By Erica C. Barnett
The Seattle City Council voted 7-2 to kill legislation sponsored by Councilmember Tammy Morales aimed at helping community organizations with “limited development experience” build small-scale affordable housing developments and “equitable development” projects, such as health clinics, day care, and retail space.
Morales had been working on the program, called the “Connected Communities Pilot,” since 2022. The five-year pilot would have helped as many as 35 community organizations build larger, taller buildings, as long as they preserved a third of their rental units for people making 60 percent or less of the Seattle’s area median income (AMI), or built homeownership units for people making 100 percent of Seattle AMI or less.
It would have also allowed community groups to build apartments in areas of the city that have historically been reserved for single-family houses, and exempted certain projects in historically redlined areas from design review and parking minimums, two requirements that can add significant time and cost to projects.
The council’s land use committee, which Morales chairs, voted against her bill last week, citing vague concerns that the bill had been rushed and that there were more appropriate avenues for building affordable housing.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Morales’ new colleagues repeated those claims, suggesting that the city should instead provide affordable housing through the comprehensive plan, the housing levy, or some unspecified future legislative route.
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“After the comp plan process is finalized, we can determine if additional legislation is needed to achieve our housing goals,” Councilmember Maritza Rivera said on Tuesday. “In addition, the city just passed a nearly $1 billion [housing levy] and we do not yet know how these funds will be implemented. … Finally, given our housing shortage and the slowing down of recent development, we need to consider how to incentivize all development, rather than singling out some investments over others.”
In fact, as Morales pointed out, the city does know how the Housing Levy funds will be spent. And the comprehensive plan update is a set of policy guidelines, not legislation—the city can still pass housing legislation and incentives before finalizing the update, which might not happen until next year. “This is just another tool to help us meet our housing shortage, which we all acknowledge we have,” she said. Continue reading “Council Kills Morales’ Affordable Housing Bill, Arguing for More Process and Delay”