City Council, Development, Mayor Wilson

Housing Fee Reduction Sought By Developers Is Back On, Thanks to Deal Brokered by Councilmember Foster

 By Erica C. Barnett

City Councilmember Dionne Foster has introduced a bill that will give developers a break on mandatory housing affordability fees for two years, with the goal of spurring projects forward at a time when housing development is stalled.

Under the deal, which is similar to one that fell apart earlier this year, developers who already have projects in the city’s development pipeline will get an 80 percent break on MHA fees for the next two years, a reduction that could get some of the 30 or so  projects that are currently stalled moving forward. Developers of these projects would have two years to get to the foundation inspection stage, a requirement designed to make sure they actually build the projects quickly.

In a concession to affordable advocates who argued that the MHA “holiday” would inappropriately reduce funding for affordable housing, the legislation exempts the Central District, the ChinatownInternational District, and much of Southeast Seattle from the proposal, ensuring that no developer can propose a new project in those areas while the lower fees are in place. Two of the 30 stalled projects are in this area, but both are on vacant land.

The legislation would also allow developers to propose new, or non-vested, projects—in addition to projects that are currently proposed but not moving forward—in 2027 only if they meet two conditions: At least 25 percent of their new units must be two bedrooms or larger, and their project has to reach the foundation inspection stage within three years after they get their building permits. Those projects will get a 60 percent cut to MHA fees, except for “legacy homeowners, who would get an 80 percent reduction as  in MHA fees to develop on their own property.

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“This feels really important because we have a lot of projects that are stalled and permits that are trending down, and this is an opportunity to take action,” Foster said. “I’m really excited about two-bedroom requirement. … I think that’s an example of something that helps address a gap in the market, knowing that we definitely need more family-size units to meet the needs of Seattle renters and Seattle families, and I hope that will have an impact.

Mayor Katie Wilson’s office was not involved in the deal, and in fact had been working on a parallel track, headed up by Councilmember Eddie Lin. When an earlier effort to reach a similar agreement fell apart after affordable housing developers withdrew their support, Wilson announced she would to convene a task force of stakeholders including advocates, labor, and market-rate and nonprofit to broker an MHA compromise, among other policies to spur new affordable housing construction.

Developers, who have been seeking a temporary break from the fees, for months, have argued that Wilson’s drawn-out timeline would have effectively killed the projects that are currently in the pipeline.

MHA fees, which fund affordable housing, have been on the decline as development has slowed, dropping from $74 million in 2021 to $22 million last year.

Foster said the work Wilson’s office did on their parallel MHA strategy was “critical. … I see this proposal as taking on a time-sensitive. immediate, short-term approach and I think there’s lots of additional changes that we need to make to support housing and affordable housing production. There’s certainly no shortage of issues for us to all work on, so I think the mayor’s task force will be a really important part of that.

In a statement to PubliCola, Wilson said her task force will “work on multiple fronts to accelerate the production of housing and prevent displacement, including short and long-term updates to MHA. I respect Councilmember Foster’s decision to move forward now with a proposal for a temporary MHA holiday, similar to the one we were developing together this spring. While the Council deliberates, my focus is on the work of the Housing Production Task Force and lining up our next set of key actions and policies.”

Foster’s proposal also includes a resolution that says the council “intends to consider and act on legislation”  that would apply MHA requirements to neighborhood residential areas—former single-family zones, where small apartment buildings are now allowed. Currently, these areas are exempt from MHA. Foster says her proposal is different than former councilmember Cathy Moore’s plan to impose existing MHA requirements on all neighborhood residential areas because it is less prescriptive; the resolution includes a number of possible carveouts, for example, it says the council may consider charging lower fees for denser development.

MHA, which went into effect citywide in 2019, allowed developers to build slightly taller buildings in exchange for variable affordabl-housing fees. The program, part of the Housing and Livability Agenda adopted during the Ed Murray administration, is  based on the premise that new market-rate apartments can cause displacement of existing residents, so developers should have to pay for new affordable housing to offset their impact. The fees are higher in areas the city determined have less access to opportunity and higher displacement risk, making it more expensive to build new housing in, say, the Central District than Laurelhurst.

