Tag: Dionne Foster

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 non-vested projcets in 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.

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

“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  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 $47 million last year. (Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story erroneously said MHA brought in $22 million last year; we regret the error.)

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, podcasts

New Councilmember Dionne Foster Tells Seattle Nice: Police Cameras “Should Be Turned Off and Come Down.”

By Erica C. Barnett

Our guest for this week’s episode of Seattle Nice (don’t worry, we’ll get back to our traditional bickering format soon) is new Seattle City Councilmember Dionne Foster, who beat Position 9 incumbent Sara Nelson in a blowout last year. Foster, like fellow newcomers Eddie Lin and Alexis Mercedes Rinck (who’s been there a year), is a progressive, with a resumé and policy priorities to match.

Since Foster heads up the council’s Housing, Arts, and Civil Rights committee, we started out by talking about homelessness: How’s new Mayor Katie Wilson doing so far, and does Foster want to see fewer encampment removals?

Wilson is expected to release plans for a “shelter surge” in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, the city has continued moving unsheltered people from place to place, though now—according to Wilson’s office—in a way that attempts to “minimiz[e] harm.”

We also talked about laws passed by the previous council that increase penalties for using or possessing drugs in public, which include “stay out” orders banishing people from certain “drug areas” before they’re found guilty of any crime. Foster affirmed that she doesn’t plan to propose repealing the law, but did say she expects police to limit arrests to situations where someone poses a threat of harm to themself or others—a concept that’s codified in the law, but that remains troublingly vague.

We turned next to the Seattle Police Department’s use of 24/7 surveillance cameras, which Foster unequivocally said “should be turned off and come down.” Wilson’s office hasn’t made an announcement about the cameras yet, but Foster noted that the ones installed most recently have not been turned on yet. In addition to concerns about police surveillance generally, opponents have pointed out that the federal government can easily demand access to camera footage, putting immigrants and other vulnerable people at risk.

SPD claims the cameras deter and help them solve crimes, but has not presented specific, compelling evidence that camera surveillance helped them solved a crime that could not have been solved using other methods, including private surveillance cameras and traditional police work.

Nor, Foster noted, do they seem to address violent crime, one of SPD’s most frequent justifications for putting them around the city. “When we’re thinking about the technology matching the challenge, that’s where I see sort of a misalignment,” she said. “I do want to make sure that we’re … making sure our tools match the issues that we are trying to solve.”

We also squeezed in time to talk about the upcoming library levy, the new neighborhood centers, and former mayor Harrell’s “deeply unsustainable” budget, which sets up Wilson and the council for budget cuts—and potentially new revenue options, like a local capital gains tax.