The Seattle Department of Planning and Development (DPD) launched the Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance (RRIO) program this Spring. You may recall that this program is the result of legislation that I led the Council in passing in 2012. The program is intended to identify substandard housing and ensure that all rental housing in Seattle is safe and meets basic housing maintenance requirements.
The implementation schedule for RRIO requires all properties with 10 or more units to register by the end of this September. This is about 2,400 properties, representing about 81,000 rental units. DPD has just issued its first annual report. DPD mailed to property owners on July 11 and as of July 23, 148 properties, representing 7,674 rental units have registered. That’s only 6% of the properties and almost 10% of the units. So there are still a lot of properties with 10 or more units that have yet to register.
The next set of properties that will have to register are those with 5-9 rental housing units. Their registrations will be due by March 31, 2015. Finally, from June 31, 2015 until December 31, 2015 properties with 1-4 units will register. For more about when a rental unit needs to be registered by checking the registration schedule.
If you are a landlord, seeking help in registering, see here: Register My Property (Instructions)
Inspections under the RRIO will not begin until 2015. If you want to learn more about the minimum housing standards that RRIO is using to evaluate rental units, read the RRIO Checklist.