The Clark County Council has approved a resolution that encourages condominium construction and supports reducing the risk of builders getting sued.
Condo construction has been an ongoing issue both in Clark County and throughout the state, leading state lawmakers to begin considering ideas to reform the state’s Condominium Act, which was enacted in 1989 and sets out rules for the construction and management of condos.
The county council on Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution supporting the Legislature’s efforts to amend the state’s Condominium Act in order to “address concerns about excessive litigation risk, and encourage construction of affordable condominiums while maintaining consumer protections.”
“The efforts to reform the Condominium Act that are being pushed in Olympia are efforts to better resolve the issues for consumers,” said Councilor John Blom.
The county resolution, introduced by Councilor Julie Olson, cites a 2016 report from the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies at the University of Washington School of the Built Environment, which found that Washington law creates significant liabilities for condo developers, potentially creating a disincentive for development.
The resolution also notes that Clark County’s population is expected to grow by 35 percent by 2040, and points to condos as an important part of the area’s housing stock to serve first-time homebuyers and older residents looking to downsize.
Vancouver-area developers, including Prestige Development’s Elie Kassab and Gramor Development’s Barry Cain, have said that they frequently hear requests for new condos, far in excess of anything currently in the pipeline, but the current laws tend to lead to prohibitively high insurance costs to build new projects.
“It’s really gone too far the other way and made it hard to build condos,” Cain said. “That’s why there are so few under construction.”
Kirkland Development’s planned Kirkland Tower at The Waterfront Vancouver is one of the few examples of current condo projects in the area. Gramor Development has also proposed an 11-story condo project at The Waterfront Vancouver’s Block 16 next to Twigs Bistro, although the project is still in the very early stages.
Blom said that the current version of the Condominium Act doesn’t give developers sufficient opportunity to work directly with homeowners associations and consumers to remedy building issues when they come up. Instead, he said, HOAs tend to get pushed into pursuing litigation, which becomes more costly for all parties involved — and scares off potential condo developers.
“There have been several instances, even in Vancouver and Clark County, where there’s a defect and the builder wants to have an attempt to remedy the issue,” he said. “But instead of being able to do that, attorneys get involved on behalf of the HOA [and] drag the situation into court and there ends up being costly repairs that the developer does that the HOA then has to pay for because there’s now legal fees on top of all that.”
A specific draft of the reform proposal has not yet been created, but Blom and Olson both clarified that the language in the county’s resolution is aimed at simply offering broad support for changes that will create better results for builders, HOAs and consumers.
“We’re not writing the law, we’re just supporting a change,” Olson said.
While the vote was unanimous, Councilor Jeanne Stewart expressed reservations about the idea of reducing liability for developers and initially said she would be unwilling to vote for the resolution without greater assurances of consumer protection. After the council discussed the issue, she said she was convinced that the other councilors shared her concerns and that the resolution put sufficient emphasis on consumers.
