Note: Mayoral Candidate Mike McGinn will visit our regular Seattle Builders Council Breakfast Thursday morning at 7:30, May 4th. All candidates and public officials are welcome at our breakfast to have some time to share their thoughts and their messages although we don’t have a formal endorsement process. McGinn wanted a chance to express his views directly. My analysis of his and there other candidates views is my own and based on the public record so far. 

Well, as I’ve said before, Seattle simply isn’t producing good candidates for City office and it looks like the Mayor’s race is becoming a bizarre race to the left. The featured image is from a Mayoral candidate forum hosted by the 46th District democrats. Our city is in real trouble, folks.

So let’s take the housing relevant items first. McGinn’s answer to the question “Do you support HALA (the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda recommendations)” is as strange as the question itself. No answer. Based on his speech, I’m guessing that McGinn is playing to the neighbors expression his doubts about the process more than the specific recommendations. I guess I was a bit too optimistic that his speech was about starting over again and that McGinn would halt the MIZ process and reconsider. That isn’t consistent with already deciding he wants “higher developer fees.”

Oliver’s “No” answer means, in my estimation, that she simply doesn’t understand (and most people don’t) the difference between the 65 recommendations in the HALA report and the Grand Bargain up zones including Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning (MIZ). She’s publicly stated she wants a 25 percent inclusion rate. And I think Carrie Moon, based on an interview, is cheering the up zones in the Bargain as somehow helping the housing “crisis.” And the Mayor is the one that created the MIZ mess in the first place, so there’s no surprise in his answer and what it means.

What’s disturbing about the answers is that the right answer (discounting the fact that it should have been about MIZ), “No” is for the wrong reason. Oliver wants to wring out more cash to punish developers. McGinn’s non answer is likely a sop to angry neighbors. Just look at the answer to the second question about “higher developer fees.” Everyone said yes, and the question itself is an indication of the mood of the electorate: we should punish developers for building more housing.

The next question about duplexes and triplexes is interesting. They all answered yes, but it’s hard to know what each of them mean. The Mayor already famously backed down from any increase in density in single-family zones. And the HALA process unleashed a bizarre war on single-family zones by so called “urbanists.” I’ve already said that we don’t really need to mess with single-family zones if we did what we should be doing in every other residential zone; but we’re not. Instead of upping the capacity of all multifamily zones the City Council has reduced that capacity in low-rise zones and then added it back with mandates for inclusion or fees in lieu with MIZ. So in a demonstration of the politician brain’s ability to hold wildly inconsistent views, the “Yes” answer doesn’t make any sense. Add more density to single-family zones in spite of opposition by the very people that want higher developer fees and downzones in areas that already can accommodate more density. Weird.

The question on the tree canopy is a red herring and a proxy, again, for “do you want to limit housing?” I suppose even I would have answered “Yes” to this question knowing full well that the tree canopy is just fine. In fact, we have more canopy now than we did twenty years ago and development and trees get along just fine.

And rent control. Wow. McGinn got a blast from me in a text message as soon as I saw this. When I took him to task about this answer he said,

Roger, I’m happy to meet your folks and talk directly.  Basing a decision on lightning round flash cards would be premature.

And I replied,

Cmon. You know better than that. I read it as disqualifying. You based your campaign the first time on decisive answers. We don’t have time for that. Yes or no. Raising fees and rent control would kill our housing economy and you know that.

The last time around, in 2013, McGinn said this about rent control

I am skeptical of rent control because of the experience of other cities,” he wrote. “I am looking at what we can do to change our rules to require greater advance notice of rent increases, and increased relocation expenses.

Murray’s pretty much capitulated on rent control and said so when he ran the first time. From Capitol Hill Seattle,

Rent control is an issue that both candidates have been loathe to take a strong position on. When an audience member asked directly if rent control was off the table, McGinn simply pointed out it was out of the hands of the city. Murray was a little warmer to the idea: “If  the city wants it, I would work towards it” (emphasis mine).

That McGinn so readily embraces rent control says a lot about the continuing leftward lurch of the city. I don’t think any candidate determined to win can be openly against rent control. Murray actually was pretty adamant about rent control a couple years back, saying on KIRO that,

“I know it’s possible to get difficult things done, but rent control was one that never even got out of hearing, much less out of committee, and that’s when the Democrats controlled it. I need to get affordable housing in Seattle immediately,” Murray said.

Along with rent control, all the candidates support an illegal income tax proposal as well (Moon answered “No” to this question because of the legal issues, but it’s a safe bet she’d support an income tax if it was legal and we’ll see if she’ll change her mind as time passes and pressure builds to support it anyway). McGinn and Murray have essentially said they don’t care that it’s illegal, they’re going to propose an income tax anyway and let the City get sued over it. I suppose they’d all do the same for rent control too. Why not? The City’s MIZ program is illegal, and Councilmember Mike O’Brien brazenly proposed and the Council passed a plainly illegal proposal requiring design review for projects below the threshold for the process because of development on an abutting lot.

So what the field of candidates has demonstrated is either an ignorance of why rent control simply doesn’t work or a willingness to pretend like they don’t know that, a willingness to propose things that aren’t legal to win votes, and a willingness to boost fees in the face of our explanations (corroborated by Sightline) that making housing more expensive won’t lower its price. One of those people will be our next Mayor.

Like I said, our city is in real trouble.