• Katie Wilson’s State of the City speech. (Read our story)
• An update on which bills are moving and which are dying at the Washington State Legislation.
• The Seattle Social Housing Developer’s big moves, including huge proceeds in its first year with a dedicated revenue source. (Read our story)

A recap of the Olympia coverage we referenced:

• Age verification for Big Tech.
• Washington’s Elevator Reform Bill Rises Again
• Curbing Mandates for Ground-Floor Retail Spaces Advances at Legislature
• Washington Legislature Grapples with Slew of Bills Regulating AI
• Washington State Reacts to Feared ICE Invasion, Constitutional Crisis
• State Lawmakers Move to Regulate License Plate Readers, Fearing ICE Misuse
• ICE’s Tacoma Detention Center Targeted in New Lawsuit Alleging Abuses
• 2026: The Year the Washington Legislature Catches Its Breath on Housing

And in a bonus closing segment, the three of us offer our Pike Place Market food recommendations.

This episode of The Urbanist Podcast was edited by yours truly. Episodes also air on KVRU 105.7 FM radio Thursdays at 4pm, on a once every two weeks cadence, give or take. Thank you to Crystal Fincher and Shannon Cheng of KVRU for their assistance getting our podcast off the ground. Please follow and rate us on your preferred podcast app to help us spread the word!

Transcript

[00:00:05] Ryan: Welcome to the Urbanist Podcast, a show touching on the biggest headlines at The Urbanist, and also offering a deeper look from the reporters breaking the stories as an independent reader supported publication. The Urbanist has been covering the Seattle metropolitan region since 2014. We do advocacy journalism for better cities.

You can find us at theurbanist.org. I am Ryan Packer, contributing editor here at The Urbanist, and we’ve got the rest of our newsroom here on deck. Publisher Doug Trumm.

[00:00:35] Doug: Hey Ryan. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:36] Ryan: Thanks for being here, Doug. And we’ve got our esteemed reporter, Amy Sundburg.

[00:00:41] Amy: Hi Ryan. Good to be here.

[00:00:43] Ryan: Great to have you. Well, there’s a lot happening this week. So, we’re gonna go ahead and dive right into it. Top story. Katie Wilson, Seattle Mayor gave her first State of the City address. Doug, you were there in the room at the beautiful Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center. Amy and I were both watching from our laptops, but we all watched the speech, and so we’re gonna give you our recaps and takeaways. But we’ll start with you, Doug. What was your takeaway from this speech, which Katie noted was the longest she’s ever given in her entire life.

[00:01:16] Doug: Yeah, I think if there was any doubt that she was just not gonna be able to handle the speech making side of this, I thought the speech did a good job of dispelling that. She is a good speechmaker when pressed into it, and she definitely joked that it wasn’t her main skill.

But, yeah, rolling out her affordability agenda, in a more descriptive way than in the past. She talked about the four pillars of it and hinted at programs for each, which we’ll get into a bit. But, there wasn’t like a big ‘here’s this program we’re launching now,’ but there was a lot of mention of ‘here’s these efforts that will bear fruit later in the year or next year.’

And some of these programs are just large, so you can’t just snap your fingers in seven weeks. But some folks might have wished for some big marquee thing that is immediately happening, but it’s a lot of things that are in progress.

[00:02:06] Ryan: Amy, what was your takeaway?

[00:02:08] Amy: At the time that I was listening to the speech, I thought that it wasn’t so very different than the speech I would’ve been listening to from Bruce Harrell, should he have won. And I will say upon further reflection, because now it’s been about 24 hours, I think that’s not entirely fair.

But it might also speak to the nature of these speeches because they’re so high level that they don’t really get a lot into the details of things, which tends to be what I’m interested in. And so it can be hard to distinguish one politician from another politician all, all top level stuff.

[00:02:45] Ryan: Yeah, I agree with that. And I think Mayor Wilson’s been taking some criticism for this speech in terms of Erica Barnett, at PubliCola, said she was whiffing on surveillance cameras in particular, as well as encampment sweeps. And so, I think my takeaway was kind of, I don’t understand quite why she chose to give this speech, since her inauguration was so soon ago.

I think the fact that it’s been such a short period is why there’s not a whole lot of things to announce. And so I don’t really quite get the reason, you know, I understand that everyone does a state of the city address every year, but like usually you can kind of take your first year off, you give a big inauguration speech or maybe give a big speech in the middle of the year when you have more things to announce.

There were some marquee Wilson agenda things that Denny Way bustling is a prime example of that; although, there’s not much to announce yet. SDOT’s still scoping that out. And then she kinda lumped improvements to the Route 60 that Metro was leading on in there. And I noticed that it was just something that was already in the works. And so, that’s not a criticism of her administration because as we said, it’s been seven weeks. But I think that speaks to where things are at.

[00:04:00] Doug: I’m very hesitant to criticize a progressive mayor for being too out front in the media. Yeah. It’s a little bit like double dipping from the inaugural speech. Sure. But I definitely think it is a necessary thing to get some momentum, to get a narrative building when you’re dealing with so much conservative counter efforts that started immediately, even really before she took office, you know, trying to make it seem like she, the crime was already getting worse on the data’s pointing the other direction. So, it was worth trying to build her narrative and we’re policy nerds. So, it’s sort of like, we’re hammers and we’re looking for a nail.

And this speech wasn’t about those nails. It was more about the vibes thing that Harrell was so good at. And that’s not the most important part about being mayor. The most important part is actually delivering results. But I think it’s sort of a necessary step to start building that groundswell behind those ideas.

And I do think that countering Trump, strengthening the community to face that threat that cities like Minneapolis have faced, and that the president seems likely to turn his eye of Sauron towards Seattle at some point. So I think some of those steps were important to lay, even if, as far as like, well, what tangibly are we doing tomorrow is still kind of a question mark.

[00:05:16] Ryan: Yeah, I think that’s a good point, Doug. There were some great moments in the speech. I loved hope as a discipline. I think that would’ve gotten a lot of attention if it had been in a Zohran Mamdani speech or a  Zohran Mamdani video, a two minute video. I guess I do kind of think that the 30 to 40 minute State of the City address might not quite be the thing that meets the media environment that we’re in right now. Since you’re gonna end up with people kind of pulling out the parts that they don’t like or kind of were the most controversial.

[00:05:51] Amy: To be honest, I didn’t love the “hope as a discipline” part. I love that quote. It’s by famous prison abolitionist, Mariame Kaba. And it’s certainly a quote that I have referenced myself, and I think that many, many people reference. ’cause you know, it’s, it’s a very powerful quote, but to me it hit a bit of a jarring note to hear this really famous quote from a prison abolitionist who is, you know, still actively working, at the same time that Mayor Wilson was really hedging a lot on surveillance issues, for example, which I’m pretty confident no prison abolitionist is gonna be happy about.

So for me, it felt a little bit weird because I was hearing these quotes that are very leftist coded quotes, but some of what was said in the speech was not very leftist coded at all. And some of it was very directed towards the Seattle’s business community, which is fair enough. But, it just struck me as a little bit strange as a combination.

[00:06:52] Doug: Yeah. And the other thing It’s so hard for a mayor to walk that line between being thorough and considering all sides versus just letting it slide into procrastination and fear of making decisions or taking a bold step quickly. And that surveillance issue could be one of those things where she is just dragging her feet to the point of not really coming to a policy resolution or, or a shift in direction and letting the inertia carry her. And I don’t think that’s what she ran on, so hopefully that’s not the case.

[00:07:28] Amy: I think the surveillance issue is really interesting and maybe a little bit more complex than is sometimes being discussed. But I mean, it’s definitely true that that was a memorable part of her platform. I am hearing from folks who are feeling like by not acting on that now she’s breaking her promise from her campaign., There are complexities, as I mentioned, I think chief among them, we’re seeing an argument that we’ve seen many times before being brought out that the surveillance is needed for public safety and specifically due to the really tragic gun violence that happened in Rainier Beach and the CID recently.

It really reminds me of similar arguments that were made back when then Mayor Bruce Harrell was trying to adopt ShotSpotter, which is acoustic gunshot detection technology, which went through a few rounds of him trying to adopt it. And, the argument for that technology, which a lot of research shows has a a myriad of problems, right, was in fact to protect from gun violence. But what ends up happening is you have people pitted against each other from the same community. So, you know, throwing immigrants under the bus to try to help with gun violence. And I feel like it’s also a false dichotomy.

