Category: Development

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.

 

City Council, Development, education, Mayor Wilson, Poverty, Taxes

Land Use Appeal Reform Moves Forward, Council Splits on Funding for School Meals

1. A city council committee voted to move legislation forward on Wednesday that will—if it passes full council next week—shut down one avenue of appeal commonly used to slow down zoning changes that allow more housing in Seattle. The bill, sponsored by land use chair Eddie Lin, would eliminate appeals to the city’s hearing examiner over zoning legislation and changes to the city’s comprehensive plan, which is currently delayed by environmental appeals that began at the hearing examiner’s office.

Hearing-examiner appeals can delay legislation by months or years even if they are unsuccessful, as the vast majority are; the council spends most of the fall focusing on the city budget, so a delay of a few months can mean legislation won’t be heard until the following year.

Lin’s bill wouldn’t eliminate the right to appeal specific projects, and it would still leave two (arguably more relevant) avenues for appeal: Once legislation is finalized and adopted, people can appeal to the state Growth Management Hearings Board or sue in King County Superior Court. Those two avenues don’t stop legislation in its tracks the way “pre-legislative” appeals to the hearing examiner do.

Dan Strauss and Joy Hollingsworth abstained from voting, saying they still had questions about the proposal, leaving Lin, Dionne Foster, and Alexis Mercedes Rinck to vote it through.

Before the vote, opponents raised familiar objections, along with a novel one. The familiar: By eliminating land use appeals to the hearing examiner, the council was “muzzling the voices of the citizens who elected you to serve us” and ignoring the plight of salmon, orcas and birds. The novel: If the council passes the legislation, no one will have the right to appeal the siting of any data center in Seattle in the future.

Councilmember Dionne Foster addressed both objections. “From my perspective, cities are an incredibly important element to how we combat climate change—growing in a way that is responsible, growing in a way where we take into account that so much of our pollution comes from transportation-related emissions,” Foster said. “If we fail to do our job and build substantial and affordable housing… you also have environmental impacts.”

Foster also confirmed with a staffer that because data centers are “projects,” people will still have a right to appeal any data center proposal to the hearing examiner, if and when the council lifts the current moratorium on data centers. “I I think that’s an incredibly important distinction to make,” she said.

2. Foster and Lin are on different sides of another issue—a proposal, co-sponsored by Foster and Council President Joy Hollingsworth, to delay funding for universal school meals from the spending plan for the Families, Education Preschool, and Promise levy and replace it with vouchers for qualifying low-income families to buy food on weekends and holidays during the school year.

Mayor Katie Wilson’s spending proposal would pay for free breakfast and lunch for every Seattle school student for the first two years of the levy, with the assumption that voters will uphold the statewide “millionaires tax” (a proposed tax on annual income above a million dollars) in a referendum challenge this November. If this happens, and there are no additional legal hiccups, the statewide tax would start paying for universal school meals in 2029.

Foster and Hollingsworth’s proposal would address uncertainty around the millionaires tax by taking universal free school meals off the table for the first year of the levy; if the high-earners’ income tax holds, it can pay for universal school lunches starting in 2029, and if it doesn’t, the city won’t be on the hook. Meanwhile, Foster said the alternative plan will provide groceries to low-income kids who need food the most.

“I genuinely think it’s a balanced amendment,” Foster told PubliCola earlier this week, noting that dozens of Seattle schools already have universal free lunches through the state Community Eligibility Provision, because more than 40 percent of their students qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches.

Opponents of the amendment have argued that means-testing programs for basic needs like food stigmatizes lower-income kids and may leave some students hungry, including those whose parents don’t sign up for income-based programs or who struggle to pay for food but aren’t poor enough to qualify.

Foster said she’s aware of those critiques. “The intent is not, ‘Here’s a hoop that we want you to jump through.’ The intent is to get more resources to the kids who are low-income or who have those financial gaps,” she said.

Lin said he doesn’t doubt Foster and Hollingsworth’s commitment to food access, but says he’s leaning strongly toward supporting universal school meals over income-based vouchers. “I know they have very valid concerns, and there’s concerns about what’s going to happen with the millionaires tax, but at this point I have a hard time imagining not supporting” Wilson’s proposal, Lin said. “I think there’s widespread support for universal free lunch, not just here but across the state.”

