HALA Recommendations: Toward 21st Century Solutions?

We won’t have the final, official version of recommendations from the Mayor’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) committee until this morning at 11, but from every thing we’ve seen and heard, including the leaked report last week, is encouraging. Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the discussion about housing is the continuing dependence it has on zoning designations, arbitrary heights and density settings, and an over all attachment to planning techniques and ideas that emerged after World War II.

The report appears to be putting the city’s discussion on new footing, dedicating the first section to “MORE HOUSING: Recommended Strategies to Increase and Diversify Seattle’s Housing Supply.”

Smart Growth Seattle was formed as an advocacy group for more housing supply, choice and opportunity, and this is the first time we’ve seen any other group openly say that we need more housing. Look for the report to resolve the year old battle over linkage fees. Nothing will be final until the release of the report, but we’re hearing that a compromise has been reached.

We’ll review the report and the recommendations with the following questions in mind, do the recommendations

• Maintain that the solution to increases in housing price is more housing of all kinds, types, and prices all over the city?;
• Support the idea that we have a “missing middle” in Seattle’s housing market, with more lower density but multifamily solutions in single-family neighborhoods?;
• Advise against more regulation fees and taxes (including the linkage tax) as the way to support more subsidized housing?; and
• Have good data and policy behind the quantitative goals it sets for housing production in the years ahead.

We’re as hopeful as we’ve been in a long time even though many things we’ve seen in the report have been contradicted by the actions of City Council. For example, the leaked draft report is calling for more housing in single-family neighborhoods while the Council just reduced housing capacity in low-rise zones just a week ago. Perhaps the committee’s recommendation will bolster the courage of the Council: it isn’t just us in the builder community asking for change, many people want us to find 21^st century solutions to our housing needs.

Leaked Report Sparks Debate on Single Family Designation

Earlier this week the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) Committee had it’s final report (or a draft of the final report)  leaked to the media. The draft has some pretty amazing things to say about single-family zones.

The exclusivity of Single Family Zones limits the type of housing available for sale or rent, limits the presence of smaller format housing and limits access for those with less income. Seattle’s zoning has roots in racial and class exclusion and remains among the largest obstacles to realizing the city’s goals for equity and affordability. In a city experiencing rapid growth and intense pressures on access to affordable housing, the historic level of Single Family zoning is no longer either realistic or sustainable. HALA recommends allowing more flexibility and variety of housing in Single Family zones to increase the economic and demographic diversity of those who are able to live in these family oriented neighborhoods. In fact, HALA recommends we abandon the term “single family zone” and refer to such areas as low-density residential zones.

That’s big stuff. I’ve been using the term “missing middle” to describe the kind of housing solution that peeling back the single-family designation could allow. Duplexes, triplexes, town and row houses, as well as courtyard housing could proliferate, increasing density but also enhancing the character of former single family neighborhoods. The Urbanist reaches a similar conclusion.

We’ll be taking a closer look at the draft and the final report and its implications for Seattle’s Housing Future.

 

Sara Maxana: “I love the changes I have seen in my community”

The following are comments offered ahead of passage of low-rise legislation by the Seattle City Council on Monday. Sara Maxana is a Ballard resident who has worked in the field of sustainability in Seattle and the region for the last decade. She currently is a planner at the Puget Sound Regional Council. 

Hello. My name is Sara Maxana.

I have been a resident and homeowner in Northwest Seattle for ten years.

I currently own a house in Ballard, where I live with my two school-aged children.

I want to express to you how much I love the changes I have seen in my community in the last ten years.

I love that I can walk to new restaurants and breweries and shops.

I love that the sidewalks and the parks are full of people and activity.

I love that Prop 1 increased bus service to three routes that I take, that the Move Seattle Levy includes improvements to the Ballard Bridge that I bike across, and that ST3 may bring light rail to Ballard.

I love that my home has increased in value.

I attribute much of what I love about my neighborhood to all its recent growth.

And what I love most about that growth is that every new unit I see constructed in Ballard makes more likely that my children will be able to afford to live in their community when they grow up.

We cannot hope to have an affordable city unless our housing supply keeps up with demand.

So when you are considering changes to the Low Rise zones, I ask that you please don’t think about me. I already own a house in this expensive city. I am benefiting from growth. I am dripping with privilege.

Please, think about the people who don’t own houses here. Think about my kids. Think about all of our kids. Think about the over 50% of Seattle’s residents that rent, who might wish to buy someday, or who, at the very least, become further squeezed when diminishing supply leads to rent increases.

Please do not amend the Low Rise zones in ways that impede housing production. It will not make this city more livable; it will only make it more expensive.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak.

Council Passes Low-Rise Legislation 

After almost two years of heated debate the Seattle City Council passed low-rise legislation in less than an hour with no debate. One highlight were a bizarre statement by outgoing (we’re counting the days!) Councilmember Rasmussen who voted against the legislation he helped make worse by expanding the rounding rule to all zones, adding setbacks to rowhouses, and making the low-rise 3 portion of the legislation worse by adding more useless spaces to Floor Area Ratio (FAR) calculations. Apparently the legislation didn’t do enough damage.

Rasmussen also made a comment that has come to sound familiar. He supports density, but just doesn’t want to see any existing buildings demolished. Where new density would go if no existing buildings were demolished is a mystery the Councilmember left unsolved. You can find a rundown of the amemendments that passed in a recent blog post and the full legislation here.

In summary, the legislation seriously reduces the potential for new housing in low-rise zones by squeezing the building envelopes in LR 3, adding costly design review requirements in LR 2, and expanding a change to FAR calculations in all zones that lowers density by making it harder to round up.  All of these changes passed by a Council that claims we have a “housing crisis.” It’s hard to square that stated concern with legislation that is aimed at reducing the availability of housing options available in the city.

The bright spot was the only testimony questioning the density reducing agenda behind the legislation given by Ballard resident Sara Maxana (see video above). She spoke quite eloquently about why new people and growth are good for her and her family. The comments were a ray of light in a seemingly gathering darkness that favors a small group of angry neighbors bent on their narrow interest of preserving their own economic well being at the expense of new comers by limiting new housing.

Debate with Councilmember Sawant on Rent Control

I’ve been challenged to debate Councimember Kshama Sawant on rent control. I accepted the challenge and the debate is tentatively set for Monday, July 20th at Town Hall in Seattle. We’re still working out the details but please put the date on your calendar. We’d like to have people who don’t support rent control show up to the debate. 

I’ve written here before about rent control and also at Publicola. The bottom line is that rent control is an intervention in the housing market that feels good. Who doesn’t just want the cost of rent to just stop? The problem rent control doesn’t work to solve high rents; rent control makes housing prices go up. Also, the City Council can’t impose rent control anyway because they’re prohibited doing so by state law. 

While rent control is a popular idea it is a bad one for people needing a place to live, especially for poorer people with fewer dollars to spend and that don’t end up winning a rent controlled unit in what ends up being a rent control lotto. The best thing to do to alleviate housing price pressures is, of course, build more housing.  It’s time to get beyond the rent control discussion and work on real solutions. 

More details on the debate as we negotiate them.