There’s plenty of things that Seattle could be doing to prevent gun violence or to reduce gun violence that we haven’t been doing a good job with. In general, I would say our gun violence prevention has been all over the map. It hasn’t been well coordinated. It’s a particular pain point for me in terms of watching what Seattle has been doing. I think we can do a lot more that has nothing to do with cameras.

[00:09:20] Ryan: Yeah. Doug, you mentioned that this was the rollout of the Wilson affordability agenda, a multi plank, multifaceted proposal, but it was a little, little bit more of a, I think, a sketch than a fully fleshed out outline. But can you talk a little bit about some of the elements that she mentioned?

[00:09:37] Doug: Definitely, yeah. It was centered around four pillars, which I think were pretty similar to what she was saying on the campaign, but, it was very clear that she had separated that into housing, which that’s pretty obvious. Childcare, food, which was a huge issue as far as where people were feeling the pinch in their pocketbook during the high inflation years of the pandemic. And then, business growth and small business support. It’s very expensive city to launch a business. That’s a number of factors. She had made those price of pizza videos during her campaign that got a lot of attention, sort of her first viral moment and those were just quick hit videos, but she’s, she’s obviously well steeped in all the complicated factors that drive up the cost of goods. That’s like the labor cost in our region, which that’s a good way to spend any money in one hand. But then there’s also just very high rents and all this regulatory burden too that sometimes Seattle heaps on businesses.

So those are things that policymakers can do something about, particularly on the regulatory burden side and to some extent on the rent side. So she’s definitely hoping to make it an easier place to grow a business. And, spoke very glowingly about how Seattle is a city of builders and innovators, and that sounded a little bit like Harrell too, but I think she struck a tone where it’s like, this is a community, and we’re not saying we’re not gonna tax you, but we’re gonna support you in your growth and then expect you to chip in as well, as you do find success.

[00:11:08] Ryan: Yeah, I was interested to hear that she didn’t add affordable transportation as a fifth plank there, which is such a realm that the city has such a direct impact on. So, that struck me as interesting, especially given the mayor’s background. I think behind housing, transportation is the single biggest cost driver for most households in Seattle. And so, that was a notable absence. Obviously she is doing work on that, so I can’t be too harsh considering that people are working on it, but yeah, just I noticed that. 

[00:11:41] Doug: It’s somewhat a matter of how quickly the goalposts move. Not to say that we shouldn’t expect big things from our politicians, but we have a mayor who is an urbanist now and a longtime transportation advocate. So, the fact that she was even willing to bring up bus lanes being a major priority she was working on, which was reiterating something she already rolled out, but, you know, got a moment in this speech, and Vision Zero being off course, got a moment in his speech. That seemed authentic and was, you know, well, there was a tragedy that happened just, the day before in Capitol Hill where someone was struck. And, something she reacted to immediately and it seemed like it hit her pretty hard.

And, there were moments over Harrell’s tenure where he did speak to those issues, but it never felt quite like it hit him the same way as Wilson, and he was never really willing to go as far. And often would play both sides on issues like Lake Washington Boulevard and others where it’s very risky environments for people walking, rolling, and biking.

So, I think it’s a subtle thing, but definitely something that this mayor is gonna work on a lot more than predecessors. And we’re just taking it for granted, which is good, but also I guess we have to give credit where credit is due. That those things have more hope than before.

[00:12:50] Amy: I think that that wasn’t in her original speech, that the part about Vision Zero and the fatalities that had happened the night before. I think that she added that in because she personally thinks that’s important and I do think that’s an important point.

[00:13:05] Ryan: Yeah. That was an incident on Monday night at Bellevue and Pine Street. 27-year-old woman was hit and killed by a driver. Ended up being pinned under the Prius and had to be extricated. Obviously hit the mayor as well as a lot of people who live in Capitol Hill, like myself, pretty hard. So, she directly addressed that. I think I saw some reaction on social media that they would like to see more than just a speech drop in and actually take steps to quickly change the orientation of our streets following incidents like this.

There’s lots of low-hanging fruit, but we yet haven’t yet seen what Katie Wilson’s SDOT really looks like. So, I once again would be kinda curious to see what actually happens when we are able to fully see what this mayor’s vision looks like and how it can be implemented.

[00:13:57] Doug: And she’s definitely invited advocates to, you know, twist her arm. Like that’s something she said from the get go. But obviously I don’t think anyone can realistically expect someone the day after a tragedy to be like, well, here’s my plan to get pouring the concrete and putting up the bollards, or whatever the case may be. I mean, that would be nice if we get to a point where SDOT can move that quickly, and the political leaders can quickly build consensus or at least the will to do that. But, we’re not quite there yet. But I think that’s something in previous administrations you would appoint a task force and you might hear from them a year later. And I don’t think it’s gonna be that long, for when things like this are happening in the Wilson administration. Hopefully.

[00:14:38] Ryan: Well, I would just point out that we can stand up a Super Bowl parade that can accommodate a million people from Sunday to Wednesday. So I think we can do it.

[00:14:50] Amy: I think we can do it too. And I would say from a public safety perspective, people are really concerned about traffic safety. It’s actually something that people really want things to be done about. It’s one of the top concerns in the city. I saw a poll. So, listening to the people, it should be a priority, not just because we made this promise in the past, but because people now really care about it.

[00:15:11] Ryan: Yeah, well, we’re probably, I think, being a little tough on the mayor. But, she’s putting herself out there with this speech. I think there was a lot to digest. Doug, you’ll have a story on this speech by the time this podcast is out, so you can read Doug’s full breakdown. But I think we’ll be watching all these topics in the months ahead.

[00:15:32] Amy: I do wanna talk a little bit about her promise on homelessness, because that is very concrete. You know, when she ran, she said that she would stand up 4,000 new emergency shelter spots. And now she said that she’s gonna do a thousand of those in her first year, that things are on track to do that. And I think it’s an interesting dichotomy to look at, because she’s still sweeping, right? And that’s something that a lot of her base I think is not thrilled. But kind of the gambit is, well, if we can stand up enough of this emergency housing fast enough, we’re gonna get all these people into housing and we won’t have to sweep anymore, so that she can kind of make both sides of that argument happy.

So I’m really interested to see what happens with that.

[00:16:23] Ryan: Yeah, and so she’s pointing to her work at the Ballard encampment on Leary, which she gave a reprieve. They were able to get five additional people into a more stable shelter. Obviously, that’s not everyone in the encampment, and so it’s a tough sell in terms of not really pleasing too much of anybody.

But it is a little bit more of an intentional approach than we’ve seen in this area. When it comes to these emergency shelters, we’ve been seeing very quick movement. Very quick movement in large part because one of these sites is in West Seattle. So the West Seattle Blog has been all over the permits for this tiny house village slash RV encampment that’s gonna be on Marginal Way.

And so, it’s February 18th and we’re already talking about what this looks like, what its name is, who’s gonna operate it. That’s lightning fast. That is lightning fast. And so if we’re talking about things like that all over the city, I don’t even, we don’t have the reporters in other neighborhoods, like I said, to be able to look at these permit records for elsewhere.

But I assume that they’re moving as fast as they can on these public sites that they have pretty direct control over. This is a state lot, but it’s actually pretty quick work.

[00:17:36] Amy: And it’s a longer term fix, right? It actually goes more to the root of the problem. So if she’s able to stand up 4,000 new shelter spaces in her term, that that is a significant step forward. Obviously I’m always wait and see what happens. But it’s promising in that way. As well, the city will have to potentially consider investing more in keeping people from falling into homelessness in the first place, especially with various federal cuts that might make that more likely. 

[00:18:08] Ryan: Yeah. I think she alluded to the fact that the budget is gonna be her biggest hurdle. She’s gonna have to find funding sources, you know, she has the proviso that’s keeping a straight jacket on the funding for the Unified Care Team, and she has the housing levy with its restrictions. But, she had a long hinted during the campaign that she would look at the housing levee as a source for some of emergency dollars. Got kind of lambasted for that from the affordable housing nonprofit world. But she’s gonna have to get creative.

