Pasco, WA Rental Property Rules: Repairs & Habitability (2026)

PMC 16.30.010 adopts "the most current state-adopted International Property Maintenance Code, prepared by the International Code Council, as hereinafter amended or revised" as Pasco's "official housing code." That single-sentence adoption incorporates the IPMC's habitability standards, covering working sanitary facilities, heat, structural soundness, light, ventilation, and pest control, directly into City law without reprinting that text in the PMC. The City made two local amendments. First, PMC 16.30.020 repeals the IPMC's own appeals section (Section 111) and substitutes the Board of Appeals already created for the building code at PMC 16.05.040, the seven-member Mid-Columbia Building Appeals Commission jointly appointed with Franklin and Benton Counties.

Second, PMC 16.30.030 rewrites IPMC Section 108.1.3, the trigger for an unfit-dwelling declaration, to add that a dwelling is unsanitary and unfit "as determined by the Community and Economic Development Director, his designee or by the Health Officer," where "the dwelling lacks adequate garbage and rubbish, storage and removal facilities." Enforcement of the adopted housing code, including the unfit-dwelling determination, runs through the Community and Economic Development Director, a designee, or the Health Officer, and dwellings identified as unfit under this chapter feed directly into the separate repair, vacate, or demolish process in Chapter 16.70 PMC when conditions go uncorrected.