What bedevils the housing conversation in Seattle today is the confusion between the 65 recommendations in the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) Committee Mayor Murray convened last year and one of those recommendations and the most problematic, Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning (MIZ) also known as the Grand Bargain. Even last week at a panel discussion a colleague said something like “and even though you don’t like HALA.” I had to correct him. I like the HALA recommendations. My co-panelist could be forgiven that lapse since the panel was supposed to discuss HALA but spent most of its time discussing MIZ. I’ve said this is unfortunate and happening citywide. So our intern Jeremy Gleed has undertaken an effort to create an interactive tracker of all the recommendations. We’ve got a first draft of that tracker now

What I am sharing first is a three (big) page Excel sheet showing what the HALA Committee report flagged as the “Highest Impact Recommendations.”

Of the many recommendations presented in the report, the boldest and most promising ideas with the greatest potential to impact housing affordability in Seattle

How hard is the City working on these “bold” and “promising” ideas? Lots of effort and energy has been absorbed in upzones associated with MIZ and pushing those out to all the neighborhoods. Meanwhile other really great ideas that are feasible and legal aren’t getting as much attention. To be fair, momentum is strong with promoting the Levy and considering legislation to allow for more Detached Accessory Dwelling Units (DADUs), both in the “greatest potential” category. Additionally, work was done to try to change State law to allow easier use of the Multifamily Tax Exemption (MFTE) Program for existing housing.

What are some examples? Let’s look.

More Resources: Call on the State and City to Create Additional Resources for Affordable Housing

Strategy L.1 – Prioritize use of surplus and underutilized public property for affordable housing and promote co-development in conjunction with public buildings.

This is an idea, along with using City debt borrowing for financing, that has been promoted by Councilmember Savant, has broad support, but has gotten very little attention from City staff outside of them saying it won’t work. It is time to pull people off of MIZ and focus on this instead. It’s very likely that to make public financing for City owned housing on City land would require considerable effort. And maybe there are other models for financing that make sense in addition to the City using its bonding authority. But we have to do the work. The good news (see above) as that Sawant has at least made a sign about this topic. Progress!

More Supports for Communities: Launch a Proactive Preservation Strategy

Strategy P.1 – Task the City’s Office of Housing with leading an expansive preservation effort to strategically acquire existing affordable multifamily housing and provide funding for that strategy

Councilmember Lisa Herbold has started this discussion, but Councilmembers are now considering ill-advised legislation prohibiting rent increases I’ve talked about yesterday that would put the City dangerously close to rent control, a violation of State law. This approach along with financial assistance for older buildings and smaller landlords makes a lot more sense. The concern most of us share is whether the City can move quickly to acquire buildings without spoiling ongoing transactions.

Also, the City doesn’t even track or follow what’s happening with existing subsidized properties with covenants. These are buildings that have more strings attached to maintain affordability because they get government funds, but often still can’t maintain themselves and end up needing to be sold. Lots more work needs to be done here to come up with a workable program to inventory lower cost housing, maintain it, or acquire it to benefit renters and private owners.

More Resources: Recommit to and Expand Effective Existing Tools

Strategy R.4 – Renew and expand the City’s successful multifamily property tax exemption program which enlists private developers in providing income and rent restricted units in newly constructed buildings

This is the best, legal, effective, and most obvious inclusionary program there is. With 20 percent inclusion rates and thousands of units already online all over the city, it simply makes sense to expand this program. Yet the City seems to harbor resentment to the program because it doesn’t stick it to developers and builders of housing – even though many, many renters enjoy many months if not years of lowered rent in exchange for a relatively small deferral in property taxes.

More Supports for Communities: Support Vulnerable Tenants and Increase Access to Housing

Strategy T.1 – Increase fair access to rental housing for people with past criminal records through local legislation, education and technical assistance

We’ve called this out to before and I continue to hear lots of support being murmured in many quarters for better coordination of re-entry for people coming out of the prison system. But I’ve seen very little effort at the City to identify these opportunities and we’ll do what we can to work with tenant advocates and landlords to figure out what might work and push the City to do what’s necessary.

More Innovation: Create Efficiencies in Housing Production

Strategy RP.1 – Improve predictability and timeliness and thus reduce construction costs by reforming City design review and historic review processes

Strategy Rp.2 – Reduce the number of projects required to undergo SEPA review by raising SEPA thresholds

What else can I say but, “Amen,” to both of these, and, that in spite of an exhaustive review and proposal to do just what this recommendation suggests, no action is expected on changing the City’s cumbersome and unsatisfactory design review program.

Design and SEPA review remain needless a speed bumps utilized by NIMBYs to appeal projects they don’t like, even when there is hardly any basis to do so. In both cases, design review and SEPA, most people agree that building dense housing in areas with really great transit access more than offsets any of the downsides that both design review and SEPA were intended to stop or mitigate.

We’ll have a more comprehensive review of some of the sleeper recommendations in the HALA document next week.