[00:18:40] Doug: Yeah, and I wanted to return a little bit, to a point Amy made that the Stop The Sweeps camp being her base. And I think that’s somewhat true as far as like the grassroots mobilizing the people who were volunteers at farmer’s markets and things like that, that might be true of that subset, but as far as, the last two elections or three elections, however you wanna look at it, shows that the most of the electorate, and granted, those are odd-year people, if we had even years elections, maybe it would be more representative, but, I think most of the people are not at the place where it’s either extreme of like, ‘sweep every homeless person. We don’t care if they have reliable shelter or get services.’ Or ‘no sweeps whatsoever.’

It seems like people are bristling at either approach, at least the swing voters that decide every election, which is a tough reality when you want her to pick a camp and stay in it. This subtle thing she’s doing of, ‘well, I’m not Bruce Harrell on sweeps. I’m not gonna do it as often as him, but it’s still in my tool belt.’ It’s probably the right thing politically, at least, if those election results from 2023 still have some sort of bearing.

Obviously she showed that you can talk about doing less sweeps and still get elected. So, I’m really interested to see how that plays out. But it’s tough to say that doing no sweeps is viable in the immediate term, just on both the logistical side, and the damage it could do to her. But you know, maybe I’m wrong on that. Who knows? Punditry is hard.

[00:20:10] Ryan: While zooming out from the city level to the state, Amy, you and I have both been frantically covering the legislative session, which came to a midpoint this week with the biggest deadline to date, the House of Origin cutoff. The date that every bill that’s introduced, apart from the budget that needs to get a vote in its original chamber, or is dead for the rest of the year. So, it’s been dramatic. It’s been tiring. It’s been a lot of different things, but, things are moving. So what, what have you been tracking, Amy?

[00:20:46] Amy: I’ve been trying to track as much as I can. I will say that after my experience this year, I wonder even more about the idea of having a part-time state legislature. But be that as it may, a lot of bills died this week or, or last week. A lot of bills have been dying. And, a couple of bills that died that I was particularly sad to see, the AI bill that would have stopped surveillance pricing for consumer goods. So that’s especially for grocery stores, right, which it is a basic need. The people need to eat, they need to go to grocery stores and get their food. That bill died. And I feel like it’s a very needed bill. And so I was really sad to see that. And then the other bill that died that I was sad to see was one of the bills related to immigration and specifically private detention facilities, creating a fine if the private detention facility… and to be clear, we’re talking about the Northwest ICE Processing Center, the Tacoma Immigration site– they would be fined if they didn’t allow the Department of Health to come in unannounced for inspections. Which would’ve been a huge step forward in terms of potential accountability and transparency of what’s going on in that site. And that bill also unfortunately died. I think there was some question about jurisdiction that I’m not quite clear about. So, hopefully they can figure out a way forward that will work in future years.

But, it’s not gonna happen this year. It seems very urgent for it to happen this year, so that’s unfortunate. That being said, there still is one bill that is still alive about private detention facilities. And this bill requires them to report allegations of abuse, death, and suicide.

Law enforcement agencies in the jurisdiction would also have to report as to what kind of calls they’re getting from that detention center. And it also has a whole section on improving food quality and access. So, that bill is still moving forward, which is great. I will say that while I think sentiment of the bill is wonderful, like it’s hard to know how much the Tacoma Detention Center will follow it in practice. Right. It’s one thing to pass these bills, it’s another one to enforce them. So that’s an open question.

[00:23:03] Doug: Yeah, and you pointed out how much GEO, as the company that runs these detention centers across the country, how much their profits has spiked in the Big Beautiful Bill era. Yeah, I don’t know how beautiful that is. But, it went from, I forget, it was like somewhere 50 million-ish profit in 2024 I think it was. And then suddenly it spikes to like 10 times as much in the following year. And that’s, that’s all these contracts for ICE that’s lining their pockets. It’s a big business. It’s people profiteering off this. It’s kind of disgusting.

[00:23:37] Amy: They’re making a ton of money, and I’ll say there was another bill that also died that would require Washington State to not invest in those companies that are making money on, on private detention and the torture of immigrants. And like I said, it’s dead, so Washington State can still make money that way. But, again, hopefully that’s something that can be revisited.

[00:23:59] Ryan: Yeah. It’s also been hard to cover the legislature this year without talking about the millionaires tax, which is the signature tax reform proposal from the Democrats that the governor has a lot of thoughts about. We did see a vote this week in the Senate: 22 votes against 27 in favor of a I think it’s 9.9% tax on income over a million.

This is, you know, a big step for tax reform in Washington, finally, getting our tax code a little bit more progressive in terms of its impact on upper earners in the state. But it’s not clear that the governor is gonna get a proposal that he actually likes and will sign.

[00:24:44] Amy: Indeed.

[00:24:44] Ryan: What do you think about this, Amy?

[00:24:47] Amy: It was really funny to watch Governor Ferguson in the press conference because he was kind of weaving around that question. He wouldn’t directly answer the question as to whether he would veto this tax if it wasn’t sufficiently changed. But he somehow still made it pretty clear that that’s really on the table. So, he’s, he’s being tough on this one. And he laid out a laundry list of changes that he wants to see in the bill. Even though he didn’t say it directly, it felt to me watching the press conference that it was kind of like, you better include most of these things, or, we’ll see.

His point is that he’s very concerned about the affordability crisis for Washingtonians and he wants to see the bill spend a lot more of the proceeds from this millionaires tax to provide tax relief as opposed to now where most of the money would go straight into the general fund, so it could fund any expenses the state might have.

[00:25:53] Ryan: Yeah, it’s a little bit of a philosophical disagreement, I would say between Ferguson and, and the leaders in the House and Senate, which is that Ferguson thinks that this new tax really should just go right back into Washingtonian’s pockets and doesn’t seem very concerned about a lack of structural reform to allow the state to have a pathway to providing services over the long term. ‘Cause, our tax system is incredibly dependent on a very small number of funding sources that are pretty volatile. And so that’s why we end up in these situations where we have these huge budget deficits. And the governor doesn’t seem too concerned about having a strong state government, I would say. He’s more concerned about having a state sales tax holiday, which I think is very flashy, but not super high impact.

[00:26:50] Doug: Yeah, it’s kind of a pathetic debate, when he’s saying, ‘well, no one’s going to feel this little discount you’re giving them on like toothpaste and things like that,’ which is probably true. But then he is saying they will feel a slightly larger subset of sales tax relief. And I just don’t see there’s a big of distinction there that people are gonna go, ‘oh, I didn’t feel that quarter off my toothpaste tube, but I am gonna feel some slightly larger amount over a broader set. Like, I mean, I guess there is a breaking point, but it, it goes to speak that he doesn’t really have a more of a long term or deeper ideological bend about, okay, like we can actually believe in the government to spend this money well and do more for the good of the working people of the state than just simply a little bit of sales tax money back in their pocket.

And you know, that’s not inspiring. I’m much more inspired by the politicians who do believe we can do big things and implement programs and shift the trajectory of people’s lives. Investing in education is gonna help a lot more as far as down the road than some small sales tax gift.

[00:27:55] Amy: He really wants to expand the working family’s tax credit, like a significant amount, which I thought was interesting. And so I looked into it a little bit more, because I feel like in general people are pretty positive about that program. What I realized though, looking into it, I was like, well, you know, what would be better would be some kind of guaranteed basic income program. Which would do similar things but would do them better, which you could fund from the general fund if you wanted to. I feel like it’s defining affordability as only being about less sales tax. Sales tax is very regressive. But I do think it’s more complicated than that.

[00:28:36] Ryan: Yeah, once again, I just go back to the fact that the cuts that have to get made to our state government that go mostly unreported on a lot of the time are also heavily regressive. And so we just don’t talk about that. And, you know, cutting education. So directly after the Senate passed the millionaires tax, they turned to a different bill, which is the estate tax cut, which a lot of people were kind of blindsided by. There actually had been a hearing in Senate Ways and Means a couple weeks ago that no one testified at, on this bill that would, uh, essentially lower the top tier estate tax rates in Washington, reversing a increase that the legislature passed last year, I believe.

Were you surprised to see this moving forward? Amy?

