Vancouver City Councilmember Sarah Fox

Because of Vancouver’s proximity to Portland and being just on the border of Washington, I feel that the fourth most populous city in the state isn’t thought about as much. For our membership, it may be that Vancouver rental housing policy is nowhere near the onerous level as areas like Olympia, Tacoma, and Seattle. RHAWA is a state-wide organization, and we have worked diligently to ramp up advocacy in Spokane, Vancouver, Bellingham, and beyond. As such, I thought it was high time to sit down with a councilmember from the great City of Vancouver and discuss the state of housing in their city. I had the privilege of interviewing Vancouver Councilmember Sarah Fox, and we had a very diverse conversation ranging from the newly passed rental registration ordinance to the city’s comprehensive plan.

Councilmember Fox is an Army veteran, and I asked her about her time in the military, especially some of her time in language training, where she learned Polish, and her time in Bosnia during the conflict there in the 1990s.

“There was no conflict in Poland. When I enlisted, it was a year after the Gulf War started, so I enlisted during wartime, and again, I wondered what’s the purpose of me learning Polish? It proved useful later, but at the time I did gain fluency down at Defense Language Institute down in Monterey, California,” said Fox. This all came full circle after she left active duty and joined the National Guard.

“That guard unit was activated into active duty to go back overseas and help assist the NATO forces and assist with the conflict that was happening in Bosnia. That was the second group that had been sent in as part of the stabilization force. So there really I was working in, we called ourselves a truck stop, but we were protecting this bridge that was over the Sava River, making sure that it was open for all NATO traffic, sort of monitoring the roadways that sort of thing. It just so happened there was a tank crew from Poland that ended up being stationed with us, so it came all the way around where I actually got to use my Polish skills.”

Councilmember Fox has extensive experience in Growth Management and how housing is zoned and developed based on an area's comprehensive plan, and we discussed that in some detail.

“In the 1990’s the Growth Management Act passed, and it was in response to what they were seeing all over the state of Washington, which is a lot of congestion on the roads, a lot of housing sprawling out into resource lands, kinds of uncoordinated activities where it came to impacts to wetlands and sensitive areas, and really nothing coordinated. There were no timeframes that were consistent across different cities or counties when it came to submitting a permit and expecting a particular timeframe for a response to that permit or approval. 

During the Growth Management and Comprehensive planning, there are hearings open to the public for input and concerns about how an area will develop. The City of Vancouver is currently in the final stretches of their own Comprehensive Plan that will be due in December 2025.

Vancouver has taken their first step down the road of a more stringent rental housing policy by passing their rental registry in July of this year, with some form of inspection program to follow at a later date. The registry will be $30 per door per year. Councilmember Fox was one of three councilmembers to vote against the registration and wanted to be sure she was transparent about the fact that she is a housing provider herself, but didn’t feel like many of the stipulations were well enough fleshed out, and the policy was rushed.

“What was really emerging through hearing from the public and landlord groups was that this program can’t be a one-size-fits-all program, and that’s what I was trying to advocate to staff. It’s not that I hate the program. I think there can be value, there is value, which is why I was supportive of staff even working on this, but it can’t be a one-size-fits-all,” she said, wondering if someone like herself, who only owns one rental unit, should be held to the same standard as those who are managing hundreds of units.

She also expressed grave concerns with the inspection program, as well with many housing providers working on thin margins, and should they potentially be exempt. What if a housing provider has something come up on an inspection that they can’t afford to fix at that point in time? Does that mean they cannot collect rent, and a tenant may need to vacate a unit because it would no longer qualify for the rental registry?

“What’s coming next, like we’ve said, these inspections and whatnot, could come at a bad time for me or other smaller landlords. I don’t have how every many hundreds of dollars for this particular item this month.”

She worries about, especially with rent control and small housing providers with such thin margins, if someone stops paying rent, what are they supposed to do?

Councilmember Fox lives in Vancouver with her two children and works for the Washington State Department of Commerce when she’s not spending time at Vancouver City Hall. For my full interview, check out the Housing Matters Podcast at RHAWA.org/Podcast.