um unexpected emergencies.

Uh now is the more than ever is critical for this important piece of uh legislation to start.

Please ban uh please ban junk fees and also we need to be looking after each other.

This is a time for us as a city to truly shine and thrive because if if we if we uh if we can't afford to live here, then we're no longer gonna be that's great.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, our last in-person speaker is Amy Worthington, then we're gonna go online.

Hi, my name is Amy Worthington, and I've been in the commercial real estate sector for over three decades and working with property management.

And with regard to oh, first of all, I'd like to say with regard to transparency, I'm all in favor of transparency.

I certainly think everyone should understand the cost before they sign a lease.

I was surprised in the slide deck to see the pet fees at the top of fees that uh uh are being proposed to be eliminated, uh, because I have a different view on that.

I view it as an equity issue.

There are very real and ongoing costs to having pets at properties from waste pickup to dander issues, and it seems inequitable to me to have people that don't have pets to have to incur that cost.

So if the pet fee is an eliminated fee, it just gets rolled into the overall budget, and then all the renters have to incur and help share in the cost of that upkeep.

So I'd like to not see that as part of the um eliminated fees because I do view it as an equity issue.

Thank you for taking up this issue, and I very much applaud transparency.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And we are now gonna turn online and I'm gonna pass it over to the clerk to call our online speakers.

All right, the first remote speaker will be Aidan Carroll, followed by Red.

Eden, please press star six when you hear the prompt that you have been unmuted.

Hello.

First, when we hear about the pet rent uh proposed change spreading it across the entire building, that is exactly what rub does.

So unless you're advocating to ban the ratio utility build building system, I don't think that's anything other than hypocrisy.

Second, we need to reduce barriers to housing in general.

We have to increase construction, we have to recelerate the shelter expansion, and until we do, we have to identify two to four locations in every California district for a sanctioned camp.

We're telling people they can't tell where they can't be dead.

Third, you don't want to make it harder to build housing.

We do want to make it harder to own buildings.

If you construct something, your housing provider.

If you want to then retain control over it while simultaneously invited people to live in it, you are not a housing provider.

You are a housing hoarder, you are trying to be a ticket scalper, you are not producing anything.

Meanwhile, this is more radical what the contact is doing, though.

We just want every fee to be listed in the rent without this manipulative game where I end up paying 300.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Red, followed by Ruby Holland.

And Red, if you can hear me, please uh press star six.

Good afternoon.

Can you hear me okay?

Yep, we can hear you.

Uh, hello.

Oh, great.

Good afternoon.

Um, I'm speaking to the renters on the council and to count council member Lynn, this committee's vice chair who worked on the city's housing attorney on utility contracts.

Amendment to 7.24 misses the King County sewer capacity charge.

King County bills the building for this infrastructure costs?

Landlords pass it straight to tenants as a sewer capacity line item.

In nearly every building built in the last 15 years, we take landlords to the hearing examiner when I did, but it didn't stop.

The examiner rolled the charge as a utility.

So it's legal to pass through.

I want only on a disclosure technicality, and the penalty was 100.

The landlord maybe fixes the paperwork and the fee rolls off.

Consider the cost of that.

Each tenant must file and sit through a full contested hearing individually for a hundred dollar result.

This bill's own recitals calls building and citywide enforcement, a better use of city resources.

I now next speak will be Ruby Holland, followed by Aaron Tallock.

And Ruby, if you press star six.

Ruby, are you there?

Okay, we'll skip and then come back to you if you're still there.

Uh next we'll go to Aaron Tollock.

Good afternoon, Chair Foster and members of the council.

My name is Aaron Tullock, legislative aide for the WBBA and SMS Global Strategies Coalition.

The WBA represents 110 community organizations and over 900 coalition partners across Seattle and Washington State.

For decades, FMS Global Strategies has advanced policy on behalf of black, brown, and historically underrepresented communities.

The WBA strongly supports a ban of rental junk fees.

A unit advertised at one price should not become hundreds of dollars more expensive through hidden fees.

Renters deserve to know the true cost of housing before they sign a lease.

For black and brown communities already navigating wage disparities and displacement, junk fees deepen inequity.

We urge the council to close loopholes, create real enforcement, and protect renters from retaliation.

Seattle has the opportunity to lead with clarity and fairness.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Ruby, if we can try you again.

My name is Ruby Holland.

A small but growing number of people with VOC sensitivity need fragrance free housing to escape the ever-present second-hand scented product use in rental buildings that is endangering their lives.

They are hoping hoping for an ADU program that addresses this issue.

Ideally, many of the convenience fees, such as an apartment appliance fee, should allow tenants to opt out instead of being eliminated.

Landlord responsibilities that have been passed on to tenants, like common area maintenance, pest control, the valet trash, and all the rest need to be eliminated completely.

For too long, City Hall has been complicit in this attack on the working class, and even some council members today are in the pockets of these gumbags.

Next speaker will be Halle Willis, followed by Will Oberist, and then the final two are Danielle and David.

Good afternoon, Council members.

My name is Hallie Willis, and I'm the policy manager at the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness.

And I'm a longtime Seattle resident and renter in District 5.

Here in support of the junk fee legislation proposed by Mayor Wilson and sponsored by Councilmember Foster.

This is a housing fairness issue.

Junk fees like pet rent and made-up administrative fees raise already high housing costs and compromise consumer protections by allowing landlords to seek in fees that tenants can't avoid.

That's not fair, and it makes it even harder for people to afford a place to live in the city.

This is common sense housing fairness and transparency legislation, and we urge you to pass it at full strength with strong accountability mechanisms in place.

Taking my work hat off for a moment.

I'm a renter and a pet owner.

Let's get rid of pet fees.

My cat doesn't have a job.

He can't pay rent.

Charging pet fees is widespread and is as absurd as forcing families to pay additional rent.

Please ban pet fees and other junk fees.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Will Oberist, followed by Danielle Gray.

Hi, Council.

This is Will Oberst, Director of Drinks and Democracy.

I'm a union member at UFCW 3000 and a restaurant worker here in D3 where I live.

We need to ban junk fees.

Money is tight for everyone, especially for those of us who work two to four jobs at a time.

Everything.

Things like pet fees and additional utility fees that we pay every day are too much for us.

We need strong enforcement arms and to pass the uh legislation proposed by the mayor as it is with no amendments.

Um feel free to join me later at my second job today for a sober drink at the uh restaurant that I work at.

Thanks all.

Cheers.

All right, our next speaker is Danielle Gray, followed by David.

I'm a tenant of rent and controlled affordable housing.

After being told I could expect rapid massive rent increases, I called the Office of Housing and requested access to the rules.

