Seattle Forward

Tent Encampments Are Here to Stay Unless . . .

The tents, dilapidated vehicles, and piles of trash you see in almost every Seattle neighborhood have become an enduring fixture. So has the human suffering.

We should quickly prioritize addressing these tent encampments and follow the lead of other cities that have successfully tackled this issue. Since 2015, when the mayor declared a homelessness emergency, we have spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars — and there are success stories to tell — but, tragically, there is no comprehensive plan to remove these illegal encampments or to help those living in them. Not now. Not any time this year or next. Not in five years. They are essentially permanent.

That’s because the City Council’s preferred approach has been one of tolerance and accommodation, evidenced by their elimination last fall, despite Mayor Jenny Durkan’s strong objection, of the Navigation Teams — outreach workers paired with police officers — that successfully nudged people in encampments to accept shelter and social services.

The City Council’s laissez faire approach furthers the terrible damage of substance abuse and mental health disorders for the majority of encampment dwellers. It’s also an approach that denies the public access to

Do You Want Tent Encampments Almost Everywhere in Seattle?

A shorter version of this article was first published in The Seattle Times earlier this afternoon.

 

Three Seattle City Council members — Tammy Morales, Teresa Mosqueda, Kshama Sawant — want to permit tent encampments almost everywhere citywide.

 

This ill-conceived, very dangerous legislation (Council Bill 119796) would effectively allow camping across Seattle — including on sidewalks (if campers leave a 4-foot accessible pathway), planting strips, parks, open spaces and industrial lands.

 

Astonishingly, the council members even want to block police officers from removing encampments when someone calls police seeking removal of campers.

 

University District Rezone Adopted by Council

Tuesday afternoon, the Council unanimously approved the U District rezone which is part of the city government’s effort to increase density and housing affordability in our urban centers and villages, such as the U District. I voted in favor of this legislation for the following reasons:

Short Term Rental Regulations: Details and Next Steps

Last week Mayor Murray and I announced proposed regulations for short term rentals. We have taken a balanced approach that recognizes the benefits platforms like Airbnb or VRBO create for Seattle residents, while also attempting to curb the growing commercialization of this industry. At a time where long-term housing is hard to come by, we want to encourage owners of multiple properties to make their properties available to long-term residents.

My Affordable Housing, Neighborhoods and Finance Committee will receive an introductory briefing about this proposal on Wednesday, June 15. We will dive into the details in July.

For those wondering what this means for you, here are a few highlights:

• If you operate a short term rental out of your primary residence (including a connected in-law apartment or backyard cottage), you will be able operate all year long. This allows considerably more flexibility than the regulations in many other cities, which often include a hard cap on the total number of nights.
• If you operate a short term rental in a property that is not your primary residence, you cannot operate year-round; you will be limited at 90 nights a year. This limitation will provide a financial incentive for property owners to move these units back to the long-term market, making Seattle housing available for Seattleites.
• For those who operate past 90 nights in your primary residence, you will need to go online and secure a new regulatory license.
• Overall, these are very modest regulations: we estimate about 80% of short term rental operators will see no new regulations at all under this proposal.

Apply for Affordable Housing Community Focus Groups

There are 10 days left to apply to be on the Community Focus Groups that will help guide the citywide conversation around the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA).

Applications are available here. This link also includes some FAQ, which I’ve pasted below. The application deadline is Friday, February 26 at 8 pm.

If this sort of thing isn't for you, the focus groups are not the only way to provide input on how HALA proposals best fit into neighborhoods. Throughout 2016 and 2017, the City will host neighborhood meetings, open houses, telephone town halls, and other engagement opportunities for community feedback (click here for a timeline of engagement activities).

What is the purpose of the HALA Community Focus Groups?

Real Police Response Time Figures by Precinct

The Council’s public safety committee was briefed yesterday on police department response times to high priority 911 calls. It was refreshingly transparent and candid.

The briefing was prompted by an article in The Seattle Times on January 2 that contrasted SPD’s stated goal of responding within seven minutes to the highest priority 911 calls against the reality the Times analysis of response times revealed. (911 calls labeled Priority 1 involve incidents creating risk to life or serious injury, crimes in progress, officer or firefighter safety, and other emergency events.)

I remember attending many similar briefings over the past eight years and hearing police leadership repeat over and over again that they met the seven minute standard consistently and city-wide. Yesterday, we heard a very different report.

Unfortunately, the former leadership in SPD used a calculation methodology that arbitrarily and artificially lowered response time figures.* While this method allowed them to claim they were meeting their goal, it did not match what Seattle residents expected or experienced. Chief Kathy O’Toole and her leadership team acknowledged yesterday that the Times article prompted them to look more closely at the calculations and provide a more accurate assessment. Bravo to Chief O’Toole and her team.

Before sharing the new numbers, it’s important to keep several factors in mind.

Maintaining the Rental Housing Market: Regulating Short Term Rentals

Left unchecked, there is concern that online rental platforms, like Airbnb and VRBO, just might provide enough financial incentives to cause homeowners to switch long-term rentals to short-term vacation rentals. The number of short-term rentals available through these platforms has been rapidly increasing and there are now spin-off businesses that make it easier for individuals to manage short-term rentals. At a time when we face a shortage of affordable rental housing, this issue deserves a closer look.

In the coming months, my City Council committee will explore a regulatory framework for short-term vacation rentals. This work aligns with the Council’s work plan issued in response to the Mayor’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda recommendations.

On the other side of the coin, however, short-term rentals can boost incomes for those struggling with their own home payments. Airbnb, one of the major players in this arena, recently released data about their users and emphasized that the vast majority of their hosts live in the unit they rent; they either share their home or rent it while out of town themselves.

The City has a regulatory role to play here, with three potential policy goals as I see it:

1. Ensure a level playing field for individuals and companies in the short-term rental market.
2. Balance the economic opportunity created by short-term rentals with the need to maintain supply of long-term rental housing stock available at a range of prices.
3. Protect the rights and safety of owners, guests and neighbors of these units.

Supporting the Muslim Community, a Voice for Drivers, Labor Standards, and More

Yesterday was the last Full Council meeting of 2015 and it was jam packed: 52 agenda items, 3 ½ hours of deliberations.

We started with a resolution expressing our support for Seattle’s Muslim community in the wake of increasing anti-Muslim hate rhetoric and violence. The City of Seattle welcomes and affirms our Muslim residents, both native born and immigrant, and recognizes the enormous value they add to the cultural and economic life of this city. When we respond from fear, we respond from weakness. We all want our community to be safe, but fear does not lead to safety.

The Council then passed landmark legislation that allows drivers of for-hire vehicles to collectively join together and negotiate better working conditions, making Seattle the first city to take this step. We must continue to find ways to protect workers in the new gig economy where the traditional employer-employee relationship is less prevalent.

We approved a thick bill (146 pages) improving and standardizing the enforcement processes for our local labor standards. We debated nuances while updating the Council’s rules and procedures. We made a small change to our business licenses that allows us to more easily revoke these for unlawful businesses. We designated the P-I Globe as a landmark and we created a new Arts & Cultural District in the Central Area.

It was a full, productive meeting. It was also the final Full Council meeting of three of my colleagues, Nick Licata, Jean Godden, and Tom Rasmussen. Between the three of them, we are saying goodbye to 42 years of collective service on the Council. As we get excited about the incoming councilmembers, I will miss the wisdom, dedication, friendship, and passion for service of my exiting colleagues.

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.