[00:29:23] Amy: It wasn’t on my radar. So in that way I was surprised. I do think the state legislature has something of a history of, of rolling back things pretty quickly after they passed them. You know, I think the argument was that the highest tax rate on estate tax in Washington State is now much higher than other states. So, it might actually have bearing on how people do their estate planning or where they live out their retirement years. And I think Democrats got spooked and, and that’s what we’re seeing play out. I feel like what’s interesting to me about all this tax talk, right, like, the millionaire’s tax won’t even go into effect until 2029 if it survives all the legal challenges and everything.

And now if we’re cutting this other money from this estate tax, as you reference, what about the long-term health of the budget, but particularly in light of the federal cuts that we know are coming down the pike, right? Like at this point, I don’t think that’s a big question mark. Maybe the amount could change, but it’s going to be significant.

[00:30:28] Doug: That’s the thing that was so jarring is that the official excuses that are out there for why they have to do that are not very well laid out. It seems like everyone’s dancing around the real thing is that they made some sort of deal. It seems to be an implication that, in order to get the millionaires tax, they wanted to get this largest estate tax in the country rolled back.

And if you were guaranteed to pass the millionaires tax, which it’s this huge hurdle to finally tax the highest incomes in our state when we have zero income tax. I mean, I think maybe some people would make that trade, but no one’s actually saying, well, that’s why we’re doing that.

Why are all these progressive people trying to, you know, hand a paycheck to some of the wealthiest families in the state? So, I think on as far as messaging to your base and even the swing voters who, who’ve generally supported an estate tax, like it’s almost political malpractice. But I, I know it’s hard to just be like, ‘well, we made a backroom deal.’

That’s a hard foot to put forward. And, to be clear, I don’t know that that in fact is going on, or if they really just legitimately were lobbied by a bunch of people who offer services or rely on business from folks who were threatening to leave the state, that that scared them enough.

I could live with it, but no one’s actually laid out that we’re doing this ’cause we, that’s how we get the millionaires tax passed. It could blow up in their face both from a, this trade if they back out the millionaires tax with governor vetoes it or something. They’ll look pretty foolish. And also blow up just from the, ‘okay, well we thought you were about redistributing wealth, not letting this extreme accumulation of wealth’ that is just absolutely taking off with the 1%, having so much of the wealth. Well, it’s not very consistent to take from one hand and give back with the other.

[00:32:04] Amy: It does have the appearance of some type of compromise. I mean, in another part of that compromise appears to be that the payroll expense tax statewide, that was proposed by Representative Shaun Scott seems not to be moving. Again, would tax large corporations. And what’s interesting about that tax is that it could potentially be implemented sooner and there was literally a in public spat between Representative Shaun Scott and Senator Jamie Peterson, who, who represent the same district, funnily enough, in a Stranger article in which Shaun Scott was like, ‘look, we can implement this tax faster than the millionaires tax, and it’s really important because we have all these federal cuts coming up.’

And then The Stranger checked in with Senator Peterson who was like, ‘that’s just not true. It can’t be implemented faster.’ So they went to the office that actually would implement these taxes and has the actual knowledge about it, and they said, ‘no, we can implement this faster. So, that was a little bit of a public brouhaha that I thought was interesting to watch.

[00:33:11] Doug: I’m curious, Amy, did they say if the governor was right about how long it would take to set up the Millionaire Tax? Because he was saying it was basically be a second term thing for him.

[00:33:21] Amy: I don’t think the article fact checked that in particular, although I think the governor has laid out a certain path for this tax and the path that he has laid out will take the time that it takes. I’m not certain if another path would’ve been possible if we had a different governor.

[00:33:36] Ryan: Yeah, I think this is definitely exposing some divides among the Democrats this session. It’s kind of been unavoidable to talk about the millionaires tax and all of its related issues so far. There’s another number of bills that I think a lot of urbanists would be interested in that we’ve been covering. On Monday, the house passed the Mosquito Fleet Act, which would empower local governments up and down Puget Sound, to create their own passenger ferry districts. Some of the new routes that could potentially get expanded under this authority could be Everett to Whidbey Island, Friday Harbor to Bellingham, and Olympia to Tacoma, maybe some other places from Olympia as well.

Port of Olympia is very interested in looking at this, and so that one’s getting a lot of excitement. Our reporting from over the weekend noted that the prime sponsor, Greg Nance from Bainbridge Island, was coming out hard against Senate Transportation Committee Chair Marko Liias for quietly killing the bill last year, and he’s coming out guns blazing this year, wants a big turnout in the Senate Transportation Committee, but it’s also rare to see a representative go so hard at one individual senator. So that was interesting.

We’ll see if we have a repeat performance of that bill in 2026. There was a pretty overwhelming vote on the house floor. Any other bills that you’re watching for Doug right now? Any bills you’ve been finding particularly uplifting.

[00:35:09] Doug: It feels like it’s a little bit of a session of cleaning up, and not doing anything as big as previous sessions. If they do pass a millionaires tax, I think that would be the thing the session is remembered for. But, you know, we’ve talked about some of the housing bills and some of those could have a marginal effect and some it could be significant. Some more minor impacts that could, could build up over time. I do wanna see the reform of vertical circulation, both in the single stair and elevator reform front. So I’m hopeful for those.

[00:35:41] Ryan: Well, that’s what I was putting down, the uplifting bills. Yeah, so the elevator bill’s very exciting. A lot of national attention for this one. I don’t think any other state has introduced such a bill. Got a little bit watered down between this year and last year, but I think it’s still pretty much intact allowing smaller elevators in buildings, up to six stories or 24 units, which is kind of that sweet spot for middle housing to be able to make single stair buildings have a smaller elevator, maybe even two for redundancy. And so, there’s a hearing this week. I think the only person to be commenting opposed is from the national elevator lobbying group. We’ll see how that one goes. Yeah, there were some housing bills that didn’t make it past cutoff.

I think mobile dwelling units was one that people were watching to see if they would move on. But there’s been a lot of local government opposition to that one. Like we mentioned. The governor’s big housing bill we’ve talked about on this podcast that would require cities to legalize housing in commercial zones, including getting rid of some of their ground floor commercial requirements. There’s been some opposition to that, particularly on Eastside where retail spaces in these quickly redeveloping cities are getting scarce. I think it’s an interesting bill that kind of puts urbanism against housing a little bit in terms of creating these vibrant mixed use districts.

Obviously we know we have empty retail space in some of our cities, but I think it’s a product of the churn and, and not necessarily a static state. And so, yeah, I think it’s gonna be interesting to see how that one balances out.

Overall, a session very focused on tax reform, not a lot on big policies.

[00:37:23] Amy: There is the big ALPR bill or automatic license plate reader bill, which is still moving along. It passed out of the Senate a few weeks ago, actually, and just had its first hearing. I think it was his first hearing in the House today, this morning. We’ll see what happens with that, because I feel like there’s a lot of debate as to how long the data retention time should be, and, and that doesn’t seem to be anywhere close to being settled.

Right now it’s 21 days. Originally the bill was 72 hours. New Hampshire has a three minute retention rate, but obviously law enforcement wants much longer. It’s really interesting to see how this technology has evolved over time because it used to be that it was just about looking up a hot list of license plates, right, stolen cars and stuff like that.

But now law enforcement wants the opportunity to retain this data so it can go back through it when it wants, if there’s anything relevant, which is definitely more of a surveillance state type of vibe to it. There’s questions about access that the vendor, not, not the agency, but the vendor would have with the data, which could be a data privacy issue, especially related to immigration right now, of course.

And then we have a, a little Seattle wrinkle in that council member Bob Kettle is very concerned about there being an exemption for these license plate reader systems that aren’t fixed. Some of them are like fixed to polls and stuff like that, and they always look at the same place all the time. And others of them are installed into cars.

In Seattle, they’re all installed in cars. So, there are elements of this bill that would make that really hard to implement technologically, because they’re not supposed to be recording, according to the bill. They wouldn’t be supposed to be recording certain sensitive locations like places of worship, for example. And it’s really hard to do that if you’re just, you know, driving around in your police cruiser, how are you gonna know when to stop recording whenever you’re passing a church or a mosque or whenever you’re passing a Planned Parenthood, that kind of thing. So, Councilmember Kettle is very concerned about this.

Obviously to make that large an exemption would really weaken the bill. So, it’s gonna be really interesting to watch the next couple weeks, where they land, if they’re able to land. And, I’ll be keeping an eye on it.