 

Housekeeping

On Vacation – Back Late Next Week

I will be out of town until next Thursday, so look for my stories on the mayor’s gun violence reduction strategy, Dan Strauss’ proposal to ban unregistered RVs from Seattle, and the mayor’s budget announcement after I get back on Thursday, September 24. Plus a couple more posts between now and then.

Business, Economy, Urbanism

Greater Seattle: Third Places

By Josh Feit

5,250 > 778

Here’s a rejoinder to those who complain that Seattle’s taxes on big business are going to send major companies fleeing to Bellevue: Seattle has nearly 40 percent more cafes, retail shops, bars, arts and cultural spaces, community centers and food spots per capita than Bellevue.

Known as “third places,” these kinds of public living rooms are considered essential for attracting uniquely mobile high-tech workers away from competing cities.

Last week, the Seattle Department of Economic Development published a new, comprehensive report  about the need for Seattle to foolproof its economy by fostering a more varied set of businesses that participate on the national and international scale. The report, which was written by local economic consultants, cites Seattle’s impressive map of third places as a must-have. “Seattle offers a remarkably rich environment for these connections due to its high concentration of third places mixed into its built environment,” the report states as part of its thesis that third places are an asset for drawing the creative class that’s necessary to resuscitate our flagging startup culture.

The report’s comparison point for what we don’t want to be? Bellevue.

“The difference between Seattle and a less third place-rich region like Bellevue is stark. Seattle has substantially more third places than Bellevue (5,250 vs. 778). Part of this, of course, is a matter of population. But Seattle also has more third places per square mile (63 vs. 23) and per capita than Bellevue (71 vs. 52 per 10,000 residents).”

“Stark” is not hyperbole. When you look at the specifics of Seattle’s 40 percent per-capita advantage over our neighbor across Lake Washington, you can see why young workers would be miserable in Bellevue. While Seattle has more third spaces overall—libraries, community centers, cafes, and gyms, for example—the advantage is stunning when you look at spots that you traditionally associate with “going out.” More than three times as many bars. One-hundred sixty percent more cultural arts venues. Sixty-five percent more shops. Forty-nine percent more dining options.

And, upending stereotypes, Seattle also has more places of worship—by a reverent 42 percent.

Bellevue does beat Seattle in an important category, though. And it’d be good for policy makers at city hall to take note of this. When it comes to parks, Bellevue beats Seattle by 14 percent—7.1 to 6.1 per every 10,000 people.

10 pm > 6 pm

The report doesn’t say how late Seattle’s third spaces stay open on average. That’s important. While people want to move to a city where there’s places to hang out, they likely don’t want to move to a city where there’s a stopwatch ticking on how long they can.  And anecdotally, I can tell you: Shops close too early. This is true in Bellevue as well, but Seattle’s lackluster evening economy is a noteworthy problem in its own right.

From coffee shops to corner stores, from retail to social services, Seattle needs a more energetic nighttime ecosystem. I wrote about this problem decades ago, and I wrote about it again a few years ago, because it’s a defining and persistent shortcoming here. Seattle is too soporific. Newsflash to the rest of country: Seattle is not woke!

A sleepy city undermines equity. The nighttime isn’t just about socializing. If it was easier to take care of business after 5 pm by having greater access to the practical stuff that’s traditionally closed or diminished at night—government services, retail, drug stores, administrative offices, buses, rental visits—people, particularly working-class people, would face fewer barriers to the economic opportunities here.

38 percent > 30 percent

Another thing missing from the report: The evidence to support the consultant’s contention that the creative class workers we need actually gravitate toward third places. I’m not saying I disagree with the report’s thesis. I want it to be true. And it’s certainly logical to assume that creative, young techies like to be out and about.

But is it?

