Eugene City Council votes to enact further housing regulations

Multifamily NW members,

We write today with some unfortunate, if not unexpected, news. The Eugene City Council voted last night 5-2 to approve Phase II rental regulations.

Eugene’s Phase II regulations:

• Limits security deposits to 2x the unit’s monthly rent, including cleaning deposits and other rent payments;
• Mandates that rental applications are processed in the order they are received, despite this already being standard practice in our industry;
• Mandate reporting of eviction data to the city;
• Establishes a relocation assistance mandate of 2x/month rent, if the rent is increased by the state-allowed amount (10% per year).

Thank you to the more than 80 advocates that took action on this latest round of regulation in Eugene. Your perspectives as housing providers deserves a prominent place in the policymaking process and Multifamily NW will continue to provide opportunities to engage as Eugene considers the third phase of restrictions.

Multifamily NW released this  statement.

As a reminder, last year, the Eugene City Council passed the first of three phases of new regulations. Phase I required new move-in/move-out documentation and legal information from housing providers, required housing providers to provide rental history at the written request of a renter, and capped screening fees at $10 (which was later ruled unlawful after a legal challenge from local housing providers and MFNW).

Phase III – yet to come before the council – would prohibit consideration of medical and education debt and limiting the use of credit scores in screening, loosening the minimum monthly gross income requirement and preventing or temporarily prohibiting no-cause evictions.

Thank you for your work on behalf of the rental housing community in Eugene. We will continue to keep our members up to date as new policies are considered.

If you have any questions, please reach out to jonny@multifamilynw.org.