State may end housing limits aimed at groups of tenants in larger homes
A measure that would overturn local ordinances limiting the number of unrelated people who live together has cleared the state Senate and is awaiting House action this week.
SB 6302 would end occupancy limits based on family status, meaning that it would abolish a Bellingham code saying that no more than three people who aren’t in the same family can share a house or apartment.
It passed the Senate by a vote of 27-20, with bill sponsor Sen. Liz Lovelett, D-Anacortes, voting to approve, and state Sen. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, excused and not voting.
On Friday, the measure had been referred to a House committee, with a hearing scheduled Tuesday.
It’s among several housing-related bills working their way through the state Legislature as the session nears its March 12 end.
Rick Sepler, Bellingham’s director of planning and community development, said the city hasn’t been enforcing the measure for some time, because of court rulings such as the 2019 Yoder v. City of Bowling Green, which held that such tenant limits are unconstitutional.
“It’s a long-standing issue for some (Bellingham) residents,” Sepler told The Bellingham Herald. “We suspended enforcing it because of the federal case in Bowling Green,” Sepler said. “We decided to refrain from doing any enforcement to let this matter play out.”
But residents such as Dick Conoboy say that filling large single-family homes with multiple tenants creates problems with parking, noise and litter.
“The bill is clearly an attempt by landlords and the real estate industry to pack houses or knockdown older houses and build seven- to nine-bedroom ‘apartments,’ “ Conoboy wrote in an email to The Bellingham Herald.
Bellingham housing advocate Galen Herz, however, welcomed the news Friday in a Twitter message.
In an earlier interview with The Bellingham Herald, Herz called the limit an antiquated idea.
“Four seniors can’t live together,” he said. We’re not in all in this ‘50s version of what a nuclear family is. People are changing the definition of what a nuclear family is.”
Sepler said it’s unusual that the Legislature is considering so many housing-related measures this session.
According to The Olympian newspaper, other proposed bills would allow cities to:
▪ Allow up to two tiny homes or backyard cottages alongside a single-family home — an issue that Bellingham considered nearly two years ago.
▪ Allow cities to add up to 0.1% to a local sales tax to fund affordable housing, much like the Bellingham Home Fund, which voters approved in 2018.
A measure that would allow higher-density buildings such as duplexes, triplexes, townhouses or smaller apartment blocks in residential areas appears to have died. It was aimed at the “missing middle,” people who find it difficult to afford to live near city centers.
City officials are keeping an eye on the Legislature’s moves, Sepler said.
“There’s so many variables,” he said. “Anything can happen with those bills. Typically we watch very closely on how they (the legislators) frame it.”