City Council, Development, housing

Developers Ask for Mandatory Affordable Housing Fee Holiday as Permits for New Apartments Dry Up

By Erica C. Barnett

A group of apartment builders is asking Mayor Katie Wilson and the City Council to consider rolling back the fees they pay every time they build new housing. The developers, calling themselves the Seattle Housing Roundtable, are asking the city to reduce Mandatory Housing Affordability fees by 90 percent this year, followed by an 80 percent reduction next year and a 75 percent reduction in 2028, with a goal of permanent MHA reforms by the following year.

According to Ian Morrison, an attorney with the land use firm McCullough Hill, MHA “was a good idea when it was originally envisioned, at a time when interest rates were much lower and the economic climate was a lot more positive and predictable.” But, he added, “What we’re seeing now, using the city’s own data, is MHA as a part of a project that was viable in the late 2010s no longer work.   That means housing will not be built in Seattle today.”

The Seattle City Council approved MHA in 2019 as the final component of former mayor Ed Murray’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA). The program made developers build affordable housing or pay a fee every time they built new apartments in Seattle’s multifamily areas (at the time, Seattle still had single-family zoning). In exchange, they were allowed to build more densely.  The framework took for granted that new market-rate apartments have a negative impact on neighborhoods that developers must mitigate by funding affordable housing.

This consensus has shifted just in the seven years MHA has been in effect, as scarcity has made apartments increasingly unaffordable and more people understand that density is an environmental necessity and an answer to growing demand for housing. At the same time, the funding MHA produces for affordable housing has plunged from a high of $74 million in 2021 to just $22 million last year as development has slowed. Last year, developers filed applications to build fewer than 2,000 new apartment buildings, a drop of almost 90 percent from a peak of 17,400 units in 2020.

Developers and land use attorneys we spoke to seemed reluctant to say outright that the city should get rid of MHA altogether, although it negatively impacts their bottom line. Holly Golden, a land use attorney at HCMP Law Offices, said that with lower fees, “you’d still see millions of dollars of MHA fees, plus new construction jobs and permit fees to keep [the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections running during the building downturn. … Getting projects started provides a huge financial benefit to the city budget at a time when they really need it.”

Taxes on construction are inherently volatile, and there’s a real question about whether MHA aligns with the reality of Seattle as a majority-renter city with an acute housing shortage. If the city agrees to an MHA “holiday” and development rebounds, a surge in other funding sources like the Real Estate Excise Tax could help offset the loss of MHA dollars.

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Not every jurisdiction funds affordable housing by charging a fee on development. PubliCola has reported on a concept called funded inclusionary zoning, in which developers get tax breaks for including affordable housing in their projects. The concept flips the script on development, treating density (i.e. apartments, i.e. renters) as a good thing while also ensuring that affordable housing gets built. Developers aren’t charitable organizations—if a project doesn’t make sense to them, they won’t build it—so instead of penalizing new housing with fees, cities like Portland are trying incentives to build new housing at all income levels.

“There are ways to ensure that inclusionary zoning programs work for the long term and are well calibrated to ensure they don’t impede housing,” Morrison said. “But getting those details right takes time.”

Eddie Lin, the head of the city council’s land use committee, told us on a recent episode of Seattle Nice that he’s “open to a temporary reduction in MHA fees. It needs to be tailored to the right size to get construction going, but not more than we need.”

Eliminating MHA completely, Lin continued, is a nonstarter; the fee, he said, remains “incredibly important for developing additional affordable housing. … We want to be mindful of not giving away too much more than we need to.” MHA reform, he said, might include addressing the fact that developers currently have to pay a fee for building in low-rise zones but not in neighborhood residential—the former single-family zones that now allow essentially the same density as low-rise areas.

Ray Connell, managing director at the developer Holland Partner Group, said it’s possible the impact of MHA and other taxes and regulations in real time by looking east across Lake Washington. “All the cranes are in Redmond,” where fees are lower, “so projects get started,” Connell said. “It’s amazing to go over there and see a bunch of new projects and cranes in the sky. Why is it happening over there? It’s not a hard cost issue, and it’s not an interest rate issue. Yes, it’s the jobs… but it’s also the additional fees that we have to face on this side of the lake.”

