This is my response to the recent editorial in the Seattle Times on Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning (MIZ) and Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA), the City of Seattle’s scheme to take money from new housing development and give it to non-profits. It is only the latest in a long serious of communications with the Times to get it right: the Grand Bargain was not with developers but with a few big developers. 

Hi Mark,

I appreciate that the paper continues to talk about MHA, but Brier Dudley’s article once again mischaracterizes things.

The people I work with who build housing have no clout with the City. The Mayor isn’t listening to us. To suggest that somehow we all worked out a deal is just flat wrong.

Vulcan did that. They bought out at the beginning in SLU and Downtown.

We’re looking at a legal challenge because everyone is holding the bag.

The fees are onerous for many projects, not just a few months rent.

Yes, there are problems with the fee structure but not because fees are too low but because they are arbitrary; I did a Public Disclosure Request (PDR) the fees paid so far.

The project on Dexter is an 85 unit project while the project at 23rd in Union is a much bigger project with more than 100 units. Why the difference? They can’t tell us straight up what’s going. I have to PDR the agreement they reference.

We’re not getting away with anything. Any fee or charge or tax is rationalized by the price, and prices will go up to absorb the fees. And other costs like the ones I’ve attached are eating builders and developers alive. When projects get hit with additional costs prices go up or projects don’t happen.

Again, the housing being produced by non-profits is heading toward $500k per unit. Plymouth Housing is building 84 units of studio units for more than $30 million, about twice what market rate developers would pay.

I’d be happy to write another op ed if it would get used. But more importantly I wish the Times would simply cover the different points of view. If the Times Ed Board supports MHA and higher fees, fine. But there is a constant representation that the deal signed by Vulcan was on behalf of all developers. We’re actually working on a legal challenge.

And again, saying the “Grand Bargain” was struck with developers is like suggesting a deal struck with Taco Bell is a deal with all Mexican restaurants in town. It’s weird. But it is wrong.