Alicia Ayars

City of Spokane Releases Draft Housing Quality Code

Alicia Ayars, Community Programs Coordinator, 509.625.6780

Tuesday, September 26, 2017 at 2:15 p.m.

City of Spokane Releases Draft Housing Quality Code

Updated 10/05/2017

Earlier this year a Project Team was established to lead the work effort in identifying a minimum definition and standards for housing quality in Spokane.  The team was responsible for examining several codes in order to develop the definition and set of standards, those codes included:

  • Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Housing Quality Standard (HQS 24 CFR 982): HUD and other Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) use this code in order to provide decent, safe and sanitary housing at an affordable cost to low-income families. The standards establish a minimum quality criteria necessary for the health and safety of occupants.
  • National Healthy Housing Standard (NHHS): This code was created by the National Center for Healthy Housing and the American Public Health Association. NHHS was developed to inform and deliver housing policy that reflects the connections between housing conditions and health.
  • International Property Maintenance Code (IPMC) from the International Code Council (ICC): The IPMC is a model code that regulates the minimum maintenance requirements for all existing buildings.

The outcome of this effort is a draft code which was then provided to the public earlier this year in June when three community forums were hosted by the City to discuss the draft and take public comment.

In mid-July an Advisory Committee was convened to review and incorporate the public comments into a draft code as well as edit the draft code for consistency with current codes adopted under the Spokane Municipal Code (SMC).  The Advisory Committee has completed the revision of housing quality codes. The draft code primarily consists of codes from the IPMC but also incorporates HUD and NHHS for housing quality.

The City will be hosting a live Facebook event to take public comment and questions on the draft code. The Facebook live event will be hosted on Thursday, November 9th beginning at 7:00 AM. Following the live broadcast the video will be available to the public and questions will be answered in real time throughout the day.  Please review the draft housing quality code. (PDF 620 KB)

We look forward to hearing from you at the Facebook live event on November 9th.

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