Redmond recently adopted an aggressive inclusionary zoning package that says 10 percent of all new units in housing with 10 or more units must be affordable. In four years, Connell said, “there won’t be cranes in certain areas of Redmond. … We can’t get those areas of Redmond to work anymore.”

Development, podcasts, Police, Transit

Downtown Seattle Association Leader Discusses Density, Return-to-Office Mandates, and Surveillance

By Erica C. Barnett

Jon Scholes, head of the Downtown Seattle Association, had a lot to say about the present and future of downtown when he came on Seattle Nice late last week—most of it surprisingly positive.

Yes, the DSA is still focused on filling up vacant office space with people who may prefer working from home, a goal that seems at odds with the group’s stated commitment to reducing climate change. (The most recent Commute Seattle survey found that drive-alone commutes into downtown grew at twice the rate of trips by transit.) According to the State of Downtown economic report, 32 percent of the office vacancies in the central business district remains vacant six years after the start of the pandemic, suggesting a long-term trend.

And yes, Scholes had plenty to say about how taxes are supposedly driving companies out of Seattle and into Bellevue, where employment has grown 12 percent.

But there were parts of our conversation that may surprise some listeners—starting with Scholes’ apparent optimism that at least some existing office buildings could still be converted into housing . “I think there’s great public good to be gained from more of us living more closely together,” Scholes said.”And if we care about climate change and protecting the environment and driving down carbon emission, we need to live more closely together, and we need to live close to transit, and we need to live where we’re maximizing the investment we’ve already made in utilities and sidewalks and parks.”

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Scholes isn’t wide-eyed about the potential for new housing downtown, however. In fact, I was amused to hear the skepticism in Scholes’ voice when we talked about former county executive Dow Constantine’s big plan to create a whole new office and residential district centered around Sound Transit’s future light rail station two blocks west of the King County Courthouse. (Current County Executive Girmay Zahilay briefly mentioned the plan in his remarks at the DSA’s State of Downtown event last week).

“The reality,” Scholes said, is that despite decades of robust development downtown, “we somehow still have a hole in the ground” across the street from City Hall and the county courthouse. “But I commend the executive for continuing to advance it and to figure out what is possible, what can be phased, what might be more incremental. It’s the right thing to do.”

We were wrapping things up when Scholes told us we were being too polite, and asked if we were going to talk about the city’s police surveillance cameras—an issue Mayor Katie Wilson has hedged on after expressing strong opposition during her campaign. Unless Wilson reverses course, the city will install many more cameras in the downtown stadium district for the World Cup games in June.

City Council, Development, housing

Seattle Council Approves Eight-Unit Apartment Buildings Everywhere

By Erica C. Barnett

Maybe calling them “stacked flats,” rather than “apartments,” was a stroke of genius.

On Tuesday, the City Council adopted legislation that will allow eight-unit apartment buildings on every residential lot in the city—or up to ten units if the developer preserves trees or adds “green“ landscaping features, like bioswales and green roofs, to new housing construction. These apartments are known as “stacked flats” because they’re on top of each other, unlike multi-level townhouses that are generally offered for sale, not for rent, at prices far out of reach to most Seattle residents.

The legislation, part of the comprehensive plan package the city council adopted this week, doesn’t spell out eight units, but if you do the math, that’s what it works out to on a 5,000-square-foot lot with a standard 60 percent lot coverage.

Developers who go for the green bonuses will also get to build up to four stories, rather than the standard three. (Logically, four stories makes more sense for eight-unit buildings, allowing two per floor, but maybe some enterprising new councilmember will suggest revisiting that limit). That’s more density than the state required cities to allow under 2023’s HB 1110, which allows four units on all residential lots statewide, or six if two of the units are affordable. The council adopted interim rules to comply with HB 1110 earlier this year.