I was told, and I quote, what are you complaining about?

It sent me on a quest, and I was able to find the covenant.

When I shared the covenant with OH, I was told I could move.

I would like to request an audit of rent increases within the Office of Housing Portfolio, where documentation shows OH advising low-income housing to increase rent above lands covenants.

My own rent in OH housing with the CPI moderator has increased 47% in four years.

Seattle's housing levy oversight committee meeting minutes state that market rate rent and restricted affordable rents are overlapping where restricted rents can be higher than actual market rates.

Ending with the last August each lock minutes, I quote, because developers are finding they're having trouble beefing up over supplied unit type system, are trying to get public funders to take on those projects zone public absorbed risk and financial loss instead of the developers who built the building.

Thank you.

And our final speaker will be David Haynes.

David O'Fair, you can press Darsex.

There you go.

All right, thank you, David Ainz.

We need to address the fact that the landlords are sneaking charges into the rent and artificially inflating the cost of that house, trying to get rich at the expense of the working class that are being cheated out of a better choice in home.

And we need to address the fact that we have landlords on the city council who sabotage the integrity of the comprehensive plan to make sure that no working class would have a better built back home, providing better choices and real equity without unqualified nonprofits building modern third world slums that are flying with the landlords and their sympathizers on the council and the politically connected.

But when it comes to padding the cost and constantly overcharging the people, we need better regulation to allow for a renter to renegotiate the rent once you move in and discover that you're paying three times the original mortgage on a flawed piece of floor plan that's dilapidated and inflated and ruining your mental health that justifies a renter's revolt.

Thank you.

And there are no additional registered speakers.

All right.

Thank you so much, Clerk, and thank you to all of our public commenters today.

As always, we appreciate you coming down and taking the time to speak with us.

Um at this point, we will now move on to our first item of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Agenda item one, rental fees, transparency and fairness legislation for briefing and discussion.

Fantastic.

I would like to invite up to the table and already joining us right on time.

Karen Levitas with the mayor's office, Maureen Rote with the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections or STCI, Neil Mahoney, a professor of economics from Stanford University, as well as I'm not sure if it's Ariel or Ariel.

I apologize.

Nelson, a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center who is joining us virtually.

They will be providing an overview of the legislation that is on the agenda as an informational item today.

Before they begin, uh colleagues and for the public, this is not a vote today.

This is the first time we are having this in committee as an informational item.

I want to thank the mayor and her team for their work on this bill, as well as all of the community leaders and uh members who've come and participated in this process.

Um, as we heard during public comment, we know that hidden fees don't belong on the largest expense for most Seattle families, which is their rent.

Um I shared this a little bit at the press conference, so I'll be a little bit brief, but we are a majority renter city, and we know that already many of our household budgets are stretched, and that families deserve the transparency to know the real cost of a rental up front before they are sitting down to sign a lease.

Uh, transparency creates a better housing market, and we know that has the opportunity to benefit our renters as well as everyone here in Seattle, particularly these uh added costs can hit hardest for those on fixed incomes, young people entering the workforce in communities that are more likely to rent.

Um, so with that, I will um hand it over to the committee members for their presentation.

Hopefully, we've got our slides loaded up looking good.

Um, and if you all can just briefly introduce yourselves, and then we will go ahead through the presentation.

Thank you, council members.

Just gonna check that you could hear me, but you clearly can.

Uh Karen Levitis, uh, senior policy advisor with the mayor's office.

I'll let the folks uh to my right introduce themselves.

Neil Mahoney, professor at Stanford University.

Maureen Rote, Rental Programs Manager, Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.

And we're joined online.

Yeah.

And I'm Arielle Nelson from the National Consumer Law Center.

Thank you for concern over pronunciation.

All right, I will be starting us off.

Really appreciate council members uh the time and the attention to this matter.

This uh bill that the mayor is trans uh transmitted is about making sure the tenants have one clear price uh that they pay.

Um we've really seen across the economy um things that used to have one price being unbundled into a whole bunch of smaller fees.

We see it when we buy airline tickets where we used to pay one price, and now we're paying for a carry-on bags, we're paying for a drink, we're paying for our seat assignments.

Um, and so this is a feature that we've seen really across the spectrum, but it's particularly uh impactful and problematic when it comes to housing.

Um, and that's because we know that half of Seattle renters pay more than 30% of their income on rent, what we call cost burdens.

Uh 58% of renters pay fees in addition to rent, and the impacts that we see is that it prevents renters from comparing housing prices, making informed choices about what they're uh where they're choosing to rent and making financial plans for themselves and their families.

Um, for housing providers, it prevents um a transparent and competitive rental market where one provider might want to list uh a unit with an all-in price, but they really can't because of competitive pressure from other providers who are unbundling the rent into smaller and smaller fees.

Um, so with that brief introduction, I just want to um highlight uh and introduce uh who is going to be presenting today.

Um, Ariel Nelson is a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center.

Ariel focuses on credit reporting, tenant and employment screening, consumer protections for renters, and consumer issues affecting justice-involved people and their families.

She's authored numerous reports on rental housing chunk fees.

Uh, Professor Neil Mahoney is a professor of economics at Stanford and the director of the Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research.

He's a leading voice on economic policy, including consumer protection rules.

He served in the White House National Economic Council in 2022 and 2023.

And Maureen Rote is the rental programs manager at the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections Inspections.

She's a licensed attorney with over 15 years' experience in the housing arena and teaches a course on the intersection of housing law and poverty at the Seattle University School of Law.

We've been consulting with all three throughout this development process.

We're really grateful that they're able to join us here today.

What we're hoping to cover today is a background on the prevalence and impacts of rental fees.

Ariel will cover that material, the rental rental fees economic and market impacts, which Professor Mahoney will address, and then I'll uh cover our legislation overview, the stakeholder engagement process as well as implementation, enforcement, and resourcing.

So with that, I will turn it over to Ariel to be our first speaker.

Thank you all for having me.

So next slide, please.

Just to give you a sense, we heard about a lot of different types of fees.

I want to categorize them a little bit.

We think about them as the fees you might pay at or before moving in, which can include application fees for both people and pets, variety of admin administrative or processing fees, deposit or one-time fees for security deposit quote alternative products, move-in fees, holding fees.

There are a lot of fees you might pay before you even secure your apartment.

And then there are the fees you will pay throughout the duration of your lease.

And we have seen a lot of monthly fees, which include, as you heard, pet rent or pet fees, also administrative fees, insurance fees, pest controls fees, valet trash fees, maintenance fees.

And you also heard today about payment-related fees.

There are we call them sometimes convenience fees or pay-to-pay fees, but it's just fees to pay rent.