According to a dispiriting essay titled “America is Becoming a Nation of Homebodies,” which urbanist Diana Lind wrote last year, “Americans now spend an average of 99 more minutes at home each day than they did in 2003, while this generation of 15- to 24-year-olds spends 124 more minutes at home than their counterparts two decades ago. Meanwhile, just 30 percent of Americans spent time socializing and communicating in person on an average day, down from 38 percent in 2014, according to [an] American Time Use Survey.”  And another recent report found that Americans are also speaking less—and that the issue is especially pronounced among people younger than 25.

Numbers detailing Seattle’s penchant for being out and about—and how those numbers are trending—would be helpful to have if urbanists want to backup the OED consultant’s third-place advocacy for “face-to-face communication” and “connections.”

The World Cup social scene may have been an aberration. But compared to the crowds I’m seeing at art walks, game days, Saturday night on Capitol Hill, lines at popups, music and cultural events, and crowded coffee shops these days, it wasn’t a huge aberration. Seattle seems like it’s hopping. It’d be nice to know if that’s true.

Josh@PubliCola.com

City Council, Crime, Economy, Mayor Wilson

This Week on PubliCola: Building a Less “Fragile” Seattle Economy, Addressing Gun Violence, and Is It Selfish to Live Alone?

By Erica C. Barnett

Tuesday, September 8

Greater Seattle: Late Press Conferences, On-Time Buses, Selfish Housing

In this week’s column, Josh tackled the media-generated narrative that blamed Mayor Katie Wilson, rather than SPD, for a delayed SPD press release; praised the new Denny Way bus lane for turning the L8 into the Gr8; and wondered whether he should take on several new roommates, in response to a Seattle Times column that blamed people who live alone (rather than Seattle’s endless refusal to densify) for the housing crisis.

Investigation Report: Trip to Strip Club on Civil Rights Office Trip Was Sexual Harassment

An investigation into some of the employee allegations against Seattle Office for Civil Rights director Derrick Wheeler-Smith found that going to a strip club with an employee on a city-sponsored trip constituted sexual harassment, but that misogynistic and transphobic texts did not. Employees accused Wheeler-Smith of discrimination and harassment earlier this year, and he has been on paid leave since March.

Wednesday, September 9

Saka’s Messy Transportation Bill Gets Messier

City Councilmember Rob Saka’s mostly nonsubstantive transportation safety legislation—rolled out hastily one day before the mayor announced executive orders on the same subject—became more bloated over council recess, but would still have very little real-world impact.

Controversial Group We Heart Seattle Makes City’s Official Volunteer Day Roster

We Heart Seattle, a group whose leader films vulnerable homeless people to promote a punitive, staunchly conservative agenda, got city approval to include one of its encampment “cleanups” in this year’s citywide day of volunteerism. The group is under state investigation for allegedly failing to properly train volunteers to pick up and dispose of needles and other potentially dangerous items.

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Thursday, September 10

Consultants, New Staffers Fill Out Mayor’s Communications Team

Mayor Katie Wilson, whose communications staff has seen high turnover through most of her term so far, has hired a permanent communications director and press secretary—along with a number of consultants, including one who’s getting$10,000 to write this year’s budget speech.

Maritza Rivera Overstates Gun Violence, Pushes Mayor to Pre-Commit to Handpicked “Focused Deterrence” Contractor

City Councilmember Maritza Rivera is insisting that Mayor Wilson commit in advance to hire a specific contractor, at a cost of $418,000, to implement a “focused deterrence” approach to gun violence. This approach has been successful in places where most shootings involve a small group of people, which may or may not be the case in Seattle—a city where fatal shootings are much rarer than in other cities.

Friday, September 11

Report Recommends Diversifying Seattle Economy; Wilson’s Plan Would Initiate that Process, But Slowly

A report from Brookings-affiliated researchers concluded that the city is far too reliant on a tiny handful of massive tech companies, and has failed to nurture startups and mid-size companies that could sustain the economy here even if the big tech firms shrink or move to Bellevue. The report, which includes counterintuitive data on Seattle’s economy and tax base, was the basis for a Wilson executive order that directs the city to figure out ways to implement its recommendations.