[00:39:47] Doug: Yeah, another set of legislation that I am interested in — we haven’t written about it much on our site, but I’ve heard some coverage from others — is election security bills because that to me feels like it’s gonna be the issue this November. And the primaries too. We have consistent polling showing the Trump party is very, uh, unpopular.

So the only recourse they have to retain control of the House and various state legislatures around the country, where they’re on the line, close enough to have to defend it is to, you know, monkey with the elections. And we’ve already seen that’s in the playbook. But, one bill that seeks to tackle that in our state is making it a lot harder to challenge ballots. And I think that’s a good idea. Like it would require an affidavit, a signed affidavit to challenge a ballot. So if you’re just doing that spuriously and lying, there could be recourse for you ’cause you’d be perjuring yourself. And you’d actually have to physically go sign rather than electronically sign.

Like do challenge ballots from a different state or something like that, or challenge a whole bunch of ballots in the city of Seattle, even if you lived, you know, three, four hours away. So I think that’s a nice security to put in place, especially considering the way we vote in our state. So, that people don’t abuse that system and try to swing close elections that way.

[00:41:04] Ryan: Yeah. We are less than a month away from the end of session. Pretty soon it’s gonna be budget, budget, budget. And that will be interesting to watch. And some big issues are gonna come back up, including how to use a bunch of Climate Commitment Act dollars that the governor wants to divert over to the working families tax credit that we talked about earlier. It’s a contentious proposal among environmentalists and people who wanna see climate action, so that’s gonna be interesting.

[00:41:41] Ryan: So let’s go ahead and wrap up, returning to the City of Seattle, talking about a big issue that a lot of people are tracking, which is social housing. So, this week we got some references to social housing in the Mayor’s speech, largely building on some announcements from last week. Doug, you’ve been tracking what’s happening in social housing at the city level. So what’s going on?

[00:42:05] Doug: A lot is happening. So many things. I think the biggest news recently is that they just pulled in way more money than they thought they would. And that’s really exciting news for everyone who fought for social housing. They went with the projections that the city budget office gave them, and they were conservative, I guess, because instead of pulling in somewhere in around $50 million like they predicted, they ended up getting $115 million in the first year, which goes to show how good of a year it was for folks with high incomes in Seattle, despite the spate of layoffs…

[00:42:37] Ryan: Doug, where does that money come from again?

[00:42:40] Doug: So, yeah, we should go back to the beginning for folks who haven’t followed along. But, the Seattle Social Housing Developer that was authorized in 2023 didn’t have a funding source initially. So they came back last year and passed one in February of 2025, and that tax was called an excess compensation tax. And, it’s similar to the state millionaires tax in one sense, but it’s not actually an income tax. But, it’s levied on the companies, for compensation that is above $1 million. That includes like benefits, stocks, and other retirement plan perks, stuff like that.

Once you hit that million mark, it’s I believe, 5% after that point. So, it’s only hitting people who are doing really well and maybe a stock windfall impacts that. I mean, it would’ve to be income, so it’d only be the stock you were provided that year.

But anyways, that they thought would be about 50 million, that’s how much they expected people to make over that million mark in Seattle that year. But it turned out it was over twice that. So, yeah, they have a lot more money to work with than they anticipated.

So that’s one thing that’s going on. And that led to them going to update the city council early February. They laid out their plans, and they intend to actually start buying property soon by the end of the year.

The other big news is there’s a big leadership transition. They removed their CEO kind of dramatically at the beginning of the year. His name was Roberto Jimenez and he had a lot of experience in the Sacramento Bay area. But, the various entities, including the board that runs the social housing developer, grew dissatisfied enough to remove him. That was a little bit of a shock. They did kind of hint in December that they were frustrated. One of the things they brought up was that allegedly, he doesn’t actually live in Seattle yet.

He’s still maintaining his primary residence back in the Sacramento area. So there was frustration with that. And then it could also go to some philosophical differences. There was allegations that he didn’t actually want to do the social housing model per se, but wanted to do more of the traditional, all affordable model, which is more tried and true.

And what the advocates behind the social housing measure wanted to do was actually prove out this new model. That’s the whole point. So that’s a pretty deep philosophical divide insofar that that was actually a line in the sand. And Jimenez has defended himself. He didn’t want to be removed, thought it was incorrect.

But obviously that’s been done. And they have an interim director now who is Tiffany McCoy, who you may recall was the person spearheading this measure from House Our Neighbors, the advocacy group that cooked up this idea and then ran the funding measure two years later. She’s taking over in an interim capacity. She says she doesn’t wanna become like the permanent head of this organization. For one, she doesn’t have development experience directly, but she says they’re gonna start a national search in six months. So it’s gonna be a temporary thing until they find a new director for this agency.

But in the meantime, they’re also gonna staff up. They’ve hired a development officer to be the point person on all the details with the property agreements and all of that. They hired someone from the Seattle Housing Authority to do that, with a lot of experience, and they also hired a comms person for the first time. So that definitely goes to show that they’re trying to ramp up.

[00:46:05] Amy: I have a question. It sounded like from what you were saying that the old CEO that was ousted didn’t believe in social housing as a model. He wanted to do more traditional, affordable housing. As you said, the whole point of this was to build social housing. So how does that happen that the social housing developer hires a CEO who doesn’t believe in social housing? Like that doesn’t make sense to me.

[00:46:33] Doug: I mean, we’re getting one side of the story. Jimenez did defend himself and, and I don’t know if he brought up that specific point, but I think maybe his intent, if we’re reading it more charitably, was you do something more conservative for the first few steps, in order to just get the ball rolling. So, I don’t know if that was what was behind it.

I think he didn’t want any weak spots in the armor to attack was they’re still getting outta the gates because that’s the danger that if they make some false moves that public opinion would turn against them. And, they might get their funding taken away from them somehow. It’s fairly protected because it’s passed by measure. But there’s probably vehicles, they could try to take it away. Maybe it was also just, we don’t have social housing very much in our country, so the pool of people who are well versed and demonstrated commitment to it, there’s not that many. So, maybe it was just a factor of they’re not getting the died-in-the-wool type that they expected. 

[00:47:37] Amy: It’s innovative in this country. So I guess that will bring its own problems.

[00:47:42] Ryan: I mean, it ultimately illustrates the tension between the very established affordable housing world and social housing, which is a different model. We saw this during the two campaigns for these initiatives. And I think it’s clear that there’s just a lot of entrenched thinking around how you do quote unquote affordable housing.

And so even if you get somebody who’s super experienced in affordable housing and says they’re on affordable social housing, in practice, it might be a little bit harder than they even think. And like I was just kind of tweaking the model a little bit when it’s really fundamentally different.

[00:48:19] Amy: So they’re getting a lot more money to spend than we thought. Ryan, do you have thoughts about that?

[00:48:25] Ryan: I mean, everyone’s watching for their first big moves, which is likely gonna be building acquisition. So they’re probably gonna purchase an existing building or two. I’m very interested to see how that works. What happens to the existing tenants in those buildings, how they are able to stand up the social housing model in a building that might not be in great condition.

I’m very curious. And so in some ways I do wonder whether the over a hundred percent increase in expected revenue for the agency is gonna be a little bit too fast for them to have to grow. And so I I wonder if that’s gonna end up being a little bit of a mixed blessing in terms of having to really make use of all these dollars when a more limited ramp up could have been effective for them. Obviously, we know we want to have people housed. We know we want to have people be able to utilize these units, but especially if you’re gonna be buying existing buildings, it’s gonna be very interesting to see.

Obviously, we would also love to see them start building, so there’s a, related to this is another bill in the legislature actually that would allow local governments to get more directly involved in social housing PDAs, which is what this developer is technically a public development authority. That’s House Bill 1687, sponsored by Rep Reed over in Queen Anne, our urbanist champion. So I’m gonna be interested to see how that dovetails with the idea of getting the city more involved, and able to actually start building units, creating new units.

[00:49:59] Amy: One thing that’s always surprised me, it still kind of surprises me, even though I’m now very aware of it, is how difficult it can be to spend money. I always thought that, you know, the hard part is getting the money. Right. And then once you have the money, problem solved. But what I’ve seen in practice over and over again for, you know, very different programs is just because you have the money, getting that money out the door is another whole huge project of its own.

