Seattle Forward

Round 1 Budget Proposals

Budget deliberations have kicked into high gear here at City Hall. The first deadline for proposals to secure a baseline support of three councilmembers comes this Wednesday. After a couple more rounds of discussion over the next three weeks, the proposals that receive majority support will be put together in a balanced budget package.

Earlier I wrote about what I liked in the Mayor’s budget. Here are some additional proposals I’m excited to advance for further consideration by the Council:

Rent Regulations, Housing Affordability and Local Control

The Council took several votes yesterday to address housing affordability in Seattle. First, we passed two measures regarding tenant protections and affordable housing preservation that I wrote about last week. Then we passed a resolution about local control of rent regulations with the following language:

The City Council supports efforts by the State Legislature to allow local governments to propose ordinances that significantly increase the supply of rent-restricted units and that protect tenants from sudden and dramatic rent increases, without causing a negative impact on the quality or quantity of housing supply, by modifying or repealing RCW 35.21.830.

This resolution is an endorsement of local control, not any specific policy. As I said explicitly before our vote yesterday, this resolution does not take a position on rent control.

After last week’s deadlocked committee discussion about a separate resolution that focused exclusively on rent control, it became clear to me that the Council needed a fresh start. Dogmatic rhetoric blocked pragmatic steps forward. As Council President, I drafted an alternative resolution that better captures the intent expressed by most councilmembers: to request local control for local solutions.

Affordable Housing and Tenant Protection Bills Pass Committee

This morning City Council’s housing committee passed two pieces of legislation I sponsored and introduced earlier this year related to affordable housing preservation and tenant protections. This bills will go to the Full Council on Monday.

One bill requires that, barring exceptional circumstances and a waiver from the City, landlords give renters a longer notice period (90 days) when they determine they want to either sell the property or have a family member move in.

The other bill requires owners of existing affordable housing to give the City’s Office of Housing and the Seattle Housing Authority 60 days’ notice that the property will be listed for sale. In some cases, preserving existing affordable housing can be more cost-effective than building new affordable housing; this ordinance gives local public agencies time to consider making a purchase offer on buildings when and where it makes financial sense.

Former Councilmember Sally J. Clark initially proposed these ideas and I sponsored the legislation after she left the Council. They are two pieces of a much larger housing affordability puzzle the City must put together to keep Seattle affordable and accessible to people from all walks of life as it grows.

Tomorrow the Council will consider many other pieces of the puzzle in a separate meeting. 

More on Housing Recommendations

The City Council has begun consideration of the 65 recommendations from the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda Advisory Committee (HALA). We will spend 18 to 24 months learning about, discussing, and considering these recommendations. They involve a wide range of topics with varying degrees of legal and policy complexity.

I’m certain that as we listen to people across the city we will learn new things that may better inform our positions before we have to make final decisions. There will be many opportunities for public engagement and comment throughout this process, including public hearings in the new City Council districts.

Real Need

As the HALA committee clearly established in their report, the need for an increased supply of affordable housing has never been greater. In support of this statement, the HALA committee observed:

• More than 2,800 people are homeless on a typical night in Seattle.
• More than 45,000 households in our city—one in six households—are spending more than 50% of their incomes on housing. (Spending more than 30% is considered burdensome.)
• Middle income families are struggling to keep pace with the increasing costs of housing.
• Uncounted others have already left the city in search of affordability, a trek that usually results in much longer commute times and increased environmental harm.

Single Family Areas

While the list of recommendations from HALA is long, one specific policy has received the most attention and criticism from neighborhoods across Seattle. It’s the recommendation that single-family zoning be relaxed in all areas of the city to allow for new duplexes, triplexes and stacked flats, a policy some believe will lead to speculators buying up homes, tearing them down, and replacing them with more expensive multi-family structures. We should take a step back from any policy that leads to that kind of speculation, disruption, and the widespread loss of existing, more affordable housing.

However, in certain areas of the city—Urban Villages, near major transit stations, along major transportation corridors with frequent transit service—we should allow more multi-family housing. This change would affect about 6% of our current single family zoned areas.

Biggest Impact on Affordable Housing

Lost in the initial reaction to the HALA recommendations is the reality that a few key proposals will produce the biggest benefit. These include what’s called Mandatory Inclusionary Housing, a requirement that every new multi-family project set aside a certain percentage of units as affordable, and the Commercial Linkage Fee, which would require new commercial development to help fund production and preservation of affordable housing.