Also this week: I was on City Cast Seattle with guest host Brett Hamil and Seattle Times reporter Claire Bryan on Friday. Claire got us up to speed on what’s happening with Seattle Public Schools’ budget (and I went off about AI in schools). Then, Brett and I discussed my reporting on the real reason for the communications breakdown after the Bite of Seattle shooting in July. I’ll be a regular guest on City Cast in the future, so tune in!

This week’s episode of Seattle Nice features returning guest Daniel Malone, from the Downtown Emergency Service Center. He got us up to speed on how DESC’s Opioid Recovery and Care Access (ORCA) center is doing one year in (so far, they’ve had more than 10,000 post-overdose encounters), the 95-bed STAR shelter downtown that replaced the Navigation Center in Little Saigon, and the status of the Trump Administration’s efforts to defund the kind of permanent supportive housing DESC provides.

Note to readers: I will be out of town for most of the next two weeks, so look for my stories on the mayor’s new gun violence reduction strategy, further discussion of Dan Strauss’ proposal to ban unregistered RVs from Seattle, and the mayor’s budget announcement after I get back on Thursday, September 24!

Meantime, my birthday is coming up next week, and I would appreciate nothing more than a contribution to PubliCola, the independent news source you’re reading. Lots of options, from one-time or ongoing Paypal contributions to a P.O. box where you can send a check, can be found right here.

Economy, Mayor Wilson, Taxes

Report Recommends Diversifying Seattle Economy; Wilson’s Plan Would Initiate that Process, But Slowly

By Erica C. Barnett

A comprehensive, 127-page report on the city’s business and taxing climate recommends that Seattle start taking steps to diversify its tax base beyond the handful of large tech firms that now dominate the city, by cultivating startups in areas like AI, green energy and the maritime industry and helping them grow into mature, mid-size companies that stay in Seattle instead of expanding somewhere else.

“While Seattle’s startup activity is modest and declining, its ability to grow firms is mediocre at best,” the report, published by a group of researchers headed up by a Brookings-affiliated researcher named Ryan Donahue, says. Of 303 tech companies that were founded in the Seattle area between 2015 and 2019, only 33 have grown to more than 50 employees. At the same time, Seattle has failed to attract midsize firms, adding just 16 net new midsize tech companies between 2017 and 2023, compared to 104 in San Francisco and 51 in Austin. “Scaling that missing middle is the challenge around which economic development should be organized.”

“Seattle needs firms that are economically distant enough from the tech sector for their fates to be disentangled, yet economically close enough that access to tech talent and customers justifies Seattle prices. Envision a battery or satellite company that wants to engineer and assemble prototypes that could eventually be produced at scale, but also needs a few top-tier AI researchers at hand.”

Failing to diversify, the report notes, keeps Seattle dependent on the decisions of the handful of companies that make up its tax base. If those firms shrink or relocate, other local businesses that depend on wealthy tech workers, like restaurants and retail, will also take a hit.

The situation the report describes won’t be too surprising to anyone who has followed the ups and downs of Seattle’s JumpStart tax, which gets 75 percent of its revenue from just 10 companies, all but one in tech. (JumpStart taxes large Seattle businesses based on individual employee compensation above an annually adjusted threshold; revenue from the tax depends not just on how many highly-paid employees are at each firm but how the value of companies’ stock in any given year.)

The tax, which was created to fund affordable housing and other progressive priorities but now goes largely to the city’s general fund, has proven to be extremely volatile—less of an issue if it’s funding one-time adds, more of a crisis if the entire budget depends on its stability. “The report puts it bluntly: “The city’s fiscal health now depends on the marginal location and compensation decisions of a handful of employers.”

“The strategy is to move them deliberately: helping software-adjacent ‘hardtech’ firms in areas like cleantech, commercial space, maritime, and life sciences scale in the city; enabling mid-career engineers leaving anchor firms to start and join new companies rather than leave town; and using climate policy and the City’s control of Seattle City Light as an accelerant for deployment of clean energy technologies, enabling growth and stimulating innovation.”

