POLICY ALERT | RENTAL Act Markup Scheduled

DC Housing& Members,

The RENTAL Act has been scheduled for a vote, but changes are urgently needed before passage!

The Council’s Housing Committee will be marking up the RENTAL Act tomorrow, Wednesday, July 9th, at 9:30 AM. The first Council-wide vote on the bill will take place on Monday, July 14th, and the second and final vote will be held on Monday, July 28th. The full text of the bill and information on the markup can be found here.

Now is the time to act: Reach out to members of the Council’s Committee on Housing ahead of tomorrow’s markup, and then follow up with all Councilmembers ahead of Monday’s vote.

For more information or questions, please email Steven Palmer, Housing&’s Director of Public Policy.

Reach out ASAP to Council to ask them to:

Improve notice timelines

The Committee Print removes changes to notice timelines included in the introduced bill. Urge the Council to shorten these pandemic-era timelines now to align with neighboring Maryland and Virginia:

Shorten the pre-filing notice timeline from 30 days to 10 days; and
Shorten the pre-hearing summons period from 30 business days to 14 calendar days.

Remove protective order loopholes

The introduced bill:

The introduced bill provided for automatic protective orders requiring defendants to pay rent to court each month in nonpayment cases where a housing conditions defense is raised.
This would have ended the Bell hearing loophole, whereby raising a housing conditions defense is used to add multiple months of delay to a case without having to pay rent.

The Committee Print:

Narrows the introduced provision to only require protective orders when a housing conditions defense is the only defense raised.
This effectively creates a new and similar loophole: a tenant need only dispute the monthly rent amount for some other reason, and the court would no longer be required to issue a protective order.

Urge the Council to remove this new loophole and ensure a functional process.

Improve project-based LRSP flexibility.

The introduced bill would have increased the eligibility for project-based LRSP to 50% AMI in order to support existing committed affordable buildings that are struggling to convert to permanent financing due to high rates of non-payment.

The Committee Print removes this provision entirely. Urge Council to add the provision back in to stabilize and preserve existing affordable housing.

Strengthen the public safety evictions provision.

The Committee Print includes this provision while maintaining the current 30-day notice requirement, requiring a record of indictment, and a hearing within 20 days.

Urge the Council to ensure that the public safety evictions provision is workable and efficient.

Rightsize TOPA.

The Committee Print includes new definitions, a 15-year new building exemption, adjustments to the assignment of rights, and exemptions for exit and entry of capital investment partners.

Urge the Council to:

Speed up the lengthy TOPA process (which currently takes up to 420 days);
Lengthen the period for the exemption for new buildings to 25 years in order to attract more investment to DC; and
Exempt buildings with long-lasting affordability covenants.

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