City Council Poised to Make Damaging Changes to MFTE
Once again the Seattle City Council has ignored the math and concerns from builders and is ready to substantially chance the voluntary Multifamily Tax Exemption program in a way that will reduce participation. Councilmember Sally Clark will propose legislation to the full Council later this morning that will lower the threshold for affordability to 40 percent of Area Median Income (AMI) and expand the percentage of units required to participate to 25 percent. Taken together, these new requirements will mean that the rent concessions from builders of Small Efficiency Dwelling Units (SEDUs) will exceed the tax benefit. In other words, Council’s changes will mean that the rent lost won’t equal the tax break; participating in the program will mean losing money, something any viable business can’t afford to do.
We explained the math in a letter to the Council:
There you have it. After Councilmember Clark’s changes, why would a builder participate in the program? The answer is they won’t. But the Council grinds on because they believe that the rents are lower than what builders know they are. Why are rents for SEDUs higher. Well, because Councilmember O’Brien’s legislation changes the rules, eliminating the old microhousing code and replacing it with the SEDU code. That means bigger units, more requirements, and higher rents. The Office of Housing staff continues to use old microhousing legislation to argue that builders will still play because the rents for a microunit are around $900, which is already around 60 percent AMI, the current threshold. But SEDUs are different and have higher rents. We told them this would be the case.
So to sum up, the Council passed legislation that eliminated microhousing, created a higher priced SEDU product, and now is imposing changes to increase the costs of the MFTE based on the old microhousing prices. This will mean most builders won’t participate in the program and fewer renters will get the savings. And this is the Council that claims its concerned about creating affordable housing.
Somehow the Council believes that it can, by fiat, make developers lower prices. This appears to the Council’s first foray in to trying rent control. I’m sure if they could, they’d mandate lower rents and force builders to build at a loss. But they can’t, since rent control is currently not legal. And even if they could, such a mandate would all but assure the projects wouldn’t be built at all, meaning less housing supply, fewer choices for lower income people and, you guessed it, higher prices. All of which would fuel more demand for rules and regulation. As we enter the San Francisco Death Spiral, you can thank the City Council for taking the easy way out for them that will make the way harder for people trying to find a place to live in the city.
State of the City: Mayor Commits $35 Million for . . .
Earlier this week Mayor Murray gave his State of the City Address, a speech that mirrors the Presidential State of the Union Address given to the United States Congress. In his speech here’s what Mayor Murray had to say about affordable housing:
As with our minimum wage task force, we have brought together people with very different perspectives who often do not agree, to work together on a definitive proposal just as rigorous as the solution we developed on the minimum wage. Their recommendations, due in May, will help ensure people – and especially families –can live in this city no matter their income.
People including the mother I met who works downtown and lives in South King County, but spends hours a day commuting. Hers is a common story that is often lost, but experienced by thousands of other workers across Seattle. These stories represent the true cost of a lack of affordability in our city.
I have made it clear to the members of the committee – and will reiterate here today –that we are not going to get there with a single tool.To address our affordability challenges, everyone must play a part: from developers to landlords to nonprofits to employers to the construction industry… to City government.
That’s why I am committing 35 million dollars of City resources to enact the recommendations of this Advisory Committee.
It seems a little strange to publicly allocate $35 million for a recommendation that hasn’t been made. This is the latest unhelpful turn in the workings of the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) Committee. The other unhelpful stuff has been done by the City Council, trying to cram low-rise legislation and changes to the Multifamily Tax Exemption (MFTE) Program through the Council and ignoring the HALA process. But this time the Mayor himself isn’t helping his own Committee. It’s going to be very difficult for the $35 million figure not to shape the discussions of the HALA Committee. It may seem like a great idea to throw $35 million on the table, but now how is the Committee supposed to consider all the options when it has to figure out how to spend $35 million.
And many if not most of the problems in the housing picture in Seattle are not about money. For sure, poor people struggle with rents, but we are facing a housing shortage which would be helped by leaving the low-rise zone alone (they’re producing lots of housing) and figuring out ways to lower costs and make it easier to build housing. These are all regulatory fixes that don’t require any funding at all but will increase overall housing supply.
What’s even more strange is that the $35 million is for a single year. Publicola quotes a Mayoral spokesman saying,
The mayor’s commitment was for this year’s implementation only, recognizing that future years’ revenue to support affordable housing may be come from other sources.
Hmmm. A single year. $35 million dollars. $15 from the Seattle Housing Levy and $20 from incentive zoning fees that have been collected but unspent. Is there some idea lurking here but not articulated? Is all this money really available to do whatever the HALA Committee recommends? Could it be used to build affordable units on public land, as Councilmember Sawant has proposed?
