The Seattle City Council, in its wisdom, has validated the discussion of “rent control.” It is asking the State Legislature to allow local governments the option to enact rent control, which as of now is prohibited by State law.

As in everything in life–sorry folks–it’s not that simple. What to discuss? Right now “rent control” is a political slogan, a dog whistle to attract voters just as “gun rights” or “anti-abortion” is used by conservatives. In leftist terms, “rent control” is an organizing tool to focus the masses on political action, of any type. It doesn’t matter so long as people get involved. Therefore appeals for rent control are independent of the proposals in HALA.

But “rent control” is not a self-defining term. Arguments for rent control in Seattle, in light of the widespread failure of rent control in the USA, almost all state that “Seattle rent control will be different, and better.” So what is this “rent control” which we ask the State Legislature to allow us to enact? It’s not at all clear.

The discussion will be an interesting one at a number of political and policy levels and here are just some of the aspects.

Politics:
“Local option” has historically been a conservative position to allow exemption from State or Federal mandates. The “solid south” (once Democratic and now all Republican) would like nothing better than to exempt Federal rules on desegregation and other civil rights laws. Will (or more likely, how) will Washington State conservatives attempt to seize the opportunity to rid itself of various Washington State mandates? Will Seattle socialists be willing to make common cause with conservatives to gain local options? Will conservatives of all stripe take this opportunity to unroll a host of other State mandates? See below.

Policy:

Single family housing
The City Council has asked the State legislature to local government to allow “rent control”. But what kind? Should single family houses be included in any rent control regime? It would seem that it should. Seattle has a considerable number (how many?) single family are rented. Since the goal is to protect affordable housing and since many detached houses are rented by single adults to share costs, thus bringing the per room monthly rental to “affordable” levels, all single family dwellings should be part of the overall program as they are with other City of Seattle Housing regulations.

However, the politics are difficult. Voters love to tell other people what to do but are reluctant to allow themselves to be policed.  And the more people impacted by a law, the more people get involved, which could cut against popular support — such as it may be — for rent control. So the unprincipled but expedient approach would be to try to exempt single family houses as well as perhaps small multiple family structures such as duplex/triplex/fourplex.

Growth Management Act (GMA)
A core element of the GMA is to ensure adequate affordable housing. So merely considering local option for rent control must be considered in light of GMA requirements. Many economists believe that rent control hinders the production of housing. So, will rent control impact existing GMA goals? And on a piece meal basis (say, Seattle only) in which some localities adopt rent control and others don’t? If so, then local option for rent control conflicts directly with GMA. How do Sierra Clubbers et al feel about that?

In addition, once there is a cry for local option for rent control, the natural policy (and certainly political) corollary will be “local option for GMA” i.e. some jurisdictions should be allowed to exempt themselves from the entire Growth Management Act which of course would destroy the GMA. Many Republicans (though not all) will like that one.

So unleashing this request by Seattle liberal establishment will surely raise a host of issues it may prefer not to have raised. But having raised them, it’s a bit late.

David Sucher is the author of City Comforts: How to Build an Urban Village