I thought the Seattle City Council needed at least one more record of dissent about the imposition of their Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) scheme on the whole city. I sent this letter after my editorial appeared in the Seattle Times. It is the season of Advent, an observance of waiting and reflection before Christmas that features John the Baptist prominently. If you’re patient enough to read to the end (which I am sure all 9 Councilmembers did) you’ll find my reference to John in the Gospel of Luke. While John paves the way for the arrival of ministry of Christ, things don’t turn out so well for him (see the featured image). One can hope at this holiday time that perhaps the Mayor and Council will come to their senses and consider another way. Along with this famous image from Caravaggio you might enjoy one of my favorite hymns of Advent, “On Jordan’s Bank the Baptist’s Cry” while you read. 

Mayor Durkan and Councilmembers,

I hope you’ll take some time and read my Op-Ed in the Seattle Times and this wordy email.

Here’s a link to the Op-Ed: https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/the-mandatory-housing-affordability-program-will-worsen-seattles-housing-crisis/

Having overcome the neighborhood challenge to your proposed Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) program, I see you set an aggressive schedule to impose it citywide.

That would be a mistake and disastrous for the city’s housing economy and for your legacy in the future. Most important, it won’t solve the problem of rising housing prices.

First, you simply cannot reduce housing prices by adding costs to the production of housing. This is an elementary point you have stubbornly ignored. While you may reassure yourselves that MHA will “work,” if you have any awareness of basic economics you must know that it will make many projects infeasible. Already, I hear frequently from builders and developers who are worried that they will not be able to make projects work. That means less housing production, less supply, and more hardships for people who need housing.

Second, when prices rise high enough to pay for fees, building will begin again. We’ve seen in Portland that an MHA program caused a halt in development. That will happen here. However, your constituents, in the end, will be paying for the fees with higher rents. Does that make sense? How does siphoning money from the pockets of hard working people to pay for a small number of subsidized units for other hard working people make sense to you? Yes, prices are falling at the moment. But that means this program makes even less sense. Falling prices mean it is less likely many projects will get built.

Third, what you’re doing is plainly illegal (see this letter from 2015) and will be overturned — eventually. Contrary to the narrative you’ve fed and tolerated, people that build housing are not corporations, they are people, and they are mostly small businesses. Eventually, many of these people will get caught in your trap and will lose their livelihood. One or more of those builders will have no choice but to sue. If they win, not only will many people have suffered needlessly, but the program will unravel.

You still have a chance. 

First, stop what you’re doing and engage many people who build housing, not just the ones you like to talk to. Let’s talk about solutions that work. The Multifamily Tax Exemption (MFTE) program has created over 8000 units of rent restricted housing. I know that it galls some of you that developers get some benefits from that program too. So much so that you’ve refused to follow the law (again) and not allowed appropriate rent increases. You’re systematically suffocating that program. It works, saving working people lots of money in rent. Why do you resent it so much? It outperforms MHA by leaps and bounds.

Second, if you believe this is a crisis start acting like it. Bring together a truly deliberative and collaborative process that includes neighborhoods, builders of housing of all sizes, and people who know about homelessness and the challenges faced by people on the margins. Imagine what that group could do if they had the opportunity to work together on a solution. And be willing to take away rules, fees, taxes, fines, and exaction as enthusiastically as you’ve been making them over the last 5 years.

Finally, you’re going to face the voters and history. Will you place a set of arbitrary fees to squeeze money out of the housing economy to produce an inadequate supply of subsidized housing, raising prices, adding to an already hostile environment for people that build and manage housing? Or will you stop, think, and engage people who know this problem. Will you focus on more housing? Will you try to solve the problem or will you strive to be liked? You know, you can do both.

Efficiency is compassionate. It is, in my faith, Advent, a period that features John the Baptist, a voice in the wilderness. When he baptized the tax collectors they asked him, “What should we do?” He answered them and said, “Don’t collect any more than you are required to.” 

Like I said, you still have time.

What will you do? 

Roger–

Featured image: Salome with the Head of John the Baptist (London), c. 1607/1610, is a painting by the Italian master Caravaggio in the National Gallery, London.