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City considers new protections for renters

Until recently, Roger Henderson was an anomaly on the Gig Harbor City Council. The retired engineer, who moved from Sacramento in 2018, was the only renter on the seven-member body until Emily Stone joined last January. 

Renters occupy about 40% of homes in Gig Harbor, according to a city report. But Henderson says they still “tend to be an invisible group of people” in the city whose needs are often forgotten.

“It’s good for people that live in Gig Harbor to understand just how many people rent,” he said. “There’s a lot of us here.”

As renters in Gig Harbor and elsewhere continue to face high housing costs, many Western Washington cities have adopted policies to protect tenants from volatility synonymous with renting. Those jurisdictions hope to mitigate displacement or — in dire situations — homelessness.

Gig Harbor has not been among them and has no immediate plans to put forth legislation. City officials, though, have started examining how they could support renters.

Roger Henderson is one of two renters on the Gig Harbor City Council. Photo by Conor Wilson

City council members were briefed on tenant protection for the first time in December. Shea Smiley, the city’s housing, health and human services manager, delivered a presentation on what neighboring cities have done and looked ahead at upcoming changes at the state level.

During that meeting, they discussed a landlord registry, where property owners must register all rental properties with the city. They also talked about extended notice requirements for particularly large rent hikes.

Smiley wrote in an email that the council plans to discuss tenant protection again at an upcoming study session. So far, the council has not asked staff to create any new legislation. They plan to review current protections and explore “potential additional options.”

Rental costs, evictions rise 

Discussion in Gig Harbor, like in other cities, comes as rental costs have soared. The average rental in the city now costs close to $2,800 a month, according to data from the Zillow Observed Rent Index, a more than 50% rise from pre-pandemic.

Even before the pandemic, many renters in the city already appear to have been feeling the rise in cost of living. A quarter met the definition for “severe cost burden” in 2019, meaning they spent more than 50% of their monthly income on housing, according to a city report. That compares to only 9% of home owners.  

This is particularly impactful among older Gig Harbor residents, who are the most likely to be displaced due to finances, city officials say.

Most communities have seen record numbers of evictions amid these price surges. That does not appear to be happening in Gig Harbor to a great extent, although it is difficult to say for certain.

Pierce County had 3,568 evictions in 2024, according to data from the Washington state Office of Civil and Legal Aid, a 22% annual increase. Results, obtained via public records request, are not broken down by city.

Cecily Jurman, an attorney for the nonprofit law firm Tacomaprobono that handles right-to-counsel eviction cases, said their case management system showed 11 eviction cases in Gig Harbor last year. She cautioned that could be an undercount.

“Our data isn’t always perfect, so it’s very possible the numbers are higher,” she wrote in an email.

City officials said they don’t track evictions.

Turning to tenant protection

Facing these troubling trends, the state and many cities have turned to tenant protections.

Following a multi-year effort, Washington legislators approved the state’s first rent cap earlier this year. House Bill 1217 limits annual rent increases for most units to 7% plus inflation, up to a maximum of 10%.  It also requires at least 90 days of notice for any rent hike.

State law prohibits cities from imposing rent control. Longer notice periods for rent increases, landlord registries and eviction moratoriums have all been imposed.

Cities like Lakewood and Bremerton have adopted landlord registries. Redmond, SeaTac, Woodinville and others required at least 180 day notice of any rent increase even before the state adopted rent control, Seattle radio station KNKX reported last year.

Neighboring Tacoma likely has the strongest of these protections in the state. Voters approved the “Tenant Bill of Rights,” by a narrow margin two years ago. Among other steps, the sweeping initiative established moratoriums on eviction during certain parts of the year. It mandates landlords pay relocation assistance to tenants in some scenarios.

Tyron Moore, an activist and campaign manager behind the initiative wrote in a recent blog post that these protections were “band-aid solutions,” but said they were “necessary to meet the moment.”  

“[E]veryone agrees that the best answer to rising evictions, homelessness, and Tacoma’s growing number of rent burdened tenants is to build more affordable housing,” Moore said.

For residents in Gig Harbor, Smiley said renter protections were not aimed at stopping property owners from raising rents, but at helping renters prepare should they need to move.

“It’s just giving people that time to make the plans they need so they don’t end up homeless and hopefully they can stay in this community,” she said at the December meeting. 

Looking out for renters 

Henderson, the city council member, says he remains supportive of tenant protections and would like to see the city take other steps to support renters and build affordable housing. Even working with developers to build smaller homes, he said, could help renters and reduce the displacement of older residents. 

He remains skeptical of the state’s rent cap law. Having your rent increase even 10% “doesn’t sound like much,” he said, but for the average renter it is at least a few thousand dollars more over the course of the year. He said he would like to see that number reduced. 

Renters have very little financial certainty, he says, subject to increase each year. They would benefit from having more predictability.

“I am happy there’s at least two on the city council right now looking out for the other renters in Gig Harbor,” he said.