[00:50:26] Doug: Yeah. And part of the slow rolling of this… well. It’s not really still rolling, but they need to get the money in the door. And the Harrell administration was kind of jerking them around as far as fronting them the money based on the proceeds. And they eventually did do that, but not as fast as the board would’ve wanted of the social housing developer.

But now they made these hires and it was Ginger Segel was the person they brought over to be their chief real estate officer. And they have someone named Cole Husman, who’s their chief financial officer, and then they hired Lily Fowler to be their comms person.

So, you know, now they have a team that can actually hopefully handle these transactions and then communicate them to the public. And yeah, it’s not gonna be easy. Certainly now they can ramp up faster than they thought. So it’s more of a matter of their plans weren’t laid out for the money coming this fast.

But I don’t think you’ll hear many nonprofits, or public housing authorities complain about having too much money, but it is helpful to have reliable projecting for that money.

[00:51:33] Ryan: Well, we’re almost outta time, but I do want to end on a nice palate cleanser here. The days are getting lighter and sunnier. This past weekend was amazing. I was out at Pike Place Market. The market was jam packed with people during the pedestrian pilot, which is still going on hopefully for several more months or years, hopefully. We just did a story on potential barriers at Pike Place Market. You can read on the site last year that are helping to harden the market during the World Cup. But I have a question for our panelists here.

What is your favorite place to grab a bite to eat at Pike Place Market? Amy, what do you think?

[00:52:10] Amy: So first of all, I have to confess that I don’t actually go to Pike Place Market that often. And that’s actually something I wanna change because I can take the water taxi over from West Seattle and it’s lovely. I love the water taxi, and then you just walk up, and it’s a really nice outing.

So hopefully this will be the year that I start doing that more often. But I will say that one of the places I’ve really enjoyed eating is Crepe de France. They serve crepes and I love crepes so much. So I’m always happy to be able to eat a crepe. So, that is where I tend to gravitate.

[00:52:44] Ryan: That’s a great option. El Borracho is a go-to for me with their vegan burritos and tacos. I do love Lands of Origin for a quick bite right on Pike Place. They’ve got some really good vegan and non-vegan options. Always tasty. Pike Place Chowder is always a go-to. I will say that I’m at the Market at least three or four times a week, so I’m always grabbing something to eat down there. Cinnamon Works huge ass cookies, always amazing. What about you, Doug?

[00:53:16] Doug: Yeah, of course you would have like five answers, Ryan. I like to grab it back to eat there too. I will put in a good word for the Patatas Bravas at the Lonely Siren. I love Mediterranean food, Portuguese food and the brava sauce is something that I would put on, I don’t know, everything. It’s so good. And they also do a good sandwich there, like a bifana sandwich is really good. And the other thing I would say is if you want to see them toss salmon, you should buy something from the people tossing the salmon. And my, my go-to there since I don’t always want to cook a whole salmon filet is the salmon candy. It’s really delicious. So that’s a great thing if you’re showing people around. Yeah, it turns out salmon makes great candy. What, what can’t it do?

[00:54:00] Amy: I had no idea. This is news to me. I’m gonna have to try it.

[00:54:04] Doug: I think they preserve it in sugar. So it kind of has that delectable, savory, sweet thing going on. So those are two that come to mind pretty quickly. Oh, and the other one: the French Onion soup at Maximilian is really good.

[00:54:17] Ryan: Okay, but is it better than the French onion soup at Le Pichet? That’s the question.

[00:54:23] Doug: Oh, that’s close. I wasn’t sure if I could say Le Pichet because it’s on the other side of the market, but I guess it is…

[00:54:28] Ryan: It’s inside the district. As a former Pike Place Market tour guide, I can attest that it is inside you. Technically inside Pike Place Market District, if you walk into the middle of First Avenue, but once you cross the middle of the street, you’re not in the district anymore.

I just wanted to lament the fact that we officially, officially lost Jar Bar. They had been closed for almost a year, but had been hoping to reopen and I walked by and saw the sign finally noting that they wished everybody the best, but were throwing in the towel, which is a sad loss for Pike Place.

[00:55:04] Doug: Yeah. And that’s the beauty of the market having choice too. ’cause we were talking about the multiple French restaurants, but there being multiple Portuguese restaurants in the market shows just the wealth of options you have, and I’m never gonna complain about more places with good apps and tin fish and things like that. So hopefully someone can bring that back in.

[00:55:23] Ryan: Or just really small bars. We need more tiny, tiny little bars. Well that’s all the time we have this week on the Urbanist Podcast. If you like our episodes, don’t forget to rate us on your favorite podcast app. But this newsroom has to get back to reporting on the stories all around the region. And so we’ll let you go, and be back with you in two weeks. Thanks for listening. Thanks for joining us. 

The post Urbanist Podcast: Social Housing and Wilson’s Four Pillars of Affordability first appeared on The Urbanist.

The state House passed House Bill 1687 on February 10, and the Senate housing committee advanced the bill with a do-pass recommendation on Friday. The bill grants social housing public development authorities (PDAs) like Seattle’s additional powers and avenues for collaborations with state and local governments under the Housing Cooperation Law.

Earlier this month, the Seattle City Council unanimously passed the interlocal agreement for the disbursement of the funds from the City to the Seattle Social Housing Developer (SSHD). That gives the developer the funds it needs to begin purchasing properties and fulfilling its mission of delivering affordable housing using a new mixed-income model.

House Our Neighbors, the advocacy nonprofit behind the ballot measures, hosted a summit on February 11 to celebrate their progress. Speaking at the event, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson stressed the importance of taxing the rich to invest in social infrastructure.

“This city is filthy rich. There’s a lot of wealth here. There’s a lot of money here,” Wilson said. “We continue to have one of the most regressive tax systems in the country, in the state, and it is very gratifying to know that we’re going to be able to use a little bit of that wealth and put it to work building housing.”

The excess compensation tax levies a 5% tax rate on companies for the portion of annual compensation that exceeds $1 million per employee. Clearly, Seattle had more high earners pulling in more than a million in compensation annually than the City’s budget office had projected. Officials have cautioned that the tax will fluctuate significantly year to year, with spikes in the stock market driving up revenue, and crashes doing the opposite.

The spate of news is a welcome sign of a momentum for a fledging agency that just went through a major leadership shakeup. In January, the SSHD board’s ousted former CEO Roberto Jimenez, citing frustration with his leadership style and alleged refusal to relocate to Seattle from California. As interim CEO, the board appointed Tiffani McCoy, who left her post at co-executive director of House Our Neighbors.

McCoy lacks development experience, but she has pledged to surround herself with people who do. She is trusted among social housing advocates after leading campaign victories.

As an organizer herself, Wilson noted that grassroot organizing spearheaded by House Our Neighbors led to this victory — not leadership from establishment politicians, who largely opposed the measure at the prodding of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. Although she didn’t name names, she alluded to her predecessor and campaign opponent, Bruce Harrell, who became the face of the opposition campaign to the tax measure.

“Seeing establishment politicians line up in opposition to raising progressive revenue for mixed-income, permanently affordable, publicly owned housing, while the public overwhelmingly supported it, showed this fundamental mismatch. People saw what was needed, but a lot of people were committed to business as usual,” Wilson said. “Voters saw through it, and so here we are today.”

Wilson reminded people that the social housing funding measure is what prodded her to run for office.

“This is why I decided to run for mayor,” Wilson added. “One year ago today, I had zero thought in my mind about running for mayor. One year ago tomorrow. I saw the results of Prop 1, and I decided to go for it.”

The shift at city hall was deeper than just Wilson replacing Harrell. Voters sent Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson packing, replacing her with another staunch social housing supporter in Dionne Foster. An avowed centrist, Nelson pushed the chamber-backed alternative measure that sought to sap support from the grassroots social housing measure and her centrists colleagues put it on the ballot. Progressive Eddie Lin also replaced centrist appointee Mark Solomon, giving social housing another friendly vote.

As a result, social housing received a much warmer reception at the council when SSHD leaders went to brief the housing committee in advance of the committee vote on the interlocal agreement. It was a public debut for new staff members, including McCoy and Ginger Segel, who SSHD hired to be its chief real estate development officer. Segel was Chief Development Services Officer for Community Frameworks and Housing Director at the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI) earlier in her career. Meanwhile, the hire for SSHD’s Director of Acquisitions, James Mayton, brings extensive development experience with the Seattle Housing Authority.

