Opponents clash again over
weakened tenants rights bill
By NAN HENDERSON
Of the Emerald
SALEM (Special) — Landlords and tenants
once again clashed in testimony during a Monday
hearing on SB 159, the overhaul of present landlord
tenant laws.
The bill, which recently passed the Senate, is now
before the House Committee on Local Government
and Urban Affairs. The bill now under con
sideration, however, is substantially weaker than
the original SB 159 introduced at the beginning of
the legislative session.
Before the Senate approval, SB 159 was con
sidered for weeks by the Senate Committee on Local
Government and Urban Affairs which attempted to
resolve the major conflicts between landlords, who
opposed almost all of the original measure, and
tenants, who strongly supported the original bill.
The Senate committee tried to strike a com
promise between the protests of the landlords and
the demands of the tenants by removing sections
from the bill which would have allowed tenants to
make minor repairs in rental units and deduct the
cost from rent, limited security deposits to not more
than one month’s rent, required landlords to comply
with present building codes and granted attorney’s
fees in court cases primarily only to tenants.
But the committee retained sections which
required landlords to return security or cleaning
deposits, prohibit landlords from evicting tenants
for joing a tenants union or otherwise exercising
their legal rights, prohibit the “landlord lien”
(which presently allows a landlord to lock a tenant
out of a rental unit and sell his or her property if
rent is not paid on time), require landlords to
provide a basically “habitable” unit with basic
services such as heat and water, and permit the fact
that a land lord does not provide a “habitable” unit
to be used as a defense in court cases involving
nonpayment of rent.
Sen. Keith Burns (D-Portland), an attorney and
the chairer of the Senate Committee on Local
Government and Urban Affairs, told the House
committee that tenants in Oregon currently have
almost no legal rights and that the amended SB 159
gives tenants “substantial rights.”
He said he felt the amended bill is a fair com
promise, though he would have liked to retain the
“repair and deduct” section of the original bill. But
at the present time, he said, retaining the section
would have caused the defeat of the entire bill on the
Senate Floor.
Bums said that the Senate committee removed
the sections in the original bill which granted at
torney’s fees in court cases only to tenants to try to
prevent major landlord-tenant cases. Rather, he
said, the Senate committee hopes to see landlord
tenant cases settled in small claims courts where
disputing parties argue their own cases instead of
hiring attorneys.
The Portland senator told the House committee
he would be “very disappointed if the bill got much
weakened any more.”
Landlord representatives at the hearing,
however, urged the committee to make several
changes in the amended SB 159.
Ken Whitaker, a Portland attorney for the
Portland Homebuilders Association, told the
committee that the amended bill “is too vague with
too many undefined'terms.”
He said, “The bill is going to create more
problems than it solves.”
Whitaker asked the committee to amend the bill
to allow landlords to charge a non-returnable
cleaning deposit, to enter a rental unit at any
“reasonable time, to change the number of days a
landlord has legally to repair a rental unit from 14 to
45, to delete sections which allow failure to provide
a “habitable” unit with basic services to be used as
a defense in non-payment of rent court cases and to
delete the section which abolishes the landlord lien.
Tenant representatives, including ASUO
Housing director Frank Wall, supported the
amended bill during the hearing but asked the
committee to adopt minor amendments. The
amendments would make a landlord liable if he or
she sues a rental agreement which, when signed by
a tenant, waives the tenants’ legal rights and would
require a landlord to explain to a tenant how any
rent increase is determined.
Charles Williamson, a Portland attorney
representing tenants organizations, told the com
mittee that the amended SB 159 “is a very moderate
bill.”
He said, “Further weakening of this bill would
make it practically worthless to tenants.”
Another hearing on the bill is scheduled for
Friday.
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Tonight—Wed. May 16
Conventional housing
draws architects ire
By GALE ROHDE
Of the Emerald
“Whatever else you call con
ventional housing, you cannot
call it a success,” said British
architect Martin Pawley. Pawley
spoke Monday night on “Garbage
Housing.” Housing projects
haven’t achieved the goals that
have been set for them.
Part of the problem, Pawley
says, is that public housing as
now conceived, mass structures
housing great numbers of people,
is in “direct conflict with the
dream structure,” with the
ambitions, the wishes and the
desires of the people who live in
the society.
The dream house, as typified
by a house in Chestnut Hills,
consumes energy and resources
at such a volume that it is im
possible to give it to more than 40
percent of the population. But
unless there were some way of
making public housing in
distinguishable from private
housing, even to the occupants
themselves, the only answer that
Pawley sees is an ideology which
no longer places the same value
on the “Chestnut Hills” house.
Every year in the United
States, Pawley pointed out, 50
billion bottles are produced, 6.5
billion bricks are produced, 60
billion metal cans and 6 billion
concrete blocks. That is to say,
there are about eight times as
many bottles as bricks being
produced and 10 times as many
cans as concrete blocks. As it is, a
great many of these bottles and
cans and many old car parts are
being thrown out and wasted. But
Pawley feels that the product
itself can be redesigned to use for
building purposes. Instead of
being a “crafted envelope en
closing consumer goods” a house
should be composed of consumer
goods.
The problem with producing
houses, Pawley observes, is not
in their actual production but in
where you put them. If when you
bought a car, you were required
to pay for five miles of turnpike,
(Continued on Page 20)
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