The issues underlying the great rift between renters and homeowners
When Sir Edward Coke (who lived from 1552 to 1634) minted the English proverb, “One’s home is one’s castle,” he was thinking of homeowners protecting their property from thieves and unreasonable searches, not the universal idea that one’s home is a refuge from the world.
There aren’t many castles around these days, but the need for refuge endures. We all want to be safe in our homes and comfortable in our neighborhoods. However, one person’s moat is another person’s residential barrier, with the dividing line often falling between owner-occupants and renters.
How do we secure our sense of domestic refuge now? Looking beyond door locks or security systems, local housing policy dictates modern standards of residential refuge. Historically, these policies have favored owner-occupants, but have begun to shift toward embracing the growing number of residents who rent their homes. In Olympia, that’s over half of the residents, with Lacey and Tumwater close behind in the percentage of renter households.
The owner-renter rift emerged in Olympia’s debates over the “Missing Middle,” a zoning change that allowed more “gentle density,” meaning allowing rental duplexes and triplexes in areas previously restricted for single-family homes. Opponents protested the increase in housing density as a threat to neighborhood character, championing homeowners who want their blocks to stay the same as when they moved in.
Such fears aren’t surprising — nobody likes bait and switch. But when defending “neighborhood character” is a cover for keeping renters out of a neighborhood, the meaning becomes far less understandable.
The title of an April 21, 2021, New York Times opinion column by Richard Kahlenberg, “The ‘New Redlining’ is Deciding Who Lives in Your Neighborhood,” says it all. Considered an authority on housing segregation, Kahlenberg examines single-family zoning as a tool used to exclude people by class status and race, noting that single-family zoning emerged after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling banned explicitly racial zoning in 1917.
Federal housing policy now recognizes that single-family zoning limits affordability as well as racial integration in neighborhoods. Washington is now one of the states that uses “Missing Middle” approaches to end exclusionary zoning and increase housing supply, especially for renters.
Another renter-owner flashpoint animated recent debates over Olympia’s Multi Family Tax Exemption, or the MFTE — a tax incentive program that encourages the development of multifamily housing near transportation lines as a way to slow down suburban sprawl. The MFTE also helps to catch up with unmet demand for more homes.
The program splits the incentives into an eight-year exemption for market-rate housing and a more generous 12-year exemption for affordable housing. Most of the opposition is focused on the eight-year break as a gift to wealthy developers that is paid for by everyone else.
But just below the surface of the unfairness argument lies an opposition to rental housing. Few people oppose property tax exemptions for faith communities, also paid for by everyone else, because we value what they offer. Do we not value ample housing supply for renters?
How does zoning and other housing policy get decided? Some is created by politicians wanting to be change agents, some percolate up through planning departments inspired by national trends, and all of it runs the gauntlet of public process. Concerned residents can write emails or attend public hearings.
The 800-pound gorilla of public process is the network of neighborhood associations. Supported by local government, these associations amplify their members’ opinions on local issues. Yet most associations are overwhelmingly composed of owner-occupants, leaving renters without a voice. There are tenants’ organizations, but they don’t get formal assistance from local governments, nor are their concerns represented as effectively as those of owner-occupants.
If Coke was alive today, would he write about one’s home as a castle on NextDoor.com? Perhaps he’d rant about threats to neighborhood character. Or maybe he’d rage that single-family zoning is racist.
In a better world, he’d try to strike a universal note of neighborhood harmony, suggesting that strong communities are made up of diverse households that welcome both owner-occupants and renters. That’s a proverb we could live by today.
Anna Schlecht is retired from the City of Olympia where she worked on housing and homeless issues for several decades. This column is part of her year-long exploration of housing issues in our region.
