RRIO Stakeholders Meeting
Thursday, June 20, 2 to 4 p.m.
Seattle Municipal Tower, Rm 4080
700 5th Avenue, 40th Floor, Seattle 98104
Contact: Wendy Werblin, (206) 684-8468 or wendy.werblin@seattle.gov

Meeting Materials
Presentation Slides

About the Program
The Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance (RRIO) is intended to ensure that all rental housing in the city meets specific minimum life safety and health standards. Starting in early 2014, property owners will be required to register all rental housing units in Seattle, from single-family houses to large apartment buildings. All properties (but not all units) will be inspected over a period of 10 years.

RRIO Stakeholders Meeting
Thursday, June 6, 2 to 4 p.m.
Seattle Municipal Tower, Rm 1600
700 5th Avenue, 16th Floor, Seattle 98104
Contact: Wendy Werblin, (206) 684-8468 or wendy.werblin@seattle.gov

Meeting Materials
DRAFT Weighted Checklist
Presentation Slides

About the Program
The Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance (RRIO) is intended to ensure that all rental housing in the city meets specific minimum life safety and health standards. Starting in early 2014, property owners will be required to register all rental housing units in Seattle, from single-family houses to large apartment buildings. All properties (but not all units) will be inspected over a period of 10 years.

All DPD web applications will be out of service, due to electrical repairs.

During the outage, you can still schedule inspections at (206) 684-8900 and file a complaint at (206) 615-0808.

Permit and other services will be limited during the interruption. For questions about available services, call (206) 684-8850. Visit www.seattle.gov/dpd on Sept. 4 and Sept. 5 to learn if DPD is back to regular business operations.

The following services will be available but very limited. Wait times will be much longer than normal.

• Corrected plan submittal
• General permit process and technical code coaching that is not site specific
• Inspection services
• Intake appointments that were already scheduled
• Over-the-counter electrical permits
• Microfiche viewing
• Permit issuance
• Permit revisions submittal

These following services will NOT be available on Thurs., Aug. 30 at 5:00 p.m. to Wed., Sept. 5 at 8:00 a.m.

• Appointment scheduling
• Electronic Plan Review submittal, including preliminary applications and pre-application site inspection requests
• Online electrical permits
• Online fee payment
• Online public notice
• Public access to scanned plans
• Permit renewal/reestablishment
• Preliminary Assessment Reports
  Site-specific project coaching
• Side sewer information and permits
• Subject-to-Field-Inspection permits
• Self sign-in kiosk
• Sewer plats (22nd floor)
• Trade licensing tests and renewals (21st floor)

All permit reviews, including expedited Priority Green permits, may be affected by the service outage.

For information on the citywide service outages, please visit: http://alerts.seattle.gov/

The City of Seattle and regional partners are identifying long-term green priorities and developing new code to address climate change.The public can comment on the draft code language at the Green Code Provisions Open House. Staff will be available to answer questions and give feedback to those who want to comment.

For more information about the open house and how to comment, please contact Kathleen Petrie at (206) 615-0541 or kathleen.petrie@seattle.gov or visit the Green Code Provisions website.

What are Green Code Provisions?

Green code provisions for 2012 focus on long-term green priorities such as water conservation, material conservation, sustainable transportation and healthy landscapes. Some examples include promoting salvage instead of recycling, tightening up water irrigation and using more efficient hardware for buildings.

These provisions were formed from programs including Built Green, LEED, and the Living Building Challenge, which have driven the building industry toward long-term green priorities.

Faith brings a broad range of experience and leadership skills to DPD. She most recently worked for Governor Gregoire as the Director of the Office of Regulatory Assistance. Prior to that she was Director of Planning and Development Services for Snohomish County, and Assistant Director of Planning and Community Development for the City of Bellevue. She also worked for DPD, then DCLU, from 1987 to 1992, first in Code Compliance and then in Land Use Review.

In these various roles, she has had extensive experience working with elected officials, business and community groups, and other agency staff. She also brings facilitation and mediation skills from her volunteer work with the Dispute Resolution Center for Thurston County.

DPD is excited to have Faith join our Executive Team. She brings great experience, skills, and enthusiasm for the work.

With more than half the people of Seattle living in rental housing, safe and habitable rental housing is essential.  While the City recognizes that the great majority of housing units in the city meet basic standards of habitability, we also know that there are some units that clearly do not. The City of Seattle desires an effective means to address problem rental housing units and improve rental housing conditions for Seattle residents. 

The proposed Rental Housing Registration and Inspection Program has been developed to help address the issue, and will provide for proactive inspections of most rental housing in Seattle. The City currently has a complaint-based system; potential violations are reported to the department, we then inspect, and if violations are found, action is taken to gain compliance.  This program will continue.  However, not all and perhaps some of the most egregious code violations are never reported due to lack of knowledge of basic code standards, fear of retaliation, or lack of familiarity with the enforcement system. 

In June 2010, the Seattle City Council adopted Ordinance 123311, creating a rental housing licensing and inspection program, which is meant to address these problems.  The Department of Planning and Development convened a diverse Stakeholder Group, which included representatives of tenants, landlords, non-profit housing providers, health and the Associated Students of the University of Washington.  .

The Stakeholder Group met 14 times between December, 2010 and January, 2012, resulting in a series of recommendations on the scope of a rental housing program.  As a result of those discussions, DPD prepared a report, “Proposed Registration and Inspection Program for Rental Housing,” March 28, 2012.  The City Council Housing, Human Services, Health and Culture Committee met four times March through May, providing DPD direction on the preparation of the current draft legislation. 