And you may have to pay them if you're using an online payment platform, but you might also have to pay them any other way you pay rent.

And then another category of fees you might pay throughout your lease are utility-related fees, which could include utility management and billing fees and technology package fees or pay-to-pay fees for utility bills.

You might also have to pay occasional fees that are more dependent on circumstances, like late fees or court costs or legal fees, even if, for example, you as a tenant prevail in eviction court, you might uh in housing court, you might still have to pay court fees up front.

And you might face move-out fees when you leave and various kinds of notice fees along the way.

So, to sum up, these fees are prevalent at every stage of the leasing process, and it's pretty common for folks to not just pay a couple, but a long laundry list of them.

Next slide, please.

You heard a lot about the problems with these fees, and I just want to highlight some of them.

Unaffordability and how they contribute to the high cost of rent is a big one.

But I also want to emphasize that a lot of landlords fail to disclose fees up front, which means that people have a hard time budgeting everybody.

It's good for landlords and tenants if everybody knows what the cost of rent is.

Tenants know that they can afford it, and then uh they can pay along the way, which means they don't have to leave that house, and the landlord has a stable tenant for hopefully a long period of time.

We also see issues with uh landlords failing to accurately and adequately explain the nature and purpose of fees.

Some examples of this are these sort of unknown administrative fees that you see on the ledger on your bill, where it's not clear what it's for.

We also see and hear from our legal aid partners.

I should say up front that that's one major way we get information, is from uh legal aid attorneys who represent tenants, and others like housing counselors and tenant organizers.

Um we also hear about fees for services that aren't actually provided.

So, for example, you might be charged a monthly valet trash fee, but they don't actually pick up your trash, which is what that fee is supposed to be for, whether you want it or not.

If the service isn't provided, you have a problem.

Um, there's also sometimes fees for services that the landlord is actually legally obligated to provide as part of providing a habitable premises.

Pest control fees can fall into this category.

We also hear about fees that are charged even though they're prohibited by state or local law.

And that can be issues where there are caps, for example, on a certain type of fee, but landlords exceed the cap and are charging more, for example, for a late fee.

So that really this type of issue can speak to the critical uh importance of enforcement mechanisms, which I know that you heard a lot about today.

We also hear about payment of fees that are much greater than they cost the landlord.

You can see this disparity in a lot of fees, including, for example, notice fees, where we've heard from folks that they have to pay something like $20 for a printed out piece of paper to be posted on their door.

So you can see the gap between what that cost and what the tenant has to pay.

I also want to flag that one big problem with junk fees is racial disparities.

They have junk fees harm everybody, but one thing we have learned, including from a study from Zillow is that renters of color, particularly Asian American Pacific Islander and Hispanic renters, are more likely to pay at least one recurring fee compared to white renters.

And we also hear that larger portions of black, Asian American Pacific Islander and Hispanic renters pay an application fee more often than right renters.

So I just want to highlight briefly that this is an issue where renters of color are more likely to pay fees.

Next slide, please.

In addition to the problems I've already talked about, I want to highlight how these fees aren't just a short-term problem, but how they actually jeopardize access to future housing and long-term financial instability.

So one reason why that happens is that these fees can become alleged rental debt.

It's not just what you might think of as the rent itself that become can become rental debt, but also these fees.

And the housing provider may seek to collect those fees through a third-party debt collector.

And that can lead to dunning by debt collectors, where renters may face demands for the debt in eviction proceedings or even in separate collection lawsuits.

And then when a judgment enters against the tenant, the creditors can use post-judgment collection remedies like wage or bank account garnishment.

The other issue is that rental debt can be reported by these debt collectors to the big three credit bureaus, which creates these negative marks on credit reports, which lowers credit scores.

And a lower credit score and a debt collection item on your credit report can create a long-term barrier to obtaining new housing.

And that's because about 90% of landlords run credit checks as part of their tenant screening process on all potential tenants, and they often automatically reject applicants who are alleged to owe money to former landlords and those who have lower credit scores.

So junk fees can really haunt someone in the future and mean that getting housing going forward is almost impossible.

Next slide, please.

And some of these articles actually talk about how if you roll all these services into a single fee, you could actually have a lot of wiggle room when determining what ancillary services you want to add and how much to charge.

And when we conducted a survey of legal aid uh practitioners, they someone actually reported to us the sort of flip side of this was just that when they were working with tenants in an entire building, the tenants reported that when they asked what was in one of these um packages, everyone got different answers.

So you can see how there is a lot of ability of landlords to use these fees to generate income and to be unclear about what they're doing for that reason.

Next slide, please.

One other source of uh how we know that these fees are used as a profit is in enforcement actions by the federal government.

The Federal Trade Commission has brought two enforcement actions against very big providers of rental housing.

One against invitation homes, um, which again charged consumers a huge amount in they called them lease easy bundle fees, which included a bunch of different fees, and their CEO had actually called on uh their colleagues to juice this hog by making the fee mandatory, and they instructed employees to only disclose the fees when critical.

And I don't think that this is an aberration.

This is the model for generating revenue, and you saw similar um information coming out of the enforcement action against Graystar.

They towed the executives touted their ability to obtain ancillary income for property owners through mandatory imposition of these fees.

Um, and the fees again were hidden.

So we know that these fees aren't just something necessary to make ends meet, they are a profit center.

Um, and they are very prevalent across the United States and here in Seattle.

Next slide, please.

And I just want to highlight a few resources that talk about what I discussed today.

Some of our materials from the National Consumer Law Center, uh, as well as news articles that really describe what tenants are facing.

And this is only a small sampling of what's out there, and I'm certainly happy to provide more resources if it would be helpful.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Ariel.

All right, well, our next speaker is Professor Rahone.

Thank you, uh Chair Foster, uh Council Member Lynn.

What I want to do in the next uh approximately eight or 10 minutes is uh tell you how I think about the economics of these fees.

I've been studying consumer protection regulation uh since I was a graduate student uh 20 years ago, and tell you some of the principles so that a policy in this space can achieve the intended outcomes and not unintended consequences.

First slide.

So the North Star for policy in this space, I think is a very simple principle that the price you see should be the price you pay.

Uh if you achieve that, uh then it does three things.

One, it makes it easier for prospective renters to comparison shop.

They can easily see the old all in price and compare across options.

Uh two, that in turn, it reduces what economists call search costs, the costs of searching of comparing options, and that increases the forces of competition.

Now it's easier for people to compare and landlords have to compete.

And third, and this is more unique to rental markets, it means that people are not choosing apartments that they can't afford because they know what they're getting into, they're less likely to be over their head with the consequences for them, for their landlord, and for the community for people who are unable to pay their rent.

So these may sound simple, but to an economist, they are essential.