Social housing growth strategy

At the February 11 meeting, Segel provided the council’s Housing Committee (chaired by Foster) an update on the new agency’s plans. The initial strategy out of the gates appears likely to focus on purchasing existing apartment buildings, taking advantage of a favorable market.

“The market right now for recently constructed apartment buildings is quite good, so we can pick up some buildings at a good price point, and we think the market is going to cycle away from that in the next two or three years,” Segel said. “So we do hope to take advantage of that. You can buy pretty high quality apartment units for about $350,000 to $400,000 per unit right now, whereas to build them is like $650,000 a unit. So we want to take advantage of this kind of dip in the market…”

While SSHD’s strategy is trending toward purchasing recently-built apartment buildings initially, ultimately Segal said that new construction was likely to be key to meeting their goal of providing family-sized housing.

“There’s no getting around the fact that the private market is is building mostly small units,” Segel said. Only about 10% to 15% of the units are two bedrooms or larger in the buildings they’ve considered for purchase, she added.

“We will look for opportunities to combine small units and make them larger,” Segel said. “There might be some opportunity for that, but we are also trying to build a diverse portfolio for people in Seattle that need housing, and so that ranges from small households to big households. We think the majority of the way we’re going to serve family-sized households is through new construction. We’ll do some conversions, but we think mostly we have to fill that void that the private market is leaving of not building family-sized units.”

Segel also shared the income mix that SSHD is considering for its buildings. While SSHD’s charter says buildings should house people with incomes from zero to 120% of area median income or AMI, flexibility exists for how many units at each income band within that larger band. The staff is using a working assumption of 10/30/30/30 mix in their early financial models, as follows:

• 10% of units at 30% of AMI,
• 30% of units at 50% of AMI,
• 30% of units between 50% and 80% of AMI, and
• 30% of units between 80% and 120% of AMI.

Zoning matters

The SSHD also recently hired urbanist and Passive House architect Mike Eliason, who has contributed the articles at The Urbanist as a volunteer, as the agency’s Director of Design and Policy. Eliason briefed councilmembers on the SSHD’s thinking about healthier housing, and how the growth strategy in the Comprehensive Plan can be a hinderance on that front.

“With the Comp Plan focus on corridors, how do we site family-sized housing so that kids aren’t growing up directly on roads like Aurora or 15th Avenue NW, broad arterials, high levels of pollution. They’re loud, right?” Eliason said. “So we’re starting to think about how we can site these buildings so that they can be in quieter places, so that they are places that people will want to raise their kids and will want to stay in place.”

To scale up that approach may ultimately require zoning changes. Harrell’s plan limited corridor upzones to the immediate half-block along major transit corridors, and trimmed 50 neighborhood growth nodes proposed earlier to 30. Wilson has pledged to revisit the decision to add more housing density, pending further environmental study that the City legal team has urged.

At the same meeting, Kelli Larsen, Policy and Planning Director with the Seattle Office of Housing (OH) also presented and brought up that just a tiny fraction of land in Seattle has zoning friendly to affordable housing development.

“We’ve looked at a lot of the data and maps and zoning possible for the types of projects that we build, which are typically midrise, and we estimate that we can build midrise affordable housing in about 3% of the city,” Larsen said.

Easing zoning restrictions would create more opportunities for affordable housing projects, and drive down costs for nonprofit builders.

“Zoning really matters, and zoning matters for density and for housing of all types, ” Larsen said. “So, this is a huge part of the housing plan that the Office of Housing does not control, but our partners at OPCD and others in the city are contributing significantly to Comp Plan changes and reforms that are really necessary and significant for the housing market overall. In addition permitting reforms and speeding up the development process infrastructure, all of that contributes to delays that end up costing more and then actual hard costs that add to projects budgets and make them less feasible.”

Rising costs for constructing and operating building has been a growing problem, and increasingly OH has had to dedicate funds to stabilizing finances in existing buildings rather than new construction. Even with those challenges, OH reported 721 affordable rental homes opened in 2025, thanks in part to its funding, including 288 permanent supportive housing units geared toward serving people exiting homelessness.

Larsen sought to correct the notion that there is widespread overbuilding in the affordable housing sector, which stemmed from an August Seattle Times article that cited a point-in-time vacancy rate in the double digits. She said the vacancy rate in OH’s portfolio is around 6%.

“Across our entire portfolio, this is the truth of the vacancy: It is right around 6% right now in the OH portfolio. 7% mean, and our median is actually below 5% — I think it’s 4.7% last we looked,” Larsen said. “So this is much more in line with the citywide vacancy. You know, we’d like to see it closer to three, if we could get there. But it’s not really out of range or out of whack from the way that other units are operating in the city right now.”

Over the last decade, the Seattle metropolitan area has led the nation in affordable housing production, according to figures from RentCafe, although housing leaders acknowledge it’s still far from enough to meet the need.

Looking ahead

McCoy told The Urbanist that the SSHD’s goal is to have its first property acquisition done in the next six months. The interlocal agreement means the social housing PDA will have the money, and Wilson has pledged the support of her administration.

“In a moment when housing costs continue to rise and displacement pressure remains real, social housing is going to give us a tool that can match the scale of the problem,” Wilson said. “My administration is committed to working with the developer, not around it, providing technical support, helping to navigate systems that were not designed for social housing, and clearing barriers rather than adding new ones. Building something new inside existing systems is hard.”

Of course, many hurdles remain and getting the implementation right will be challenging. Wilson ended her speech on a hopeful note and argued Seattle could be a beacon of light guiding other cities struggling to roll out their own social housing regimes.

“We’re going to do everything we can to make the new social hospital developer successful in the years ahead,” Wilson said. “And we also know this work that we’re doing is part of a growing national movement for social housing. Other cities are watching us. They’re watching what we do here. Advocates across the country are learning from us. We have the chance to lead, and not just with ideas, but with implementation.”

Correction: The article originally misstated Ginger Segel’s work experience, saying she worked at the Seattle Housing Authority. James Mayton, Director of Acquisitions, is the hire with SHA experience. We regret the error.

The post Seattle Social Housing Staffs Up, Nets $115 Million first appeared on The Urbanist.

Jimenez had faced a wide range of criticisms since being hired in late 2024, leading a coalition of 19 nonprofits and advocacy groups to send a letter to the board on December 17. That letter questioned Jimenez’s leadership and urged course correction, but stopping short of directly calling for him to be fired. House Our Neighbors was among the groups to sign, along with the MLK County Labor Council and Puget Sound Sage.

“[T]he SSHD is set to begin receiving millions of dollars in payroll tax revenue entrusted to it by the voters of Seattle,” the letter stated. “To make the most of this generational opportunity to counter Seattle’s housing and homelessness crisis, the board must address ongoing concerns and seriously consider whether, after 16 months at the helm, the current CEO is the right leader for this historic moment.”

The letter questioned not just Jimenez’s demeanor and leadership style, but also his decision to not to move to Seattle after taking the job, despite reportedly receiving a sizable stipend to do so.

The Seattle Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) echoed this pointed and called Jimenez “incapable of achieving even ordinary tasks” in a sharply worded statement sent out ahead of the meeting. The Seattle DSA also questioned Jimenez’s commitment to the charter mission of establishing a social housing model, which focuses on mixed-income buildings with tenant leadership, as opposed to the traditional nonprofit model where low-income people are concentrated together and not given much, if any, power over building decisions.

The critical letters seemed to hit home. Most board members had concerns over Jimenez’s “governance, vision, leadership, ability to work across difference,” McCoy said. A few boardmembers, however, dissented and argued for Jimenez or against the process by which he was removed. Board secretary Katie LeBret resigned immediately following the vote, in protest.

“The majority said that it was time for new leadership, and the governance structure also decided that we’re not going to have any sort of gap in leadership, especially when we have all this money coming in,” McCoy told The Urbanist. “And we want to make sure that we’re up and running as quickly as possible.”

Seattle voters greenlit the Seattle Social Housing Developer in a 2023 vote and approved a dedicated funding source for the Seattle Social Housing Developer (SSHD) in February 2025. Despite opposition from former Mayor Bruce Harrell and from the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, that dedicated funding measure passed by a healthy 26-point margin. The result is an excess compensation tax on high earners that is projected to bring in more than $50 million annually.