The report includes a number of specific recommendations—like creating a public development authority that can issue contracts and make investments, investing in child care construction as well as child care subsidies, eliminating parking requirements and increasing density, and and reducing the amount of time it takes businesses to get permits.

In response to the report, Wilson announced a series of actions, via executive order, designed to spur startup development. They include:

  • A new “Seattle Strategic Initiatives Fund” designed to “make a meaningful impact in diversifying our economy and supporting new business creation and growth in targeted sectors”;
  •  A “Resilient Seattle Economy Task Force” that will come up with recommendations for Seattle attract, retain, and grow businesses, “particularly in key and innovative industries where City action can tip the scales towards success including cleantech and the creative economy”; and
  • Regulatory and permitting changes designed to a to make it easier for businesses, from emerging “cleantech” companies to child care, to get started and grow.

As the report notes, any strategy to steer a city’s entire economy in a different direction is a long-term project—and mayors only have four-year terms. Another challenge is the city’s ongoing “structural” deficit, which is approaching $200 million.

While the report lays out potential solutions to the city’s unbalanced dependence on a few tech companies, it also includes a number of fascinating insights into Seattle’s economy and budget that make it clear that the sky is not actually falling—at least not in the way that many of the region’s reactionary centrists tend to claim. Some key stats from the report:

Wages grew faster in Seattle than in almost any other US metropolitan area, across the entire income scale—but costs grew faster. “Workers at the 25th percentile earn roughly 15 percent more after adjusting for cost-of-living than peers in places seen as more hospitable to middle-income earners like Atlanta, Charlotte, or Minneapolis,” which translates to about $6,000 a year.

At the same time, the cost of living grew faster here than in most places, making it much more expensive to be poor or middle-class here than in other parts of the country. For instance, even though the lowest-paid quarter of Seattle workers make more than they do in Austin or Denver, the gap between an “affordable” rent and what they earn is more than $1,500 a month.

Having kids nearly doubles the annual cost for a couple to maintain a “basic standard of living,” driven largely by the $41,000 average annual cost for child care. This is one reason the report recommends treating child care businesses “as workforce infrastructure rather than a social service.”

Adding more people, and allowing them to live densely, is necessary. This isn’t just growth for the sake of growth—it’s the way Seattle will keep its economy afloat and close its budget deficit.

“Seattle needs more people to move to the city and more businesses to start and grow in the city because Seattle’s tax revenue, especially property and sales tax revenue, depends on it. If the city stopped growing, the only way to increase revenue would be to increase the tax burden on existing residents and businesses. … A growing economy, by contrast, generates new revenue even at stable tax rates.”

The barriers to adding more people are familiar: Seattle makes it too hard to build new housing, which drives up costs. The report recommends allowing 12-story apartment buildings within two blocks of major transit corridors and getting rid of most minimum parking requirements, two changes Seattle has historically been reluctant to make because of homeowner opposition.

Much as businesses complain about taxes across the board, Seattle’s taxes are “middle of the road.” However, tax increases in recent years have been heavily weighted toward the largest tech companies in ways they perceive as unfair, and Bellevue is a viable, lower-tax option for firms that don’t want to leave the region entirely.

“Taxes are relatively low, and they are increasing extremely quickly for the firms that Seattle policymakers targeted with recent tax policy changes,” the report says. Jumpstart alone adds about $17,000 in taxes for a senior software engineer making $650,000 a year, “while San Francisco imposes no per-employee tax and New York City’s equivalent is under $6,000.”

Taxes are also significantly lower in Bellevue, which the report identifies as Seattle’s key competitor for tech jobs. For Amazon, identified as “the mega tech company” in the report, moving to Bellevue would save it a total of $400 million a year, including about $12,000 per employee in Seattle-only taxes. Most companies don’t decide where to locate based primarily on tax rates, according to the report, but Seattle may be nearing the limit of its ability to increase taxes on businesses without facing consequences.