Like the forces of choice and competition is what drives quality, what drives prices, what makes markets work.

Uh next slide.

So across a growing set of markets, we've seen firms adopt practices which throw sand in the gear of the forces of transparency and competition.

You may be familiar with hotel resort fees or other fees which are added to the bill when you're checking out of a hotel or a long-term stay.

You may be familiar with going through the process to purchase a ticket for your favorite sporting event or concert only to see $30 or $40 fees added at checkout once you've already emotionally committed to going to that show.

From an economic perspective, there are two broad categories of problematic fees.

One are mandatory fees, so fees you have to pay no matter what, which are either dripped into the purchase process.

So not included in the all-in price, but that you see as you go through the process, or there are hidden contingent or add-on fees.

So you can think about a bank overdraft fee or a luggage fee or a family seating fee, which is added later in the process based on some behavior.

Most types of add-on fees are fine.

There's no problem with paying extra for mushrooms on a pizza for a hotel room with an ocean view.

But the types of fees I think which are problematic are fees which are deliberately either shown on the back end or not disclosed at all, and make it harder for us to search and for to choose the right product.

Next slide.

So what are some principles for fee regulation which exist across domains?

One is if the fee is mandatory if you have to pay it, then bundle it all in and up front in this case it would be the monthly rent.

Second, if there's a contingent fee, a fee that you only pay based on an action, it should be disclosed and it should be capped.

Many contingent fees only occur when the seller has market power, when we don't have a choice.

And so making sure that those fees are proportional and reasonable, no surprises, no gouging.

And third, for genuinely optional services, they should be truly optional.

You shouldn't be signed up in ways which are not transparent to you, and it should be easy to cancel.

We shouldn't have the click to cancel call during business hours and wait for an hour and a half to get out.

So next slide.

A common critique I hear when talking about these sort of common sense regulations is won't they just raise total costs?

And the answer is no.

Total costs may and likely will fall.

Yes, the advertised price can sometimes be higher because the fees that you have to pay are shown to you up front, but that is the point.

The point is you should know what you're getting into.

And if you do, it's easier for you to comparison shop that increases the forces of competition and can lower prices overall.

And that's what we've seen in studies that I've conducted, studies that others have conducted.

Making prices visible and salient increases the forces of competition, can lower the total price, and therefore can lead to advertised prices which are as high as they were before, except people are not paying the add-on fee.

Next slide.

So these policies, when done well, benefit everybody who has a stake in well-functioning markets.

They then benefit transparent landlords.

Often these are small landlords who haven't adopted some of the practices in the industry who currently look like their pricing higher than their competitors because they're not adding on these fees, and with an even playing field would look more competitive and win the business they deserve.

They benefit all landlords because consumers know what they're getting into, and there are less renters who are over their head.

They benefit renters who spend less time comparing, who sign leases they can afford, and who pay less out of pocket each month because of more competition in the system, and they benefit the market.

The market is more efficient.

Demand moves to the producers that can provide the highest quality product at the lowest price.

Next slide.

So a couple questions that are frequently asked.

Why can't the market fix it on its own?

I think as an economist, I'm trained, I teach my students that if the market can solve the problem, then there may not be a case for government regulation.

Here, there is a pressing collective action problem.

We've seen time and again landlords who want to do the right thing to include all of the fees up front in the advertised price, they lose out because they seem more expensive.

We saw this in the event ticket space where StubHub wanted, they experimented with including all the prices up front.

They lost business, they lost market share and reverted back to their old practice.

I've heard it from numerous market participants.

Firms want to do the right thing, but they need policy to help them move together.

The second question I get all the time is disclosure enough.

Disclosure is necessary, it's not sufficient.

It is impossible to go through all of them and think through which ones will matter for us and which ones won't.

And getting disclosure at the last minute when you sitting down to sign a lease is too little too late.

So thank you for your attention.

Welcome.

Any questions now or later.

Thank you again for having me.

Thank you, both of our speakers.

I'll now move into what we're seeing here in Seattle and our engagement process and the proposal you have in front of you.

So we know that more than half of Seattle renters, Seattle residents are renters.

Regionally, 48% are cost burdened.

From 2012 to 2022, we saw rents rise 32%, and we're continuing to see rent growth acceleration in 2025.

The chart you have on your right, the top half there is really showing uh continued growth across Seattle, South Seattle, Central Seattle, West Seattle, Queen Anne, continued rent acceleration.

And that is what makes the issue of fees so salient, because they can add 10 to 30% on top of renters' monthly costs at the average uh unit price of around $2,000.

That's uh between 200 uh and $600 of added fees per month.

I think you heard some of those similar numbers just from uh the folks in who commented today.

So, given that severity of this this issue, um the mayor's office engaged in a robust stakeholder process starting with a rental survey that uh had had a really strong engagement, 8,800 responses.

Um, but we knew that a survey is not going to reach everyone.

We may have some folks who who are left out of of a engagement like that.

And so we engaged in listening sessions as well.

Uh so these were uh small sessions, uh four uh rental uh sessions targeted at renters, one for small landlords, um representing about 50 different tenants across the city presented in English but with interpretation services uh provided, um, and then a separate one engaging about small uh 12 small landlords.

Um separately, uh, we had a policy stakeholdering process with seven total meetings representing tenants, tenant advocates, affordable housing providers, market rate providers, and developers uh in total about 50 different stakeholders representing thousands of units and thousands of individual renters.

So to review some of the findings from that, first our survey, this is uh sort of demonstrating the geographic representation that we had with the size of the dots there uh corresponding to zip codes and the number of uh of folks who uh who are represented within those zip codes.

And in the chart you see on the far right, um the ratio is indicating how representative the particular geography was.

Uh, the closer to one we are, the the more representative it is.

Under one, under one a little underrepresented, over one a little overrepresented.

Um you can see not a perfect ratio, but very strong representation across the city's geographies.

So some of the things we learned here are just the uh prevalence of fees.

Um, so really strong, uh I would say large numbers uh uh of folks experiencing pet fees um approaching uh 3300 there, uh lease signing fees also in the uh over 3,000 responses there, and things like common room charges, which are um almost 2,000 folks.

Um and even at the bottom end of this spectrum, which looks just in in comparison to be a small number, we're really, you know, so deposit return fees and package fees, um, you know, close to 500 folks um experiencing those just in our survey sample.

So this is really a wide-ranging problem that is affecting large, large numbers of renters across the city.

Um we also had a way for renters to provide just free form responses.

Um, and so you know this is just a selection of things we heard.

Um there are many, many more responses, but uh I think it's important just to give voice to a few of them.

So, you know, one renter told us there's so many hidden fees and lack of descriptions on what's included that it's impossible to search for in-budget options.

