The Olympia City Council has kicked off a series of study sessions aimed at renter protections and meeting new state law requirements for rent stabilization.
Housing Program Specialist Christa Lenssen provided the council with an overview of policy updating options during a July 29 study session. The council will next discuss the first year of the city’s rental registry on Aug. 19, and more tenant screening policy options on Sept. 16.
According to city documents, the 2025 legislative session resulted in a number of changes to the Revised Code of Washington and landlord/tenant acts for both residential and manufactured mobile homes.
House Bill 1217, also known as the rent stabilization bill, sets limits to how much rent can increase in a year. Before the bill was passed, there were no limits on how much rent could increase, and jurisdictions weren’t allowed to regulate it themselves.
Under HB 1217, landlords may not increase rent by more than 7% plus the consumer price index up to a maximum of 10% during a 12-month period. These rent stabilization measures are set to expire in July 2040.
Lenssen said there are some exempted properties from these rent stabilization measures, including affordable rental units where rent is set by a contract, and units that are shared with the property owner as their primary residence, such as room rentals, ADUs, duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes.
The bill also excludes newly constructed rental units. City documents state that means the first certificate of occupancy was issued 12 or fewer years before the date of the notice of the rent increase.
Lenssen said landlords must now also provide 90 days’ notice before increasing rent. Previously 60 days’ notice was required under state law.
Olympia code currently requires landlords to provide 120 days’ notice for rent increases over 5% and for rent increases that total 7% or more within a 12-month period. A rent increase of 10% or greater requires a 180 days’ notice.
In Olympia, if a tenant receives a rent increase of 7% or more within a 12-month period, they can request relocation assistance from the landlord to move.
New state law states landlords may not increase rent during the first 12 months of the tenancy. They also may not charge more than a 5% difference in monthly rent for lengths of varying time periods, or a higher rate for month-to-month leases.
The legislation also requires the Washington State Department of Commerce to create an online landlord resource center, with information about the landlord mitigation program and other resources. The department will also calculate and publish the amount that rents may increase annually.
The maximum annual rent increase percentage allowed, through Dec. 31, 2025, is 10.0%. Lenssen said the rate for 2026 is 9.683%. Manufactured homes/mobile homes
Lenssen said the rent stabilization bill also applies to manufactured and mobile home tenancies. The provisions for the Manufactured Mobile Home Landlord-Tenant Act don’t expire like those for residential tenancies.
Under HB 1217, landlords may not increase rent by more than 5% during a 12-month period, and they may not increase rent during the first 12 months of tenancy. It also provides the model rent increase form that landlords are required to use, as well as caps move-in fees and security deposits to one month’s worth of rent.
If a tenant brings a pet, then the security deposit may not exceed two months worth of rent. Late fees are also capped. Lenssen said they increase by percentage if rent is more than one month, then two months, then three months past due.
For one month, late fees may not exceed 2% of the tenant’s total monthly rent. For two months, it goes up to 3% of the total monthly rent. More than three months and late fees are capped at 5% of the tenant’s monthly rent. Proposed policies
Lenssen said staff have proposed allowing manufactured home tenants to request relocation assistance if their rent was increased by 7% or more annually. Landlords would be required to provide six months notice rather than three months, which is required under current state law.
For rent increases of 7% or more, landlords would be required to include similar information and rent increase notices to what’s currently required in Olympia’s rental housing code. They would also be required to provide tenant rights information documents when signing a new lease or renewing.
Lenssen said staff also recommended amending zoning code so that existing manufactured home communities may not be redeveloped to a different use, which would result in resident displacement. There’s currently only two manufactured home communities zoned in the City of Olympia.
Another option the council could consider is removing the requirements for landlords to provide economic displacement relocation assistance, since the state’s action caps annual rent increases.
“That would mean that exempted properties could increase rents by any amount without any additional requirements at the local level,” Lenssen said. “It could help reduce any confusion between state and local requirements.”
She said staff has recommended the council consider a middle ground option where they take into account changes to state law, but not entirely remove relocation assistance requirements.
“Council could decide to keep these kinds of requirements for properties that are exempt from the state’s rent stabilization requirements, or for properties that increase rent by more than the state’s allowable threshold,” she said. “As an additional remedy for tenants, if their landlord doesn’t comply with the state law, this would provide additional security for renters who live in exempted properties that they won’t be subject to significant rent increases without any resources.”
Lenssen said the exempted properties could still increase rents beyond 10% but would then be required to offer economic displacement relocation assistance to tenants who decide they can’t afford the increase and then need to move out.
“So this as an additional enforcement measure would just complement what the state has already provided,” she said.
She said under the new state law, tenants can either pursue their own legal action, or they can report the complaint to the Washington State Attorney General’s Office to enforce the rent caps. If the city updates its code to align with that, then a landlord who increased rents beyond what is allowable under the state law could additionally request relocation assistance.
Lenssen said keeping the city’s rent increase notification requirements in place would be the most protective in terms of longer time frames for tenants and would continue the current status quo for Olympia landlords and tenants.
She said the council could consider removing the rent increase notice requirements entirely.
“This would provide less time for tenants to plan for a move or to save up for new housing, but it does offer more notice at the state level than what was previously granted with the 60 day notice,” Lenssen said.
She said this might provide a more clear option for landlords and tenants, since there would be no difference between state and city requirements. It would also eliminate any need for staff time to enforce the code, and currently, staff spends approximately 15 hours per year enforcing rent increase notice violations under the rental housing code.
Lenssen said staff recommends a middle ground option here as well, where the city amends current requirements to align more closely with the state law. That would include requiring 120 days notice for any rent increases, which gives tenants an additional month to plan beyond the state’s three month rent increase notice requirement. Council reluctance
Council member Clark Gilman said he was reluctant to adopt any of the recommended code changes. He said keeping the city’s elements of rent caps and disincentives to increase rent and adding the state code creates a complicated matrix for small landlords.
“It is creating more different scenarios that landlords and tenants will fall into, and then expecting them to understand that and know where to go to seek assistance in resolving a disagreement,” Gilman said.
Mayor Pro tem Yến Huỳnh said she shared Gilman’s concerns, and added she’d like to learn more about protections for manufactured and mobile homes, including potential zoning amendments.
Council member Jim Cooper said the city needs something that locks in the manufactured home parks that are already in the city for as long as they want.
“I feel like I’ve been blown away again and again and again that Olympia doesn’t have this policy,” Cooper said.
He said he thought that the city already tackled protections for these types of homes when he started on council. He said he was told this had been dealt with by Olympia and Tumwater for multiple years, and then all of a sudden, they’re in this place where there aren’t any protections.
“I can’t figure out what the disconnect was over time, either in my not listening right or just not being told the right information, but we just can’t afford to to help with a displacement situation of some of the larger manufactured facilities that are in our community,” Cooper said. “We need them to be able to keep living where they are.”
Council member Dani Madrone requested that the policy proposals get referred back to the Land Use and Environment Committee for further research and recommendations. She said she feels that’s the easiest path forward when there’s a lack of consensus among the council.
Madrone said she sat through all the focus groups with tenants, landlords and advocates. She said she remembers one of the landlords saying to her, “I know you need to do something. I know that tenants are struggling right now, but whatever you do, just please keep it as simple as possible.”
She said every industry has a complicated and ever-changing set of regulations they have to track, but the city treating rental housing like a business is new for everyone involved.
“I do want to be sensitive that this is new for a lot of landlords in our community,” Madrone said.
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