 

Wilson’s executive order sets a deadline of next September for most of the its goals, meaning that the city may not start implementing any changes until halfway through the mayor’s term. This is an inherent problem with long-term initiatives pushed by individual leaders, especially mayors, who (in Seattle) tend to serve a single term. If the goals recommended in the city-commissioned report are the right ones, it would almost certainly be more effective to move quickly, especially on ideas—like goosing housing construction through regulatory reform—that have been percolating in Seattle for years or decades.

 

 

City Council, Crime

Maritza Rivera Overstates Gun Violence, Pushes Mayor to Pre-Commit to Handpicked “Focused Deterrence” Contractor

By Erica C. Barnett

City Councilmember Maritza Rivera misrepresented the number of fatal shootings in Seattle by an order of magnitude earlier this week, claiming at a council public safety committee meeting that “fatal shootings in 2012 were 211, and in 2024 there were 541. And post-pandemic, it increased exponentially.”

Councilmember Rob Saka chimed in, saying that gun violence was “the one unique outlier” among crimes that has continued to increase year over year.

In reality, according to King County data, there were 19 firearm homicides in 2012 and 21 in 2024. (Between 2012 and 2024, there were a total of 120 such homicides in Seattle.) Although that is an overall uptick of two deaths, the actual homicide rate was lower in 2024 than in 2012, despite a post-pandemic upswing, because Seattle’s population grew by nearly 200,000 in those 12 years.

The numbers Rivera cited appear to come from this March 2025 city audit, which found that there were 211 and 541 reports of shots fired citywide in 2012 and 2024, respectively.

So why does Rivera’s alarmist overstatement matter? Because she’s using those numbers, and other claims about the rising danger of living in Seattle, to pressure Mayor Katie Wilson to bypass ordinary contracting processes and sign a $418,000  gun violence prevention contract with Rivera’s handpicked consultant, the National Network for Safer Communities.

NNSC, a project of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, pioneered the concept of “focused deterrence,” in which teams of police officers, social service providers, and community leaders focus their efforts on young men deemed most likely to engage in gun violence, with services on the front end and the threat of increasing consequences, including jail, if they commit violent crimes.

Wilson has said she plans to make focused a key component of her gun violence strategy, which she plans to announce next week. But NNSC is not the only consultant the city could choose to contract with to implement focused deterrence, a concept that has been around for decades; Seattle has used versions of focused deterrence off and on since at least 2009, when the city first launched a “drug market initiative” that offered low-level drug offenders the choice of treatment or jail. 

The reason Wilson must hire this specific contractor, Rivera explained, is because unlike “some organizations” King County has partnered with, NNSC “includes law enforcement” by design. King County’s Regional Peacekeepers Collective focuses on preventing gun violence through public health interventions.

Rivera credited NNSC with reducing violent crime in cities including Baltimore, Philadelphia, Stockton, CA, and Chicago. On KUOW this week, she explicitly credited NNSC with reducing gun violence in Baltimore.

But Baltimore, as Rivera surely knows, actually stopped contracting with NNSC after two efforts at reducing gun violence in partnership with that contractor failed to show results. The current, successful model is a more comprehensive approach that includes a type of focused deterrence developed at the University of Pennsylvania, but also “community violence intervention, victim services, improved investigations, and sustained leadership from City Hall,” according to this overview.

It’s unusual, though not unprecedented, for a city council member to insist on hiring a specific contractor for such a large contract. (NNSC facilitated a symposium Rivera convened on gun violence earlier this year.) Rivera has continued to flog the issue, castigating Wilson via press release for telling KUOW that the city needs to be methodical in its approach to gun violence rather than rushing forward with a single “premature, very large investment in an out-of-state organization.”

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Failing to contract with NNSC, specifically, Rivera said, would send a message to “the people of Seattle” that the city doesn’t want to “stop future tragedies.”

Rivera’s resolution passed out of committee 3-0, with Eddie Lin abstaining.