City of Olympia launches public surveys on proposed rental housing code changes
The city of Olympia is joining cities across Washington state in looking at how to make renting easier, and it asking for the public’s help.
Olympia is a majority renter city, according to U.S. Census data. Though the percentage of renters in Thurston County was 35% for 2015-2019, Olympia had about 53% of housing units occupied by renters.
The city has launched a set of surveys that community members can take to provide feedback on policy change options. They are separated between landlords, renters and interested community members who might not be directly affected by rental policy changes.
All three surveys can be found on the city’s Engage Olympia website.
According to the website, city staff and consultants have researched how other cities across the state have implemented policies to stabilize conditions for renters. They analyzed code changes regarding landlord registration, rent increase notice period extensions, and limits to nonrefundable fees and deposits in cities such as Bellingham, Lacey, Seattle, Aberdeen and more.
Rent control is one thing that can’t be included in the code changes, as it is prohibited by state law, according to the website.
Christa Lenssen, housing program specialist with the city of Olympia, said the surveys will be up at least through the end of March, but that may be extended depending on response rates.
Once data from the surveys has been collected, the city will organize focus groups to consider the feedback and then move to make policy changes. People can provide their contact information at the end of the surveys if they’d like to be considered for participation.
The schedule for focus groups can be found on the same webpage. The four groups are for renter advocates, renters, larger-scale landlords and smaller rental owners and managers.
Lenssen said the focus groups will be conducted over Zoom because of the public health concerns.
Lenssen said that though this sort of policy change structure isn’t modeled after anything specific, she interviewed several leaders in other cities who have conducted similar community engagement initiatives to see how it’s worked for them.
“Many cities conducted some form of community engagement, including community town hall meetings,” she said. “Burien, Tacoma, and other cities conducted stakeholder engagement which helped inform the city’s approach.”
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