How’s That Gonna Work?: More Questions for the City About MIZ
Posted by Roger Valdez on Tuesday, January 17, 2017 · Leave a Comment
The City of Seattle is stomping ahead with it’s ill advised Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning (MIZ) scheme. Now the Council is being battered around by angry neighbors in the north end of the city over the U District uponzones. The fact that the City Council is deaf to our concerns — that MIZ makes many housing projects infeasible, that when they do work it’s because MIZ is inflationary and will push up housing coasts broadly to pay for the scheme, and that the whole thing is an illegal and unauthorized tax — is frustrating. But imagine being the staff that has to put it together. As Councilmembers make more and more unreasonable requests from an already poorly conceived idea, it must feel like being a stunt person or someone taking a dare. “See if you can figure out how to write code that will repeal upzones in case they are ruled illegal.” OMG. I sent this and if I don’t get an answer in about ten days, I’ll do a public disclosure request on all internal e-mails related to the request. I’m just being Mr. Curious.
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Hello Ketil (and Lish and Aly),I hope you all had a great holiday. Now it’s back to work, right? And what a job you’ve got. Here’s what Councilmember Mike O’Brien says he wants to do with the upcoming legislation for the U District (from George Howland’s recent post):
Seattle City Councilmember Mike O’Brien, PLUZ’s vice chair, is determined to link all upzones to the affordable-housing requirements. “Those two things should be tied together so if one is removed, the other is removed,” he says.
How would you do that in the code?
My understanding is that the framework is already codified and completed the SEPA process. And the way this whole thing would work, is that the framework sits in the code, inert, until upzones happen. No upzones, no inclusion and fees. Furthermore, my understanding is that the upzones being considered in the U District and for MIZ implementation are legislative upzones; once those changes are made, those too are in the code for good and also would have cleared SEPA.
So in order to change the framework, wouldn’t any significant change require a full SEPA review? Would a downzone (if the upzones were ‘undone’) require SEPA too?
So how do you create legislation that does a downzone if the framework is somehow compromised?
The short answer, I guess, is that it is done through legislation just like any other land use change. But wouldn’t that take a long time? And wouldn’t projects taking the additional height be entitled to it once they are vested to the changed MIZ code? How would Council ‘claw back’ the FAR?
Also, I appreciate your memo bringing up feasibility, specifically, this paragraph:
Increased development costs resulting from such changes may influence the feasibility of high-rise projects in the U District and may result in increased rents for market rate units. It is difficult to determine the extent this modification would have on future development given the range of factors that contribute to the feasibility of any given development project.
Now we’ve been saying this for a long time. We’re glad to see Central Staff pointing it out. Geoff Wendtland said the same thing in public, but I’m not sure it’s been in writing anywhere. One of the Chairs of the HALA Committee, Faith Pettis, disputed Geoff’s comment,
How would [paying fees] not increase the rate of the, increase the price of the market rate units on that development? And that’s a great question. And it is, um, a trade off and I think part of the policy and it may be the case that the market rate units have to, to some extent subsidize the inclusion of the affordable units and that it is a valid way to view the program. But uh, the proposal and the fees that are being proposed and set are such that we feel pretty confident that development will still be feasible and we would work with the development community that we wouldn’t be over impacting feasibility (the full exchange is in this video starting at about 49:45)
Here’s her comment, and to be fair, I’ll include her whole comment without editing.
Roger,
We want to set the record straight. Your statement, taken from your below email:
We have already expressed substantive disagreement: Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning (MIZ) is an inflationary policy that will only make housing prices worse for consumers by adding additional costs and slowing production with inclusion mandates and fees. The City and the Chairs of the HALA Committee have publicly agreed that this “a valid way to view the program.”
is flat out wrong. Neither of us made the statement you are attributing to us and furthermore neither of us agrees with your larger misconstruction of a supposed point. We request that you not misquote us or twist our statements to appear to serve your interests.
Faith Pettis and David Wertheimer
HALA Co-Chairs
Lish, Aly, and Ketil do you agree with Geoff that rents are likely to go up to accommodate the fees and inclusion, especially if they are increased, even from 9 to 10 percent? Is this, as he suggests, “a valid way to view the program?” And if Council changes“the proposal and the fees that are being proposed and set,” won’t this negatively impact feasibility? I ask these questions because we’re genuinely concerned that this proposal won’t get better in terms of feasibility, only worse from our point of view, after the U District process unfolds. Any thoughts, even of a general and procedural nature, would be very interesting to hear. I really do appreciate the work you all do. Thank you!