It’s very likely HALA Committee members are just as puzzled by this latest addition to their to do list. Meanwhile, very real damage to affordability is being considered by the City Council. It seems like the best thing the Mayor could do is to give the workings of the HALA Committee more focus not more money. Perhaps the HALA Committee might have ideas that require funding, but it seems like it would make more sense to let them make a recommendation first, then identify funding for the recommendations. Hopefully more details on how the money can be used will be forthcoming.
Disappearing Journalism: Elderly Lady Featured in KING5 Parking Story
Now it’s KING5’s turn. Here’s a breathless Linda Byron on “disappearing parking” in Seattle:
And when it comes to parking, the housing boom is threatening to make free street parking a scarcer commodity in some areas, thanks to city policies that let developers off the hook when it comes to building parking spots in new apartment and condo complexes.
Case in point is a planned 5-story retail and housing complex proposed for 6105 Roosevelt Way NE. The new building will have 2,000 square feet of retail space, plus 128 micro-apartments, where multiple units share a kitchen.
Wait. Housing boom? I thought we had a “housing affordability crisis?” And Bryon’s story comes complete with the standard issue elderly lady. Byron’s story talks about all the old people “people using canes and walkers” unable to park or use transit. This is yet another example of journalists using emotion to make a bad situation worse.
As I mentioned, the headline should be, “Seattle’s Parking Policies are Working!” We’re getting more bike lanes, more pedestrian friendly neighborhoods, and, most importantly more affordable housing! Here’s Mike Podowski from the Department of Planning and Development (DPD) explaining why parking requirements were reduced:
Mike Podowski, land use policy manager for Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development, said the new micro-apartments shouldn’t create a drag on parking in the area.
“Studies have shown with small apartments and microhousing, people own and use cars in a much lower percentage than other types of apartments,” Podowski said. He said the expectation is that the majority of tenants won’t have a car.
And here’s the developer explaining why the reduction in parking requirements helps affordability:
The developer of the Roosevelt project, CWD Investments, says there will be growing pains until the rail line opens. But the developer says the project makes sense because the building will offer lower rents — about 40 percent lower than a typical Seattle studio—which goes for about $1,400 a month.
The Department of Planning and Development says requiring developers to build parking can drive up the cost of housing. City officials say a parking requirement can add up to $30,000 per unit in a new building, boosting the cost of a project by millions and requiring landlords to charge higher rents or sale prices.
So in a twist we have DPD (yes, DPD) explaining why microhousing without parking benefits renters because of lower prices. And once again, we see elderly people being used as props by reporters taking the easy way out, stirring up the passions of their readers and viewers. I’ve been criticized for not having compassion for the elderly people in these stories. But what’s not compassionate is using these older people as tools to make angry people angrier so that preserving parking flexibility–and housing affordability–is impossible.
As we’ve mentioned already, we’re in a serious bind because of the Hearing Examiner decision in December which is creating problems with many projects that previous did not have to include parking. I’m already hearing that people at City Hall think legislation to address that problem won’t go forward because it’s not good politics. Now those projects may not happen, meaning our housing shortage will get even worse. It’s important to hold journalists accountable when they use vulnerable elders to goad people and politicians into making our housing situation worse.
Being Alone With Other People: Arabica Lounge Closes
The divide between public and private space is notable in a city because as our city becomes more densely populated, we are forced to become closer to each other and we must often enter the public realm to do intimate things. But even in this closeness, there is a desire to maintain some anonymity, even in public. My favorite cafe, Arabica Lounge, closed on Sunday for good. Arabica was that place where I went to be alone with other people, to experience some solitude in a crowded space, an activity as important to any city as high rises, transit, or compact, walkable neighborhoods. The cafe or pub is a critical element of any dense, walkable, neighborhood, and as people seek less living space they find themselves replacing the parlor with the cafe or local bar.
When I think of eating and drinking in public, I think first of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI eating in front of the public at Versailles.
According to contemporary accounts . . .The etiquette required the King and Queen to take some of their meals in public, in front of the courtiers and visitors. Anyone decently dressed was admitted in Versailles, and many came to the Palace to watch the royal couple eat.
A is for dining alone . . . and so am I, if a choice must be made between most people I know and myself. This misanthropic attitude is one I am not proud of, but it is firmly there, based on my increasing conviction that sharing food with another human being is an intimate act, which should not be indulged in lightly.
There are few people alive with whom I care to pray, sleep, dance, sing, and (perhaps most of all, except sleep) share my bread and wine. Of course there are moments when such unholy performances must take place, in order to exist socially, but they are endurable because they need not be the only fashion of self-nourishment.
There is always the prospect to cheer us of a quiet or giddy or warmly somber or lightly notable meal with “One,” as Elizabeth Robins Pennell refers to him or her in The Feasts of Autolycus. “… one sits at your side feasting in silent sympathy,” this lady wrote at the end of the last century, in her mannered and delightful book. She was, just there on the page, thinking of eating an orange in southern Europe, but any kind of food will do, in any clime, so long as One is there.
