SALEM -- Oregon lawmakers are whittling down relief proposals aimed at tenants struggling with rising rents amid the state's escalating housing crisis -- keeping 90-day notices for rent increases and evictions but dropping plans to make landlords pay relocation costs.
Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer, the chairwoman of the House human services and housing committee, laid out the changes during a hearing Friday.
The agreement -- an apparent breakthrough after a week that's seen partisan tension -- could help the bill win Republican support in the House and soothe skeptical Senate Democrats worried about doing too much in a 35-day session.
Three provisions included in a wider-reaching bill by Keny-Guyer, House Bill 4001, will instead be added to a related bill proposed by Rep. Chris Gorsek, D-Troutdale.
Once it's amended, Gorsek's House Bill 4143, would ban all rent increases during a tenant's first year. Then, after that first year, landlords would be required to give three months' notice when handing out no-cause evictions or raising rents.
Gorsek's original bill, sponsored by Rep. Knute Buehler, R-Bend, sought 90-day notices only when a rent hike hit 5 percent -- mirroring renter protections approved in Portland last fall. Buehler, who didn't attend Friday's hearing, had already asked to scrap the 5 percent limit.
But in other ways, HB 4143's original provisions would have gone even further than the deal that's taking shape. Gorsek sought 90-day notices for evictions on the first day a tenant moved in, and proposed stiffer penalties for landlords who fail to provide that notice.
Under current law, landlords must give 30 days when raising rent after the first year and 60 days before ending a lease.
Keny-Guyer, a Portland Democrat, said she regretted giving up some of her bill's other proposed protections. One would have required landlords, when issuing a no-cause eviction, to pay some of that tenant's relocation costs.
Another would have put the burden on landlords, if they ended a lease six months after a tenant complained about living conditions, to prove they weren't engaged in retaliation.
"In this market, the 90-day notices meant a lot" to tenant advocates, Keny-Guyer said.
Less clear is what will happen to language in Keny-Guyer's original bill that would have allowed local governments require builders set aside up to 30 percent of new housing units for low-income residents. The state has banned that practice, known as inclusionary zoning, since 1999.
A Senate committee is working through several versions of the same idea, including some that would ease the state's land-use restrictions -- something builders covet almost as much as they dislike forced inclusionary zoning.
Keny-Guyer's pared-down renter protections could advance to the full House as soon as Monday.
-- Denis C. Theriault