Rent stabilization bill moves through first committee as Senate begins consideration

OLYMPIA – Legislation to establish a rent cap in Washington passed the House Housing Committee this week, as lawmakers in the Senate once again begin to weigh more tenant protections.

On Monday, the House committee approved the bill during an executive session. The proposal now heads to the House Appropriations Committee before potential consideration on the House floor.

If signed into law, the legislation would limit annual rent increases to 7% every 12 months for tenants and require six months’ notice for rent increases of 3% or more, though landlords could set a rent above the 7% cap for the unit when a new tenant signs a lease. The proposal would also cap late and move-in fees.

Under the current legislation, new construction would be exempt from the requirements for 10 years, and owner-occupied housing and duplexes would also be exempt.

The Legislature considered a similar bill last session, though the proposal died in the Senate after it passed the House. Now, the proposal was among the first to be considered by the Legislature this year, and Democratic leadership from both chambers have expressed interest in moving it forward.

“I think we’re very much looking forward to seeing the rent stabilization bill and to working with the house on a whole series of measures to increase housing supply,” Senate Majority Leader Jaime Pedersen, D-Seattle, said Tuesday.

The Senate Housing Committee held its first hearing on the legislation Wednesday, when sponsor Sen. Yasmin Trudeau, D-Tacoma, said the bill “will make a difference for the countless Washingtonians grappling with the harsh realities of our housing crisis.”

“And I don’t believe they deserve to wait 20, 30 years, for the solutions to reach them,” Trudeau said, referring to prior legislation to increase the housing supply in the state.

The bill, Trudeau said, comes as people “don’t have any other options.” According to Trudeau, more than a million people in Washington classify as “rent burdened,” which means they spend more than 30% of their income on housing while the state faces a drastic increase in evictions.

According to data from the University of California Berkeley’s Urban Displacement Project, Washington saw a record number of evictions in 2024.

“Monthly filings are past what our systems can bare, and we’re just not dealing with the numbers and policies,” Trudeau said. “We need to actually confront the very essence of human dignity: the right to a home and the pursuit of a better life.”

The bill, Trudeau said, would provide additional stability and predictability for families and allow enough advanced notice to plan for increase housing costs.

During public testimony, many attendees expressed concern the legislation would only exacerbate the problem by reducing incentives to build additional housing and motivating landlords to increase rents by the maximum amount allowable each year.

Morgan Irwin of the Association of Washington Business said developers have told him that if the legislation were to pass, they would “be less likely to deploy our resources and dollars in Washington State.”

“That’s why we’re opposed to this bill. We are genuinely concerned that our out of state dollars, or in state dollars, are just going to deploy someplace else,” Irwin said.