Council Taps Brakes on RealPage Ban, Delaying One Week to Address Building Owner Concerns

Cathy Moore, whose committee passed the bill in 35 minutes last week, says it's been "thoroughly vetted."

By Erica C. Barnett

The city council tapped the brakes on Cathy Moore's fast-tracked legislation to ban companies from using algorithmic tools like RealPage to set rent prices, pushing a vote on the bill back one week over Moore's strenuous objections. The bill, which is likely to pass, largely replicates a proposed state law that did not move forward this year.

RealPage and similar services analyze both public and proprietary rent data to recommend rents to property management companies. The state of Washington has sued RealPage over the practice, which critics say amounts to illegal collusion to keep rents high and hold units vacant, contributing to the housing crisis.

The conflict that arose at the council meeting on Monday stemmed largely from a debate over whether a clause requested by building owners to ensure they could still use software (including consumer software like ChatGPT) to compare and compile publicly available rent data should be included in the bill's nonbinding "whereas" section, as Moore proposed, or in the legislation itself, where it would have the force of law.

Groups representing property owners, like the Washington Multifamily Housing Association, also complained that Moore didn't reach out to them before proposing the legislation, which passed out of Moore's housing committee after just 35 minutes of discussion last week, and argued that the bill could negatively impact hotels and people who operate Airbnbs.

Moore, who will step down on July 7, argued that the legislation was already "thoroughly vetted" at the state level and didn't need any more local process. "My position is that we should move forward, that we are not going to wind up with a better product, and that we are here today, fully informed of what this bill does because of the stakeholdering it received in Olympia ... and that we do not have the time to continue to delay a tool that we have to begin to address the affordability crisis in our city," Moore said.

Moore's opposition to a one-week delay on her bill stood in marked contrast to her position on the city's much-delayed comprehensive plan update, which Moore has consistently decried because she does not think neighborhoods have been consulted enough about plans to allow apartments within two blocks of about 30 frequent transit stops.

When Kettle pushed back on Moore's statement that her bill had already been thoroughly vetted in Olympia, saying that state legislators often got it wrong ("I just have way too many examples on public safety where Olympia has failed us," he said), Moore responded sharply. "I think it's insulting to say that Olympia always gets it wrong. To me, that's an indication of the continued arrogance of this jurisdiction, to think that only Seattle knows how to do it," she said.

This statement, too, was a bit ironic: Moore tried to poison-pill a new state law requiring cities to allow between four and six housing units on all lots previously preserved exclusively for single-family houses by imposing affordability requirements that would make these small developments infeasible in Seattle; she also advocated for new setback and tree requirements that would similarly discourage development and undercut the intent of the state legislature.

The council voted 6-2-1 to delay the legislation a week, with Moore and Joy Hollingsworth voting no. Maritza Rivera, who owns a rental unit, abstained. (Mark Solomon was renting out half his duplex, but has said a family member is now living there, eliminating his financial conflict of interest.)