D.C. Council Moves Landmark Rental Reform Closer To Law

The D.C. Council has moved its version of Mayor Muriel Bowser’s landmark housing policy reform bill along to its next and final hurdle.

By a vote of 10-2, the body advanced an amended version of the Rental Act of 2025, a series of policies the Bowser administration proposed in February to preserve and boost housing supply by addressing landlords’ concerns about the city's regulatory landscape.

The bill would reform the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, which real estate leaders say has depressed investment in the city's apartment market, and it would alter eviction policies that landlords say have contributed to unprecedented levels of unpaid rent. 

“Here's the deal: D.C. housing market is in crisis,” Councilmember Robert White, who chairs the Housing Committee and authored the council’s version of the bill, said at the hearing. “While housing construction stalls — as it has — renters, which is 70% of D.C. residents, pay the price.”

The version of the bill the council voted for Monday represents a middle ground between Bowser's initial proposal that had the real estate industry's full-throated support and a version that came out of White's committee that generated backlash from the industry. Bowser had said she “strongly opposed” the committee's version, and the bill's first vote was delayed two weeks ago to give more time for amendments. 

The mayor and real estate leaders said Monday that the most recent changes to the bill that the council voted on push it in the right direction, while a tenant advocacy group told Bisnow that it is disappointed with the way the legislation strips renters' rights.

Before the bill heads to the mayor's desk, it needs to pass a second council vote, which is likely to come in mid-September, after the committee’s August recess. The council can still change the bill’s text ahead of that vote. 

The latest version of the bill still makes changes to TOPA, a law that requires landlords to give tenants the right to buy a property when being purchased. It would exempt buildings from the law for the first 15 years after they deliver, a shorter term than the 25-year exemption the mayor proposed. 

It keeps the mayor’s proposed TOPA exemption for buyers that sign a 20-year affordability covenant. 

The council bill also includes some reforms to the city's eviction process. It reduces the window that tenants charged with violent crimes have to vacate the property from 30 to 10 days, and it mandates courts hold eviction hearings for those tenants within 20 days following a complaint, White said.

He also said his bill reduces the prefiling notice period for nonpayment cases from 30 to 10 days and reduces the hearing summons period from 30 to 14 days, which White said is 10 days longer than the prepandemic requirement. 

Two landlord groups expressed their general support for the version the council passed Monday after both spoke out against the committee's version. 

Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington Director of Policy Communications Alex Rossello said Monday the bill “has come a long way and we support most of it.” He said the organization would like to see changes to a part of the bill that allows tenants to get around protective orders.

Small Multifamily Owners Association CEO Dean Hunter said the vote “reflects real progress.”

“The Mayor made it clear from the beginning that meaningful reform was needed to stabilize the rental housing market,” he said in a statement. “Her commitment helped keep the original vision for the RENTAL Act alive.”

Local tenant advocacy group Legal Aid DC voiced opposition to the current version of the bill. 

“We're deeply disappointed that the Council voted today to advance a bill that would strip residents of long-protected rights and push tenants toward eviction and displacement,” Amanda Korber, a supervising attorney for Legal Aid DC’s housing law unit, said in a statement to Bisnow.

“In combination with budget cuts and underfunded housing programs, the RENTAL Act will cause serious harm to low-income tenants unless there are significant changes before a second vote,” she added.

Bowser indicated in an email to the council Monday morning before the vote that she is more supportive of the amended form the council voted on than the previous committee version, but she would still like the council's final version to veer closer to what she originally proposed.

In the email, she urged the council to restore the 25-year TOPA exemption for new construction and amend the protective order provisions. And she said she would oppose any further efforts to walk back the proposed TOPA exemptions or further complicate the judicial eviction process.