Another looking for a place to live is a nightmare.

There needs to be laws that require costs to be listed plainly on rental listings.

The junk fees, valet trash, package lockers, laundry, AC units.

They are all a scam and a way for landlords to advertise rent prices that are significantly lower than actual costs.

And finally, pet rent is just another way to squeeze more money from you.

I already paid a deposit for my pets.

We also heard from housing providers, again, uh large numbers uh here, representing small housing providers, large large providers, developers, market rate, and affordable sectors.

Um we heard a variety of things.

Um concerns around cost recovery, folks telling us, hey, you know, we do have real costs when uh a tenant loses their keys, when there's a lockout, if there's a bounce check, we need to have a way to um to recover some of those costs, um, concerns around the the burden of added transparency uh requirements, um, uh concerns around uh making sure that tenants have insurance, and then questions around the implementation timeline and the impact on existing leases.

And you'll see these themes repeated throughout our policy design.

We've been able to take a look at these, uh, get feedback from tenants and tenant stakeholders on these concerns and think about common sense ways to address these and include uh accommodations for these concerns within the policy.

So we're gonna move on to the policy design itself.

There's really three components transparency, the fee regulation itself, and enforcement uh and implementation.

And I'll just walk through each of those.

So on the trans transparency piece, um, you know, we want folks to understand what they're getting into, what the all-in cost is and any fees that are going to be assessed.

So those need to be disclosed under the proposed legislation in the rental listing, in a disclosure at lease signing.

If you pay a variable fee, something that changes month to month, you need to tell tenants what that is on a monthly basis.

If you have a fixed fee that is being charged, um, you know, you don't need to tell someone the same amount every single month, but you do need to tell tenants that on a yearly basis or if there's a change.

And we want uh landlords to have the tools to comply.

So SDCI, the implementing agency will produce notices in English and top tier languages that meet these legal requirements.

So you don't have to sort of figure it out on your own as a housing provider.

So moving on to the core um the core fee regulation, the way it's structured is the no fees are allowed unless specifically exempted within the legislation.

And we've designed it that way to sort of avoid the whack-a-mole situation where say we have a ban on mail fees and a housing provider turns around and charges a fee for a package, right?

Or labels it a package fee.

We want to avoid having to come back and address these things piecemeal.

So that's the structure that we've uh we've built into the legislation.

And the exemptions that we've built, I've categorized them here just for conceptual purposes into three buckets.

The first is things that are already regulated in Seattle law, fees that are already regulated.

So examples of that are move in fees like screening fees, screening fees, security and pet deposits.

Those are already regulated.

This legislation doesn't impact them.

Um utility surcharge fees, often called rubs.

We know there's large concerns there, but this legislation does not change the existing regulatory structure there.

Um late fees and parking fees are similar.

State law, um, there are we want to avoid preemption issues, so provisions around charging uh where tenants cause damage are are permissible uh according to the RCW and the r requirements there.

Uh same with air conditioner rentals, which is regulated at the state level.

And then we have a number of other uh areas which are really reflective of the feedback we heard from uh from housing providers, uh costs around uh dishonored checks, key replacement fees, lockout fees, if you rent the uh a party room, you can charge fees for all of that.

Um we do have some restrictions here to make sure this isn't sort of a total blank check.

There's there's um some limits on what you can charge.

Um and the last category I want to highlight is the idea of optional fees.

So if a housing provider is uh providing some kind of optional service like a really high-end internet package, um there's some buildings that provide uh you know dog grooming services or dog walking services, you can opt into that, you can pay it an additional fee for that.

That's not the point of this legislation, um, and that's still permitted.

But we do want to make sure that those things are truly optional and that there's some guidelines around that.

So there are some provisions to ensure that.

So if you do want to, as a landlord, provide an additional service, you can do that as long as you disclose it, as long as you make sure folks are actually opting into it, you give them an ability to opt out.

If it's a third-party service, you make sure that it uh is provided at cost.

And then there's some areas that we in the legislation have carved out as probably not reasonable to be charged as an optional fee.

Um, so things like charging to access a common area.

Um, you know, we don't want to see landlords saying, hey, you've opted into this fee.

Um, so we've taken that off the the list of sort of permissible optional fees.

Similarly, appliance fees, fees for payment by check or ACH, um, so basically a fee to pay your rent, um, mail and package fees, fees for a duty under the uh the state code, um, fee for a change of tenants, and fee for for keeping a pet.

All of these things are uh areas that we have said are not uh permissible as optional fees under the proposed legislation.

So I'll move on to enforcement.

Um so we want to make sure that we have strong enforcement um and implementation provisions.

And so what we've done is built out some of the authority that SDCI has.

Um I don't want to go into all of it just for time reasons, but the one I do want to highlight is the ability to resolve similar claims at the same time.

Um, you know, the idea is if I'm being charged an impermissible fee, it's it's likely that I'm not being personally targeted by that practice.

It's rather that it's a policy that applies across the building.

So it's just more efficient for as an enforcement matter and as a matter of getting remedies for tenants to allow the enforcement agency to address all of these at the same time.

Um, also creates a deterrent effect and supports a culture of compliance.

Um, and and we there are existing private right of action provisions within this chapter of the code.

Happy to come back in any of this but I'm gonna keep us moving.

Okay, we lost our graphics, which I worked very hard on.

Um so just imagine there is a emoji within each of those circles.

Um I think that's the most I I'm fine, I'm fine with it.

Yeah.

Um so uh I'm gonna keep uh I'm gonna skip the first two elements just here to to keep us moving.

Happy to take questions on them.

Two things I do want to highlight on this slide is that there will be no impact on existing leases, current lease terms can finish can complete before these requirements will come into play.

That was a big sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

I was gonna say you actually have time to do the first two, Karen.

Okay, thank you.

Great.

All right.

Well, let me just finish that sentence.

Um that this is a big point of feedback from housing providers and wanting to maintain sort of the uh integrity of existing contracts, so we are not touching existing leases in this legislation.

Um there are uh retaliation protections uh so that if you complain about a fee um and you're retaliated against, there is a ability for the uh implementing agency at the enforcement agency to to come in and and you know prohibit those activities.

Um there's an affirmative defense so that you cannot be evicted for failing to pay an illegal fee.

Um so uh again, just important provisions to make sure we're we're uh thinking of all contingencies.

And lastly, effective date is July 2027, again, responsive to the feedback we we heard and making sure that folks have time to implement this and that SECI has time to uh you know hire staff to enforce it.

All right, so everyone's favorite part how much does it cost and how are we gonna pay for it?

