While the Mayor was able to hold a press conference to announce his Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning (MIZ) scheme yesterday, he and his staff still haven’t produced the math to show whether or how it would work. Here’s what I said on KIRO TV’s report on the Mayor’s announcement:

“Building more is not free,” he said. “In order to build that extra height, that’s additional cost, and then you lose money from the rents you have to lower.”

It’s pretty simple; rents either go up on all housing to subsidize units, or units don’t get built. Either way, MIZ makes the affordability problem worse not better. We’re still waiting to see the City’s assumptions and their math. So far we’ve seen the program renamed, the goal of inclusionary units lowered from 6000 to just 1500, and lots of posturing. But no numbers.