The recommendation to relax some of the restrictions on backyard cottages and accessory dwelling units to provide more affordable options in our neighborhoods is estimated to create some 2,500 units over 10 years. These units can be affordable and provide alternative housing choices for family members, friends, and new neighbors.

Modifying and strengthening the Multi-Family Tax Exemption to include existing structures that are remodeled and providing new capital investment to build more affordable housing are also promising ideas.

Move the Needle

These key policy recommendations represent a striking and positive shift in affordable housing policy for the city. If implemented correctly, these new policies will create thousands of affordable housing units at a variety of income levels.

Our focus should be on these policies that will provide the most significant number of affordable units. We should not get distracted by other recommendations that will create massive opposition and threaten to derail this entire worthy effort.

Affordable Housing and Single Family Zones

This afternoon the Council’s Select Committee on Housing Affordability will be briefed on Mayor Murray’s proposal to increase affordable housing options in the city.

Housing costs eat up more than half of the income of about 45,000 households in Seattle (spending more than 30% of income on housing is considered burdensome). Seattle’s population is estimated to grow by 120,000 over the next 20 years. The Mayor’s plan is designed to create 50,000 new homes in the next 10 years, 20,000 of which would be affordable to households with low and moderate incomes.

This year, the Council will consider the proposed downtown and South Lake Union “Commercial Linkage Fee,” a fee paid by developers designed to provide money for new affordable housing construction. (Here is the Council meeting schedule.)

The other proposals from the Mayor and his advisory committee will come to the Council later because of necessary environmental reviews that must first take place. It will be a long process with multiple opportunities for public comment over the next 18 to 24 months, including public hearings at neighborhood locations across Seattle. You can read about the linkage fee and other proposals in the Mayor’s roadmap document or the full 65 recommendations of the committee.

Single Family Neighborhood Zoning

Much of the initial reaction over the past two weeks has focused on what might happen to single family zoned areas.  I want to summarize the proposed changes and give perspective on the process before the Council.

Our Tax System: The Worst in the Country

The special session of the Washington State legislature will end today with no resolution to our state’s budget dilemma. Yet another special 30-day session will begin immediately.

What a mess.

The facts about the need for a complete top-to-bottom overhaul of our tax structure are very clear and persuasive.  Yet our Republican and Democratic legislators live in opposing realities about the current state budget; no conclusion to this impasse is in sight. Further, the solutions being offered dance around the core issue: an unjust and increasingly inadequate tax system, from top to bottom.

Local economist Dick Conway appeared before my City Council committee last week and presented a report with sobering findings: Washington’s tax system is the worst in the country. He grades the state an F in the categories of fairness (ranked 51^st out of 51 states and DC), adequacy (50^th), stability (47^th), and transparency (50^th).

April City Inside/Out: Council Edition

This month I joined Councilmembers Godden and Harrell for Brian Callanan's City Inside/Out Seattle Channel Show. We talked about minimum wage enforcement, filling the Council vacancy, encampments, and other topics. You can watch below:

January City Inside/Out: Council Edition

Earlier this month I joined Councilmembers Bagshaw and O'Brien and host Brian Callanan on the Seattle Channel to talk about Bertha, encampments and public safety issues. You can watch the video below.

Community Meetings on Housing Affordability

The 28-member Housing Affordability and Livability Advisory Committee established by the City Council and Mayor Murray is now up and running. In the next few weeks there will be three community meetings where you can provide input into their deliberations. At each meeting the doors open at 6 p.m. and the program begins at 6:30 p.m.

South Seattle - Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Ethiopian Community Center
8323 Rainier Ave S
6 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

Central District - Thursday, November 20, 2014
Garfield Community Center
2323 E Cherry St
6 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

Northgate - Thursday, December 04, 2014
Olympic View Elementary School
504 NE 95th St
6 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

More details about the committee's process are available here. More information about recent Council action on affordable housing can be found here.

National Progress in Reducing Homelessness

Laura Green Zeilinger, the Executive Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, recently shared encouraging news about successes in reducing homelessness around the country when evidence-based practices like Housing First, permanent supportive housing and rapid re-housing are employed.

Overall homelessness is down nearly 10 percent from 4 years ago. Unsheltered homelessness is down 25 percent. Veteran homelessness is down by 33 percent.

Here is the press release, and the video below is worth watching too.

Proof Point: The 2014 Point-in-Time Count Shows that Homelessness Is a Solvable Problem from USICH on Vimeo.