Um so we have scoped one time uh startup fees of just under 200,000 for outreach and this sort of systems and case management um uh changes that we need to see in 2027 costs will uh be about 800,000 for three uh FTEs uh as well as outreach and education funding um and grants that will go out the door.

Um, and that will be paid for through a per unit fee per unit um per rental unit fee of between five dollars and fifty cents and seven dollars a year, so a really modest amount it works out at the six dollar level to about 50 cents per unit per month.

Um, so there will be no general fund impact through uh in this proposal.

Um that the funding piece will be uh submitted as separate budget legislation uh during the budget cycle.

Um so that is really most of what I wanted to cover.

There's an implementation timeline.

I'm not gonna go through every bullet here.

Just want to highlight that uh January 1st is when the fee collection would begin under the the proposal, and our effective date is again July uh 2027, and between now and then SECI will be doing a lot of work uh to get things going.

Uh so I think that's that's really all we wanted to cover.

Maybe I talked quicker than I than I normally do uh because I thought we were over time.

Uh but that's all we have for you all.

Thank you so much, and I appreciate each of our presenters.

Um I will uh turn actually immediately to colleagues for questions, and I'll save any remarks uh for before we close um this portion of our agenda.

Um seeing first a question from Councilmember Lynn.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, just wondering if you could talk about obviously this is not just a local issue, uh, we heard it's a nationwide issue.

Could you talk about um sort of best practices from other jurisdictions or what the landscape is?

We we heard about a little bit of national enforcement.

Um where do we think um things might be going either nationally or at the state legislature or um otherwise other jurisdictions that have um might be ahead of us on this?

Yeah, I'll take the sort of state and local regulation and I might ask um either Ariel or or uh Professor Mahoney to speak on the the national rulemaking.

So um we know we love to lead in Seattle.

This is actually an area where there's been a fair amount of action both within the state and without.

So um Bellingham has passed a last year passed a rental junk fee uh regulation, Olympia has had one on the books for about a year or two.

Ferndale and Spokane all do some level of regulation.

Um the statewide, I actually don't have my list in front of me, but Colorado, Connecticut, I believe, and a couple other jurisdictions have statewide regulations and Montgomery County, Maryland, my home county.

Uh just a coincidence there, also has a has uh has a regulation.

Um, what's different in how we've scoped it?

So the what fees and how you structure it and what the exceptions are kind of vary.

What's I think unique in what we're proposing is the sort of uh holistic approach in terms of our implementation and enforcement.

Most of those jurisdictions, with the exception of Montgomery County, have a private right of action enforcement mechanism.

Um we have both the implementation from SECI and a funding mechanism to make sure we're able to do that and make sure we have tools both for enforcement and for technical assistance outreach and education for um for housing providers.

Um Ariel or Professor Mahoney, either of you want to take the national landscape.

Sure, and I'll just add um that if you would like an even more comprehensive answer, I would point you to the National Consumer Law Center's report.

What the heck dude?

How states can fight rental housing junk fees, which includes an appendix of uh all the the rental housing junk fee specific laws we know about at the state level and highlights some of the local laws that Karen pointed to.

Um, I would say just my final comment on that is that we see like he said, piecemeal approaches.

I think the local level is the place where the biggest difference and the most robust legislation can happen.

Um, in terms of the federal level, the Federal Trade Commission has put out what's called an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking on rental housing junk fees, and that is potentially a precursor to federal action on this, but it doesn't necessarily mean they actually will do anything.

They don't have to.

So they've collected a bunch of comments, but it's unclear when if ever they will they will enact a rule.

And I would also add that I would expect that to be more like uh a basic level of protection.

I sort of see it as a floor where maybe there will be some good language on transparency, but I would expect that it's fairly limited and so that so local governments and state governments are really the place where again the most robust enforcement and regulations and enforcement are able to happen.

Thank you, Chair.

Two more questions, if that's okay.

Um from the jurisdictions that have enacted this, um any sort of you know positive feedback, any unintended consequences that we are aware of.

Just curious if you if you know.

Yeah, I'd say two pieces of feedback I've heard is um, you know, if the if the structure of the law is banning specific fees, um, it really opens the door to what I was flagging earlier of the sort of whack-a-mole approach where fees have been restructured and and branded something different, and so that some of the junk fee practices continue.

Um so that's one big piece of feedback as because some of the those jurisdictions have structured things in that way.

Um I think uh, you know, the other piece is what we were sort of flagging of what we we might expect in terms of, you know, some uh mandatory fees may be moved and incorporated into rent, which may result in an advertised price going up.

That is sort of the point is that folks know what they're what they're actually paying, even if the advertised price has gone up, it's because fees uh mandatory fees have moved over from the fee descriptor and into into rent itself.

Um I don't know if anyone else uh Ariel, do you want to add anything?

Sure, I would just add that the other problem we've heard is really just with enforcement, where there might be laws on the books.

Like I gave an example of there are laws in various jurisdictions regulating late fees, but we see those laws being violated, which is why the robust enforcement piece is so critical.

Um, so having both a private right of action like like this here, as well as the the government uh enforcement is critical.

Um, and I would also just add that I think that the tricky the trick the sort of more complex and piecemeal the scheme is, the harder it is for enforcement, which is why it's not just a whack-a-mole problem if you regulate some fees, prohibit some fees, but don't think about it as a whole.

If you regulate, if you ban all fees except for, it's a lot clearer for everybody involved, including those seeking to enforce the law.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um final question is um just on the renewals, um, just curious how that works for leases that kind of automatically convert to like month-to-month.

Um, how just the logistics of what it would mean for um for implementation.

You you mean the no impact on existing leases and how that works?

Yeah, correct.

Yeah.

Maureen, do you want to take that one?

Just like, yeah.

Yeah, so as it's written, we've built into this ordinance a delayed enactment period, as you know, with month-to-month tenancies, those tenancies are effective 30-day tenancies, right?

So a new tenancy in theory could begin after those 30 days.

So, in order for this uh new requirement to take effect on a month to month tenancy, it would be as if that lease were ending at the end of June.

So June 30th.

If the lease is effective, let's say July 2nd, it becomes effective as this new under this new ordinance, then all of these fee restrictions would apply.

So effectively you're looking at leases that are month to month are effectively 30-day leases.

Okay, so I I think um, yeah, just want to make sure.

So if I'm understanding, if you uh your your lease ended um, let's say August of uh 2027, and it would automatically kind of um convert to month to month.

Um and let's say there were some of these fees in the existing lease, uh is it correct that basically they the landlord would be um would they be required to sign a new lease or would they be prohibited from collecting fees, both.

Uh, I just wanna be really clear for uh for everyone what's gonna happen uh for these automatic renewals.