Myself, I have been blessed among women in this respect … which is, of course, the main reason that if one is not there, to dine alone is preferable to any other way for me.
Enjoy the poetry in Fisher’s prose. Doing intimate things in a public place alone and in anonymity is uniquely urban and part of being in a large community. We need each other, even when we don’t or don’t want to.
Arabica met this need for me; a place to be known but also unknown, to be part of something but also apart, watching and listening to others. Arabica was where I wrote many, many blog posts, personal reflections, e-mails, and Facebook posts. Even as I write this, I have to note that I write it as an Arabica refugee, part of the Arabica diaspora, in another cafe.
It was where I met many people fleetingly, sharing great conversations that would never have a conclusion, or a second. There were smiles and glances shared, laughs, but a sense that when it was needed, one need not share anything, convey any secrets, betray and weakness or flaw. It could be a place to simply be with beautiful people and beautiful food. Or sometimes,”just the usual please” and “have a great day!”
To bring it back to our business here, this is what I said about housing in the city, especially microhousing:
Valdez explains micro-housing this way: The apartment acts as the bedroom of a traditional house, where residents spend some of their time, but venture out for everything else.
“People who live in micro-housing see the cafe as their living room, the bar as their kitchen, or a friend’s place as their den. They see their micro-unit as their room and the wider community as the rest of their house,” he says.
“The idea that ‘It’s unbelievably small, how could you live that way?’ is disconnected from the way a lot of people live in the city. They don’t see their apartment as the be-all and end-all of their living space… That facilitates human interaction and human connection. If we all live in giant houses in Sammamish, we don’t need to see anyone else.”
Apologies to Sammamish. But as I pointed out in an old post somewhere else, cities can change us for the better especially because they push people together. And there is, after all, nothing more transformative than another person who is our neighbor whether down the hall or at the next table. One of the great Urbanist writers in the English language is Charles Dickens. In A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens describes how cities create the closeness and opacity of intimacy:
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! . . . In any of the burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them?
Arabica was a microcosm of the Capitol Hill neighborhood and every day it offered a fleeting glimpse of those “darkly clustered houses,” my neighbors and fellow human beings. It’s loss is notable but not irreparable since we need what Arabica offered; people always find each other no matter where they are. Cities make finding each other easier, whether we need acknowledgment or just the warmth that comes from being alone around other people.
A Friend in Need of Parking Context
Publicola has another perspective on Sunday’s Seattle Times story about parking. My criticism got me in hot water with a Facebook “friend” who subsequently defriended me over my comments about Mike Lindbloom’s use of an elderly lady to hype Seattle’s parking situation. It’s an indication of how emotional the topic is, and Publicola points out that what’s needed is a better grasp of the numbers, not more emotion. Here’s Publicola’s take, headlined, “Extended Hours and Low Rates: Parking Data in Context.”
The Seattle Times ran a front-page story yesterday cataloguing the loss of on-street parking spaces in the city, though the article doesn’t give a time period for comparison, doesn’t say how many of the spots are paid or unpaid, nor does it provide a price comparison to off-street parking. Most problematic: The article conflates the ability to get parking in the public right of way with the right to get extended parking in the public right of way.
So along with my criticism of Lindbloom’s strange use of one elderly lady in his story to show how much suffering Seattle’s parking policies are creating, the story also doesn’t put the data in context. Lindbloom’s story doesn’t help the reader understand the full picture of how parking in the city is changing, just that some curbside parking is “vanishing.” My concern is the people who are already angry about growth, change, and the need for more new housing, will use the story to demand more parking requirements for new multifamily housing.
Another part of the context is the need for legislation to respond to a serious problem with new housing construction caused by an appeal that could require parking be built in frequent transit areas. Until now projects in those areas could be exempted from parking, but an appeal has tilted that exemption into uncertain territory. The decision may end up requiring more parking meaning some housing projects just won’t work. Getting that legislation isn’t helped by the Times’ image of an elderly lady talking about her own death because of the loss of one parking spot in front her home.
All this probably wasn’t apparent to my “friend” since she doesn’t live in Seattle, doesn’t build housing, and seemed oddly concerned about the journalist’s reputation rather than the issue in the story. But to anyone who does build housing parking is an expensive add to a project. Off street parking is a convenience that often renters or owners of new housing are willing to pay for. But having flexibility around how much parking to put into a project translates into housing that is less expensive.
The real news about parking in Seattle is that the policy of reducing parking requirements is working and fewer curbside parking spots is part of a broader trend toward transit and other modes of transportation over the car. And fewer requirements in housing development mean lower housing prices. That’s great news, not an occasion to stir up people’s inevitable frustration at not always being able to park right in front of their destination. We’ll keep making that point to the City and to journalists even if it costs us a few “friends.”
