City of Spokane Now Requires Cooling in Rentals
Spokane City Council passed the renters' right to cooling ordinance on the night of July 29 by a 5-2 vote. It expands protections tenants already had and makes adequate cooling a requirement in residential rental units inside the City of Spokane for units under 80 degrees.
Every rental dwelling has to have adequate cooling (defined as below 80 degrees) in at least one room. If a tenant in a unit without AC gives you written notice that the unit’s temp is above 80 degrees, you have 72 hours to get cooling in place, and the unit has to be able to hold a temperature under 80 degrees.
The 72 Hour Requirement
If you miss this deadline, the tenant chooses what happens next. They can:
terminate the rental agreement outright, on the grounds that the city now considers the unit uninhabitable.
Or they can arrange for an AC unit to be installed themselves and take the cost out of the rent, up to $500. That $500 ceiling rises every July based on CPI, the same way the annual rent increase cap works.
Neither one is a good outcome for an owner. A tenant walking mid-lease in August costs you far more than a window unit would have. The rental deduction option means you are paying for equipment somebody else picked and somebody else installed in your building.
Where the Ordinance Gets Vague
The city did leave room for extensions. Local officials can allow more time to comply if: immediate compliance:
would create undue hardship,
if it would require major electrical upgrades,
or if the property is a historic building.
What the city has not done is explain any of that. There is no example of what qualifies as undue hardship. No standard for what makes an electrical upgrade major rather than routine. No stated length for an extension, no described process for requesting one, and nothing about what documentation an owner would need to bring.
An early 1900’s built multi family property on outdated electrical service is the exact property that provision was written for, and at the moment there is nowhere to send that owner.
Enforcement itself is more settled. The city says a violation will be handled as a local code enforcement matter, which in practice means it starts when a tenant reports it. We believe this will likely spark a city inspection of the unit in search for habitability violations.
City Limits Only
This applies to properties inside the City of Spokane. If your rental sits in Spokane Valley, Liberty Lake, Cheney, or unincorporated Spokane county, the ordinance doesn’t apply.
That split is becoming a pattern here. Notice periods work differently across the line, the eviction diversion ordinance stops at the line, and now cooling does too. If you own on both sides of it, you are running two sets of rules and the address on the lease decides which one you follow.
What This Looks Like on the Ground
The thing I keep coming back to is the volume. There are thousands of units in Spokane's older housing stock with no cooling at all, and the ordinance gives owners a very short runway to fix that. Buying a window unit is easy. Getting one installed inside 72 hours during a summer heat wave, across a portfolio, while every HVAC contractor in the county is already booked, is a different problem.
So do not wait for a written notice to show up. Go through your Spokane units now. Some already meet the standard. Some are a cheap window or portable unit away from meeting it. And some have electrical that will not support anything without real work. That last group is where you need answers from the city. If you feel like complying would fall under the major remodel exclusion, a scope of work from an electrician spelling out the repairs necessary would be a great way to show proof.
There are still a lot of unknowns here. We will be working through them as the city puts out guidance, and we will update this post as it does.
If you have questions about how this affects your Spokane rentals, or about any other local ordinance, reach us at Cobalt Property Management. You can find us at RentCobalt.com.