Yeah, so for automatic renewals where the term lease expires, once that term lease expires, uh if the implementation period has started.

So if you're after July 1st of 2027, then those fees under that lease would not be enforceable by the landlord.

Um if they were attempting to collect those fees, that would be something for SDCI to investigate.

Uh they may want, just for clarity, an owner may want to offer a new lease uh going into this implementation period if they do have leases out there that automatically convert to month to month to be sure that they're not unintentionally missing or charging those fees that are going to be prohibited by this ordinance.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for those questions.

Um Council Member Lynn, I appreciate that.

Um, I'm gonna ask a few questions myself and then I'm gonna wrap us up.

Um so I just wanna go back to the the things.

So we heard a lot in public comment today, a lot of uh I think a lot of excitement as I am to sponsor this piece of legislation around junk fees, and I think there were sort of two issues that we heard questions about, and so I want to make sure that we just get a chance to address those directly.

Um, so I think it's important for the public and for transparency.

So I'm gonna ask you to speak to one of the topics, which was the Wi-Fi question.

Um, and so is it correct that as currently written the legislation allows for landlords to provide Wi-Fi as an optional service for a fee?

Yes, yeah, that that would be a permissible optional fee as long as it's disclosed, and someone has affirmatively opted in and that's made clear, and there's uh you know, you could opt into a higher end Wi-Fi package, right?

Thank you.

And then it's also just a quick follow-up on that.

But is that also one that needs to be offered um as an at-cost fee as an optional fee?

Is that correct?

Yeah, if it's third party provided, which most Wi-Fi would be, yes, it would need to be provided at cost.

Thank you.

Um, and then the other thing we heard about today in public comment was um was pets, um, and I have a a lovely pet myself.

Um, and so can you just speak a little bit to um, you know, my understanding is that um a landlord can uh charge a pet security deposit uh that's still an allowable charge under this legislation, and then the pet security deposit, they would have a they have the pet security deposit as well as a traditional security deposit available to cover damages if needed.

Is that accurate?

Yeah, that's correct.

So that there's uh landlords can continue to charge a pet damage deposit.

That's actually regulated in another chapter of of the code, um, 25% of your of your your rent is the is the sort of upward limit of that.

So at the average monthly rent of of 2,000, that's around 500, five or five hundred dollars.

That that it would be a permissible uh pet damage deposit.

That can continue.

Um and that's really sort of what you're hearing in in I think in some of the public comment is that folks are already paying that amount.

Um, and so pet rent on top of that is just a an added cost, and and when there is damage from a pet, it's not taken out of your pet rent, it comes out of the deposit you've already paid.

Um and again, that can continue to be charged as still permissible under the code as long as it's under that 25% amount.

Thank you.

And then just the other clarifying pieces.

If that pet damage, let's say it is my dog because um let's let's say it's my dog.

If that pet damage goes above that uh, let's say that $500 um security deposit, uh, is the landlord able to recoup that cost?

Yeah, so so there is all with one of the uh permissible uh fees or or exceptions we've built in is tenant damage.

So that would qualify most likely as long as it's substantiated and documented as tenant damage, so you know they could take it out of the deposit, and if that's not enough, it's really bad damage.

They could separately invoice that as long as it's documented and meets the requirements under the RCW.

Great.

All right, thank you.

Those are my questions and a check for colleagues to see if there are any is that a new hand, Council Member Lynn?

Old hand.

Old hand, okay.

Fantastic.

All right, um, thank you so much for this.

Again, I'll say I'm really excited to sponsor this legislation.

I think that the impact for transparency and the impact for renters is going to be something that is real and felt in our city and our community, and um I appreciate the the leadership coming from your office.

And I just do a shout out to your your family before they leave.

Um, and I know you spent a lot of time here.

Uh so thank you so much for for that work, Karen.

We really appreciate you.

Thank you.

And sorry, and I also appreciate our other guests, but we've been working with Karen for quite a while on this.

So uh thank you all so much.

Um, colleagues, I just want to make sure that we're clear on timelines.

Um, so this legislation was transmitted by the mayor's office on July 1st and is in front of us as an informational item today.

Um central staff has requested that offices share amendment concepts by next Wednesday, July 15th.

We plan to hold a briefing and discussion with the possible vote in our next committee meeting on July 22nd.

Thank you.

Thank you, council members.

All right, um, and uh thank you to everyone who's been with us.

This is uh this time.

I know we have people who've been waiting for this agenda item.

So we will now move on to agenda item two.

Will the clerk please read agenda item two into the record?

Agenda item two homeowner privacy and protection legislation for briefing and discussion.

Okay.

And as we um give a moment for our folks to um to come up, I will actually have to invite them up first.

Uh I would like to invite up to the committee table uh Mike Chen from Office of Civil Rights, um, and who plans to share with us how the Office of Civil Rights will be implementing uh the outreach and enforcement of the do not solicit legislation.

Uh Mike is also joined by Monica Beach from the Office for Civil Rights.

Um we also have at the table joining us Jen LeBrec uh and Tracy Radscliffe, both from council central staff.

Um so before I open it up uh for some remarks and then questions from colleagues.

Just as a reminder, we held a special committee meeting on this item last week, uh, where we heard from more than 20 residents in public comment, as well as the responses that we received in our online survey.

Um so we are excited to um whoops, where am I today?

All right, a lot of committee meetings today.

Uh we heard a lot about the the need for the city to do more to protect homeowners from unwanted and predatory solicitations.

And the legislation we're discussing today as an information item would disrupt predatory homebuying uh by creating a do not solicit list maintained by the Office for Civil Rights.

Um the idea here is to ensure that homeowners across the city can opt in if they wish to stop receiving real estate solicitation to ensure a f in effective enforcement.

This legislation creates both civil penalties starting at a thousand dollars for the first violation and two thousand dollars for subsequent violations, as well as providing property owners with a the right to pursue a private cause of action.

Um we plan to I plan to bring this ordinance forward for introduction in a possible vote at the next committee meeting on July 22nd.

Um central staff has requested that offices provide them with any amendment concepts by Monday, July 13th.

Um we had this as a discussion previously and realized we wanted to make sure that we had OCR here to talk about enforcement.

So thank you so much for joining us, and a huge thank you.

I know it was a long wait to get to this item, so thank you so much.

And I'll have you all introduce yourselves and then I'll hand it over to you for an overview, and then we'll um check with committee members for questions.

Hello, my name is Mike Chin.

I am the interim director at the Seattle Office for Civil Rights.

Hello, my name is Monica Beach.

I'm the interim civil rights enforcement director at the Office for Civil Rights.

Hi, I'm Jennifer LeBrec, City Council Central Staff.

And Tracy Ratz of Council Central Staff.