The draft legislation and summary are available online at: www.seattle.gov/dpd/Compliance/RentalHousing/Overview/

Comments will be accepted through Monday, July 23, 2012.  Please send comments to: 

Rental Housing Registration and Inspection Program
The Department of Planning and Development
700 Fifth Ave., Suite 2000
P.O. Box 34019
Seattle, Washington  98124-4019

Email Responses:    RentalHousingRegistration@seattle.gov 

Further review and opportunity for comment and discussion will take place following submittal of the legislation to City Council, anticipated in late August.

To respond to the Council request and implement related policies in the Seattle Comprehensive Plan, the Department is proposing a program for registering and inspecting rental housing. Program elements would include: (1) registering most rental housing and inspecting properties on a randomly-selected basis; (2) inspecting properties with a history of code violations; (3) engaging in significant outreach and education effort for tenants, landlords and property managers to promote knowledge of the City rental housing regulations, including the proposed registration requirement and standards for maintaining rental properties; (4) engaging in outreach to other organizations and public agencies to identify poorly-maintained rental housing; (5) and providing relocation assistance to mitigate negative impacts on displaced tenants. The report can be read here www.seattle.gov/dpd/Compliance/RentalHousing/Overview/default.asp.

With the advent of warmer weather, more Seattle residents are trying out chicken keeping and the number of chicken-related complaints is rising. This has resulted in some new challenges for DPD code enforcement staff. DPD regulates provisions in the Land Use Code relating to chickens—that is, number of chickens, location of coops, and the presence of roosters. But, complaints about crowing roosters are not as straightforward as they seem. It is not always obvious what is the gender of the fowl that we observe—in fact, there are some breeds of chicken that outwardly appear to be roosters, crowing and all, but lay eggs and are in fact hens. If the only enforcement issue is animal noise such as crowing, the DPD inspector has no basis to undertake enforcement action—the appropriate agency to respond to complaints about animal noise is the City’s Animal Control unit. In addition, if a rooster has been in residence since before the enactment of the new code provisions—if the owner can prove it, which can be challenging—DPD will not require him to be removed.

As for the location of coops, in addition to being ten feet away from residences, they are subject to other rules about structures in yards. In most cases, such structures are not permitted in front yards, for example. In tight urban spaces, it can be challenging for an owner to find a space for the coop and chicken run that is big enough for the chickens’ needs and sturdy enough to protect them from predators but still meets code requirements.

Chicken odors and other maintenance issues also have been the subject of complaints, but these also are not handled by DPD. Odors created by chicken manure should be reported to Animal Control, as should other issues of sanitation or inadequate maintenance of chicken areas which may affect the wellbeing of the animals. Conditions creating a public health issue such as the presence of rats should be reported to Seattle – King County Public Health.

If your neighbor has more than eight chickens, has a rooster, or has built a chicken coop too close to your house, you may file a complaint with DPD by calling (206) 615-0808 or placing a complaint on line at http://web1.seattle.gov/dpd/complaintform/. For complaints about animal noise or inadequate animal maintenance, contact Animal Control at www.seattle.gov/animalshelter/contact.htm. Information about rats and rat control is available from Public Health at www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health/ehs/rats.aspx.

To Those Interested in Columbia City Cinema:

The Department of Planning and Development (DPD) and Fire Department have been working with the Columbia City Cinema for almost a year to try and resolve safety issues, in an effort to retain this important community facility and to ensure the safety of the public. We are disappointed that the operator has chosen to shut down the Cinema rather than address these safety concerns.  

The Columbia City Cinema has been in operation for several years, but unfortunately it has done so illegally. A permit for a movie theater was never obtained for this building, and installation of required safety improvements was never completed. The most critical concerns are providing safe exits for patrons and providing sprinklers. City staff confirmed with the owner that there were issues with both exiting and sprinklers when this issue was first brought to our attention. Over the last 12 months, the City has reached out and convened several meetings with the owner to help work on these issues while temporarily allowing the business to remain open at a reduced capacity.  

There are several features of this building that make these upgrades particularly important. The cinema is housed within an old building which was originally used as a Masonic Lodge. This is a rare cinema in that it contains a large theater on an upper level of a building constructed of wood. Most older theaters are one floor only, and were built as theaters many years ago. When a new business such as a cinema occupies a structure like this, it requires a permit to install additional safety upgrades so that that the customers and families are able to safely exit the building during a fire. Sprinklers or increased fire-resistive construction have been required for a building of this type (containing an upper-level movie theater) since the 1940’s. Had the owner consulted with the City before occupying this space, we would have identified these issues in advance so that these safety upgrades would have been considered by the business owner.

The City has been committed to working with the owner of Columbia City Cinema on complying with the current code. The Fire Department, in consultation with DPD, agreed to grant temporary assembly permits for the cinema while progress was made towards obtaining a permit and completing the safety upgrades. However, it’s been 12 months since this issue was identified. The construction permit has not been obtained and it has become increasingly clear that the owner does not have a feasible plan to make the required safety upgrades to this building.

We had also informed the owner that he had a different option – sprinklers would not be required if capacity were reduced and only the lower screen was used. That remains an option for the owner.

The City recognizes the importance of this local institution, but we would be doing a disservice to the community if we allow the cinema to continue to operate in its current configuration without considering the safety of the public. Many business owners across the City have complied with these requirements, and it would not be fair to them to exempt other businesses from the same rules. We remain supportive of the Cinema and appreciate its value to the community, and urge the owner to address the public safety issues we have identified.

Sincerely,

Assistant Chief John Nelsen
Fire Marshal

Diane M. Sugimura, Director
Department of Planning and Development