There is a lot of talk about supporting what people point to and call “HALA,” which is supposed to be shorthand for the recommendations of the Mayor’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda Committee. Unfortunately, often what “I support HALA” means is Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning (MIZ), the inflationary scheme that will add costs, reduce rent revenues, and boost overall housing prices in Seattle. I want to point out a key section of HALA on pages 37-39 called “Reform the Review Processes,” on page  that is being largely ignored and the consequences of inaction even contradiction of the section is higher housing prices. Here’s the paragraph summing up the section:

Construction of housing requires permits from a range of different agencies within the City of Seattle – Department of Planning and Development (DPD), Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), Seattle Public Utilities (SPU), and Seattle City Light (SCL). Long permitting processes and unpredictable timelines make housing projects difficult to develop and add to the cost of new housing. It is estimated that if significant reforms were made to Design Review and Historic Review, and improvements were made to the predictability of permitting within and between departments, total timelines for a complex multifamily development could be reduced by up to 2 months, and cost savings could total up to $4,000 per housing unit.

So it’s right there. Processing permits, poor coordination, and extended review add to the cost of housing. But are things getting better? Not so far. Smart Growth Seattle is working on this list of some issues currently impacting getting housing product onto the market and adding costs for people who need it:

• Abutting lot ordinance – a legislative “fix” that has resulted in lawsuit. The ordinance passed last year requires adjacent properties go through full design review based on units built on the lot next door. This has resulted in many projects not going forward or being significantly delayed.
• Definition of “development site”– there are variety of issues associated with how a proposed project is classified, especially if it involves a short plat, Lot Boundary Adjustment (LBA), or Unit Lot Subdivision (ULS). The worry here is about density and whether a project will trigger additional review or utility requirements. This internal lack of clarity and extra process and review is impacting the schedule of intakes for short plats, LBA, and ULS permits adding time and costs to projects.
• One Strike or Two Strikes – an issue related to the question of development site is a new requirement that is impacting live work housing. Previously live work projects were considered one development site, but new interpretations are indicating that they are more than one site and therefore require additional electric “strikes” or connections. That means additional cost of extending what amounts to redundant electric power connections either overhead or underground.
• Length of time for intake for permit review is now about 10-12 weeks and could get longer as regulatory agencies and City Departments struggle with staffing deficits and try to maintain training and new hiring efforts.
• Street Improvement Plans (SIP) have to be 60 approved prior to intake scheduling for permits. This ads time and costs.
• Seattle City Light high voltage power line setback from 10’ to 14.’ Setback requirements are important for worker safety, but the new requirement is often too much and is removing productive square footage from projects, resulting in less housing, adding delays, and even affecting feasibility of some projects.
• SPU storm main extension requirements—previously, projects with less than 5000 square feet did not have to add new storm water drainage infrastructure on streets without existing service. Regardless of efforts to treat and manage water on site, now all projects are being forced to put main extensions for surface water management, adding huge costs and making some projects infeasible.
• Long waits for Seattle City Light to grant temporary power, and for design for permanent electric service to projects. The wait creates delays for Master Use Permits and other permits and completing construction.
• Requirement that the same Traffic Control Plans be submitted by and get approved by multiple departments. Some projects have to show how traffic will be redirected in the event of having to work in the Right of Way (ROW). But frequently these plans need multiple approvals and add delay and costs.
• Lack of clarity about the definition of Frequent Transit Service – while there have been efforts by staff to work through an adverse Hearing Examiner decision, some projects are still running into issues meeting the threshold of having access to frequent transit service, meaning adding expensive and perhaps infeasible parking to projects otherwise not required to build parking.
• Tree regulations – there a requirements for exceptional trees that create impacts on new building. Usually these requirements can be met either with replacement or working around the tree, but review and the requirements can add time and costs to building housing in order to preserve or replace a tree on a building site.
• New requirements in Pavement Opening and Restoration Rules (PORR)—these rules govern what a builder or utility has to do before, during, and after opening pavement in the ROW for utility service or other site work. Restoring the roadway is important and a benefit to the public, but new requirements might add costs and delay.
• Rules impacts small affordable housing development – there are new requirements for Small Efficiency Dwelling Units (SEDUs), the replacement for microhousing after the Council wiped them out, for the calculation of square footage requirements that are pushing up unit size, costs, and rental price. There seems to be an interpretative bias against smaller units in how rules and the code are being applied that is impacting the number of units feasible in a project and their price for the end user.

This list does not include neighbor-initiated appeals, staffing shortages that slow down utility connections, SEPA requirements, design review, historic preservation issues, and other site related and regulatory issues that emerge during permitting and construction.

And these delays and costs impact ALL housing being built by private businesses or non-profit housing organizations. Building housing is already costly and risky as it is, but taken together all these issues combine to have a multiplying impact on the cost of production that get passed on to buyers and renters and to the public.

For non-profit builders these costs get passed on to tax payers and other funders of housing, reducing the ability of agencies and non-profits to build subsidized units, increasing waiting lists for families in need, and creating more pressure for subsidies. This list, of course, doesn’t even consider the sizable transaction costs (lawyers, consultants, etc.) required by regulatory and funding agencies for non-profit housing. This cost pressure then takes the form of schemes like MIZ that try to syphon money from the production of private housing development and toward more subsidized housing, raising the price of all that other housing in the process.

People who actually build and finance housing know these problems exist, and they know that the issues don’t reduce profits but increase housing prices. That’s exactly what the HALA Committee concluded too. Now if we could get a few City staff to break away from the march toward unworkable and inflationary mandates like MIZ and rent control and get them to work on solving these issues, we’d be “supporting HALA” and doing something real to lower housing prices.