The changes were part of the council’s final vote of 2025 on the city’s comprehensive plan, the long-debated, much-delayed document that governs how and where Seattle can grow. The council’s comprehensive plan committee already adopted most of the changes that were finalized this week back in September, but had to put off a final vote while the city’s planning department completed environmental review on some new amendments and gave the public an opportunity to comment on the changes

Mayor Bruce Harrell’s comprehensive plan proposal came in a year behind schedule, a delay that has pushed some comprehensive plan legislation to next year, including legislation to enact new zoning in low-rise areas, establish new boundaries for dense “regional centers” and urban centers, and potentially add more “neighborhood centers” near transit stops where taller apartment buildings will be allowed.

Density opponents on the council will have another opportunity to argue that Seattle isn’t ready for more housing, and that the city hasn’t done sufficient outreach to “neighborhoods,” meaning single-family homeowners, before allowing renters to live in new parts of the city. But, thanks mostly to Harrell’s delays, they’ll be joined by two new council members who are fans of density, Eddie Lin and Dionne Foster, and a mayor who’s an unabashed urbanist.

Development, Elections, King County, LGBTQ+, Mayor Harrell, Police

This Week on PubliCola: August 23, 2025
A site map from the permit for the “Revive In ‘25″ event at Gas Works Park on August 30.

Big bonuses for top cops, election fallout, anti-LGBTQ group relocates provocative event, and more.

Monday, August 18

Harrell Fared Worst In Southeast Seattle District He Once Represented on City Council

A geographic breakdown of primary election results shows that Mayor Bruce Harrell lost badly in the primary on his own home turf—Southeast Seattle’s 37th District, where he won just 36 percent of the vote to challenger Katie Wilson’s 56 percent. Harrell also failed to win a majority in any Seattle district.

City Plans Major Overhaul of Affordable Housing Tax-Break Program

The city is getting ready to overhaul a program that provides tax breaks to developers who agree to keep 25 percent of their apartments affordable for 12 years, known as the Multifamily Tax Exemption program (MFTE). It’s the city’s main program for providing housing affordable to moderate-income people, but in recent years, developers have become less likely to participate in the voluntary program.

Tuesday, August 19

SPD Chiefs Received $50,000 Bonuses Meant to Address Police Hiring Shortage

Two of the top-level staff hired by new Police Chief Shon Barnes, Deputy Chief Andre Sayles and Assistant Chief Nicole Powell, received lateral hiring bonuses that were created to hire more trained police officers, not as incentives for command staff. SPD told us the two top executives were “eligible” for the bonuses.

Christian Nationalist Rally, Planned for Cal Anderson Park, Will Move to Gas Works Park

The anti-LGBTQ organizers of the August 30 “Revive in ’25” event planned for Cal Anderson Park, in the heart of Seattle’s historic LGBTQ neighborhood, agreed to move the event to Gas Works Park after negotiations with city officials, including the mayor and City Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth. The voluntary relocation came after the city determined that they didn’t have legal authority to deny the permit or force the group to move.

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Wednesday, August 20

New Police Chief Shon Barnes Accepted $50,000 Hiring Bonus Created for Rank and File Officers

After reporting on the hiring bonuses SPD provided to a new deputy chief and assistant chief, PubliCola confirmed that Police Chief Shon Barnes also received the $50,000 bonus created to increase the number of deployable police officers. SPD said Barnes’ bonus was allowed under the legislation that created and the bonus.

Friday, August 22

County Executive Candidate Balducci Proposes Dedicated Funding for Retail Theft Prosecutions

Claudia Balducci, a King County Council member who’s running for county executive, announced plans to introduce a measure that would dedicate a portion of a recently approved countywide 0.1-cent sales tax increase to create a permanent retail crimes task force. Balducci, who came in second in the primary behind her council colleague Girmay Zahilay, said prosecuting retail theft would help prevent store closures like that of a Fred Meyer in Kent.

Chamber CEO Leaves, Mayor’s Office Contradicts SPD Explanation for Police Chief’s Bonus, Progressives Prevail in Burien, and More

Friday’s Afternoon Fizz included stories about the departure of Seattle Chamber of Commerce CEO Rachel Smith; conflicting explanations for Chief Barnes’ $50,000 bonus; progressive victories in Burien, a city that recently passed a complete ban on sleeping in public aimed at barring homeless people from the city; and details from the permit for the relocated “Revive in ‘25” event at Gas Works Park.