Many tenants in Washington would be able to breathe a little easier, knowing extreme increases in their monthly rent are off the table, if a bill approved by the state House of Representatives this week is able to make it across the finish line. House Bill 1217 would cap annual rent increases at 7%, and extend the statewide minimum notice requirement for rent increases of any size from 60 to 90 days, giving renters more stability than they’re currently guaranteed under state law.
This is the second year in a row that a rent stabilization measure has passed the House, but the policy has considerable momentum and faces a very different state Senate than it did in 2024, where it stalled in the Ways and Means Committee. Ahead of the start of the session in January, Democratic leaders in both chambers cited the policy as a top priority.
HB 1217’s sponsor, Emily Alvarado (D-34th, West Seattle) was not able to give a floor speech in support of her bill Monday, because she is now a Senator, one of 12 fresh faces in that chamber this year. Other new members include Senator Mike Chapman (D-24th, Port Angeles), who voted against last year’s rent stabilization bill, when he was in the House, but now says he supports the policy.
Originally HB 1217 included a number of other protections for renters, many of which have already been adopted in cities around the state. Those included capping move-in fees and security deposits at one month’s rent, capping late fees at 1.5% of total monthly rent, and prohibiting landlords from charging higher rent for month-to-month leases. But all of those provisions were scaled back by the time it passed the House floor, in an attempt to maintain the core provisions of the bill.
“We made the decision to focus the bill on the central policy,” Representative Joe Fitzgibbon (D-34th, West Seattle), the House’s Majority Leader, told reporters Thursday. “And I think that that lowered the temperature on the bill considerably. And of course, we know that constituents are still impacted by things like move-in fees and late fees, but we thought it made sense to just focus the bill for now.”
Ahead of the 53-42 vote, which saw five Democrats join the entire Republican caucus in opposing the bill, Republican House members decried the bill, claiming it will inhibit homebuilding in Washington and work against many of the supply-oriented policies that the legislature has adopted in recent years. But some of the House’s supply champions, including Housing Committee chair Strom Peterson (D-21st, Edmonds), argue that a stabilization policy will work in concert with those broader policies.
“Washington State has led the nation in legislation to improve our housing supply,” Peterson said ahead of the vote. “Unfortunately, supply takes a while to get going. It still takes too long to get a building permit. It still takes a while to get building supplies. All of those things are still an issue when it comes to supply, but we are getting there. We are making incredible progress, but in the meantime, because of our lack of supply, the market is a little crazy [and] a little wonky. And the people that are suffering are the people that are renting.”
Unlike its stricter counterpart rent control, in place in cities like San Francisco and New York City, the rent stabilization bill doesn’t place any restrictions on what landlords can charge for a unit after a tenant leaves, in alignment with other statewide rent stabilization policies in place in Oregon and California. And HB 1217 includes an exemption for buildings newer than 12 years old — an increase over the 10 years included in the original version of the bill. By exempting new buildings for their first 12 years, proponents argue they have maintained a strong incentive for homebuilders to continue operating in the state, while preventing predatory price-gouging in older housing stock.
Last week, Futurewise Executive Director Alex Brennan spelled out why pro-supply urbanists should support the idea of rent stabilization as part of an overall housing abundance strategy in an op-ed in The Urbanist.
“If we are going to build the broad-based coalition that we will need to pass and maintain policies that lead to housing abundance over the long-run, that coalition needs to include renters who are at risk of being displaced in the near term by rising rents,” Brennan wrote. “Would you take time out of your busy life to advocate for more housing supply if you wouldn’t be able to stick around long enough to benefit?”
Legislators echoed that argument, noting no housing policy is a silver bullet.
“There’s no single thing that we can do on this house floor which will solve our housing crisis, that’s probably why we talk about it so much, and I’m proud of the work that we’ve done to build housing supply, more than almost any state in this country. But we must give people stability,” Representative Nicole Macri (D-43rd, Seattle) said ahead of HB 1217’s passage Monday. “We must give people stability right now.”
But the entire Democratic caucus wasn’t completely united, and for different reasons. Representative Sharon Tomiko Santos (D-37th, South Seattle), one of the five Democrats who voted no, said she wanted to see greater protections for landlords that own fewer than 10 units.
“I’m concerned about the impact of extraordinary rising costs on the ability of these landlords to maintain affordable housing units in my district,” Tomiko Santos said. “I am glad to see that this advances, because I believe the state must continue to be vigilant about doing what it can to contain affordability, and because I believe housing is a human right. But today I will vote no.”
The pared-back version of HB 1217 will face additional scrutiny in the Senate, but Democratic leaders in that chamber are optimistic that they’ll be able to get it across the finish line ahead of an April 16th deadline to pass the full Senate.
“I think those changes will help over here, and there’s still going to be more work to do to get to a bill that will have majority support in the Senate,” Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pederson (D-43, Seattle) said Thursday. “I think we will have the votes to pass rent stabilization this year, but there are a number of dials within that policy that I think we have members interested in adjusting before it’s complete.”
Ryan Packer has been writing for The Urbanist since 2015, and currently reports full-time as Contributing Editor. Their beats are transportation, land use, public space, traffic safety, and obscure community meetings. Packer has also reported for other regional outlets including Capitol Hill Seattle, BikePortland, Seattle Met, and PubliCola. They live in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle.