Okay, and with that, we'll give it to Mike for an overview and excuse me, you don't need to do an overview of the legislation.

We have done the uh an overview of your enforcement approach.

Great.

Thank you.

So I want to first of all thank you, Chair Foster, for inviting SOCR to provide additional information on enforcement and outreach for this new law.

So as you know, SOCR works to provide leadership in upholding civil rights and advancing racial equity in the city of Seattle.

The proposed do not solicit ordinance adds new protections for homeowners from unwanted solicitation from predatory practices that especially have a discriminatory impact in neighborhoods with predominantly in predominantly communities of color.

These practices target vulnerable communities who are at risk of being taken advantage by offering to purchase their home below market value.

SOCR provides or supports this legislation to ensure that homeowners in Seattle are not subject to these predatory practices.

We believe that the do not solicit ordinance is important, and investing in these resources for this legislation is essential because SOCR takes a proactive and preventative approach to enforcement of civil rights laws.

This means that we prioritize education about the public about the laws, especially new laws that are unique to Seattle and that many communities are often unaware of and need support in compliance.

Since 2019, seven new civil rights laws that have been enforced by SOCR, which have been protected classes, have been passed by the City of Seattle without providing adequate funding for SOCR staffing or outreach and enforcement.

As a result, we have been stretched beyond our limits with higher than average caseloads for investigation.

SOCR needs an engagement specialist and senior investigator to ensure public knowledge and compliance with new laws like the do not solicit ordinance that we're here to discuss today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I don't think I need to say anything more.

Okay, fantastic.

So colleagues, I know that there were a few questions last week when we had this item on um on the agenda in terms of enforcement.

So I want to open it up to uh colleagues for questions.

Okay, I um am I seeing one?

No, I'm not seeing one, so I'm gonna just ask a couple of questions myself to make sure that we have this clarity.

So I know that uh then thank you again so much for the estimate that your department provided in terms of the needs to implement this program.

Um can you describe how OCR would plan to administer the program with the resources and what the roles would look like?

Yes, so in the fiscal note, we've actually have requested for two positions one outreach position and one enforcement.

The outreach position would be implemented in 2027 and the other one in 2028, and this would be ongoing.

The outreach position would specifically focus on engagement with businesses and homeowners and ensure that we are connect with city departments that do similar work, like Office of Housing that have grants, as well as our commissions and community organizations, such as the organizations that that testified in last week's meeting.

Um, we would also be staffing public comment periods and engagement process to ensure that we have event planning and education awareness and also develop informational materials, questions and answers, and also website information.

As for the enforcement FTE, which would begin in 2028, because this is a brand new law, it requires special enforcement.

So it's not going to be very similar to fair housing, fair and on, you know, fair employment practices and other laws, but it does require us to actually revise new procedures and manuals.

It's gonna require us to actually have a new type of receiving complaint process about how we do business searches, making sure that we are able to identify businesses that are being engaging in this predatory practices, and then also how we would be sending notifications and informations, gathering information and issuing findings.

And then we would also be able to provide conciliated settlement settlement, uh voluntary settlement process and other processes required for enforcing this law.

Thank you.

I was just checking to see if there was questions, and um you also estimated the need for a smaller amount of programming dollars for outreach and program startup.

Can you just speak to that use in a little bit more detail, please?

I can speak to that.

Um I've actually implemented uh quite a few laws in my 20 years at the Office for Civil Rights, and I typically maintain the budget.

Can you hear me okay now?

Yeah, if you lean in, thank you.

I'm short, so it needs to come closer.

Um, but I am typically the one that administers the new legislation budget for the enforcement division.

So what I've done is looking at the amount that's proposed or what we would need to do the bare minimum, I think that definitely we have to um prioritize uh better code shop around a little bit.

But um we definitely need design and print uh materials, and we want those translated in different languages, which we have not identified because we haven't done stakeholder engagement.

I'm not gonna say we're gonna just do the 15 tier languages that is recommended for the city.

I really want this to be targeted and really uh customize for the various zip codes in communities where people are most impacted because let's be real, that's why this law is being passed, right?

That this is a real issue.

Um there's also postage, so you know, strangely, um, you know, some people respond very well to postal mail, others do not.

But if we were to engage in a postal mail campaign, I think with the set-aside amount of money, we may be able to do um certain zip codes for homeowners.

I think um, you know, we would have to do more research, and definitely we have some time to do that about identifying who's most impacted.

Uh, we definitely want to do a few uh mainstream ad buys as well as focused on ethnic media and ethnic media includes not just digital in print but also some communities communicate very well and receive information by radio.

Um so we really want to be open to like who we're serving, and then uh social media ads, which are typically uh pretty cheap to buy, very targeted by demographics, and then also we want to contract with the Department of Neighborhoods for community liaison, again, depending on what we find when we're looking into different languages and who's impacted, and then we really want to nail down the best possible platform to find people, like we have something that we use now, we're aware of some other potentials, but again, you know, focused on where we're gonna get the most bang for our buck, like what's the best technology out there that we can afford.

So that's sort of the the basics of what we're we would do.

And um, of course, all the money would go towards implementing this law, and so if we find a little bit extra and we can find ways to leverage either within our department or in partnership with others, we will absolutely do that.

I guarantee you the budgets that I've run to implement laws, every penny has been spent on the law.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate that, and I uh both appreciate the expertise coming from the Office of Civil Rights, as well as I would say um your uh ability and your working with us to make a dollar out of 15 cents.

Uh and so thank you, and and as well as the focus and the clarity on making sure that the outreach is targeted on the impacted communities, and I think there's just a lot of both that's the commitment that we have to make sure that we are presenting preventing these incredibly predatory practices, and I'm looking forward to partnering with OCR to make sure that we have the implementation done well, even in the challenging environment that we're that we are in right now.

So, thank you so much for that.

Um, colleagues, I will see if there are any further questions for our presenters from OCR.

Okay, all right.

With that, I want to say thank you so much for this.

We are really excited about working with you all on this legislation.

Thank you so much for being here with us today.

Thank you.

All right, um, and I will reiterate again.

Uh I think I will reiterate again the amendment timeline that we have for us.

To do do.

Turning the page.

Okay, great.

So uh amendments into, oh, you have you can go, thank you.

Uh just the amendment timeline uh that folks have uh uh any amendments into central staff by Monday, July 13th.

Um with that, are there any additional comments or questions from uh committee members or any additional items to come before the committee?

Seeing none, this concludes the July 8th, 2026 meeting of the Housing Arts and Civil Rights Committee.

Our next scheduled meeting is July 22nd.

Thank you for attending.

It is 4 06 p.m.

and we are adjourned.