Jimenez criticized his own ouster, calling the allegations “unsubstantiated” and telling the Seattle Times that the timing was “inopportune” since the organization had property acquisitions queued up and alleged they were on course to meet its targeted deadlines.

While Jimenez was hired away from Mutual Housing California where he managed a $500 million portfolio, McCoy has no housing development experience.

“She doesn’t have any real estate or finance experience and that, I would say, is high risk,” Jimenez told the Seattle Times.

Acknowledging that fact, McCoy said they would be hiring a chief development officer, to compliment the portfolio manager the Seattle Social Housing Developer (SSHD) already has on staff.

“[We’re] identifying and talking with an individual that would be joining me on staff really, really quickly in the C suite. We’re still working on the title, but they would be like the chief strategy and development officer, something like that,” McCoy said. “Because let’s be real, I don’t have finance/development [experience]. I’ve never built a building in my whole life.”

McCoy stressed the importance of maintaining the public trust and being good stewards of the public dime.

“So it’s making sure that while I’m taking on this interim role, we’re also bringing someone into a senior position that is able to look at and create our portfolio and make sure that we’re doing pre-development and acquisition and utilizing these dollars that the voters of Seattle voted on as quickly as we can, while setting up all of the other structures that are so necessary to get those dollars out the door and show public trust in our processes as a public agency.”

Despite the leadership upheaval, the SSHD is still intending to begin property acquisitions this year.

“I really want to have an acquisition done in the next six months, hopefully sooner, but I’m also not going to over promise,” McCoy told The Urbanist.

While some questioned the leadership change, McCoy has her backers in the building industry as well. Patience Malaba, executive director of the Housing Development Consortium, issued a statement backing the decision to hire McCoy, as did Nicole Grant, governmental affairs and political director of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 46.

“This is a vision Tiffani nurtured and carried forward with determination and effectiveness,” Malaba said in statement. “Her leadership has been instrumental in getting (Seattle Social Housing Developer) to this point, and I’m excited to see how the organization continues to grow and take off under her leadership.”

Grant had been critical of Jimenez’s refusal to sign a labor agreement to hire local contractors, which is a cause MLK Labor also took up, the Seattle Times reported. Using union labor had been a promise during ballot campaigns, but it could lead to somewhat higher construction costs, which may have been why Jimenez resisted going down that path.

Naishin Fu, co-executive director of House Our Neighbors (HON), sent out a statement commending the board for making the difficult decision to change leadership: “There is no better person than Tiffani McCoy to step into the interim CEO role, to carry out the vision of social housing twice passed by voters. Having led two successful campaigns to establish and fund SSH, and creating HON as a sustainable nonprofit with a complex structure, we know that McCoy’s skill and integrity will drive a collaborative culture and build out the infrastructure needed for SSH to be successful.”

The SSHD board is still determining the process to find a permanent hire for CEO.

“There will not be a search that commences immediately,” McCoy said. “I am the interim CEO for the foreseeable future, and the board, at their next board meeting is going to start discussion of the timelines. I’m going to be here for a few months and actively working to build up this agency.”

Social housing has a major new ally at City Hall in Mayor Katie Wilson, who credited the success of the February measure in inspiring her to run for mayor in the first place. Wilson backed the ballot measure, and McCoy, in turn was an early endorser of Wilson and serves on her transition team.

“I mean, this is a beautiful moment,” McCoy said. “The past four years, the mayor has not been in support. The vast majority of the city council have not been for it. A lot of people in the housing development space were skeptical or quite opposed, and now we are living in a world where social housing was one of the key pillars of our mayor, one of the things that the city councilors ran on. You could not run for city council in this city without being asked about your position on social housing multiple times. We live in a fundamentally different world, and we’re about to start getting a lot of money to start making some real difference.”

The post Seattle Social Housing Board Fires CEO, Taps McCoy as Interim Leader first appeared on The Urbanist.

One of the reasons newly elected Tacoma City Councilmember Latasha Palmer thinks she won is that Tacomans were looking for “something different.”

“The results came as a pleasant surprise,” she told The Urbanist. “I think it really served as reassurance that the voters are … looking for not the status quo and something that’s going to be a little bit more effective.”

Palmer isn’t the only “different” Pierce County candidate to win, either. Anders Ibsen beat out sitting councilmember John Hines, even though Hines outstripped Ibsen in funding by at least $100,000.

Both candidates are strong advocates for middle and supportive housing, and transit-oriented development and earned the endorsement of The Urbanist Elections Committee. They also told The Urbanist they want to tackle traffic safety, which Laura Svancarek, executive director of Tacoma On the Go, said is much needed and within reach with the right approach.

Both leaders bring direct housing experience to the table. Palmer is a founding board member of Aya Community Land Trust, focused on preventing displacement and building wealth for Pierce County’s Black community. Ibsen is a managing broker at Windermere real estate. He also served as a Tacoma City Councilmember from 2012 to 2019.

Housing affordability

Tacoma has been chipping away at its affordable housing crisis for years, including implementing phases of its Affordable Housing Action Strategy and, more recently, updating its Comprehensive Plan to increase housing opportunities citywide, in compliance with a state mandate that went into effect this summer. The City’s plan targets about 59,000 net new homes by 2050.

A major part of this plan is called Home in Tacoma, a reform allowing a broader range of housing in former single family zones. The change is intended to foster the creation of “middle housing,” ranging from duplexes to townhomes to small apartment buildings. Proponents argue middle housing will promote family-sized housing attainable to middle-income households, foster walkable neighborhoods, support local businesses, and encourage transit use and upgrades.

Palmer told The Urbanist that a major part of her campaign that appears to have resonated with voters is focusing on housing from both an affordability perspective and a “housing first” approach to homelessness.

“We see what’s happening now with a camping ban and things like that aren’t working,” Palmer said, referring to the city’s recently expanded ban on camping that the council enacted in 2022. “[These policies are] just moving the problem from one place to another, and we’re seeing people need more options, as far as shelter goes. When that happens, it’s effective in other cities.”

She said her campaign approached affordable housing “from a place of permanently affordable housing — not just housing that stays affordable for a couple years and then goes back to the market [rate], but other solutions that have had success.”

Ibsen attributed his victory to his campaign’s focus not only on affordability, but on community collaboration. While door-knocking, one of the things he recalled hearing over and over again was concern over a responsible regional approach to housing stability and homelessness.

“People have concerns about […] having a real plan for affordability and economic development,” Ibsen said. “But just as important as addressing the issues was the level of follow-through, attentiveness and collaboration. I think that’s what people are really hungry for, and it’s going to be a major priority of my administration.”

Ibsen supports Home in Tacoma — but he doesn’t think the city should stop there, and should in the long term, pursue social housing.

While he admitted the city doesn’t have the same tax base as some other cities to support such an initiative, Ibsen doesn’t see that as an insurmountable obstacle. In addition to having “a more in-depth conversation” with existing non-profit housing authorities and Pierce County, he believes that the city should work more closely with the Puyallup Tribe.

“The Puyallup Tribe has done some amazing work diversifying their portfolio,” Ibsen said of the tribe’s different property ventures, such as waterfront restaurant Woven, and an in-progress shipping terminal in the Port of Tacoma. “Integrating our partnership with them for economic development and community building is something I’m really going to focus a lot on because the Puyallup Nation are great neighbors. I’m very, very much committed to not simply undoing the mistakes and the injustices of the past, but working together to build a better future for all of our community, tribal and non-tribal.”

Focusing in the nearer term on Home in Tacoma, Ibsen said the city should seek to encourage affordability through the land use and building codes, in cooperation with the Board of Building Appeals and community groups. His goal is to “ensure that we’re aligning the standards we have for the actual physical improvements themselves, along with the land, so that we’re doing everything we can to to encourage affordability [and] as many meaningful options for homeowners and builders and others as we can, while also being cognizant of our environmental standards and not sacrificing those and other important social goods.”

He also zeroed in on ensuring that there are both enough incentives for developers to create affordable housing, and that they are actually serving their purpose. 

“If we’re trying to encourage more ADUs [accessory dwelling units] or small multifamily missing middle conversions in our single-family areas, are there incentives that we can imagine for just average homeowners?” he said. He added that incentives should be available to households to allow them to age in place without “breaking the bank” and create more multi-generational households.

Palmer said that ideas like community land trusts and social housing were key elements that her campaign proposed, and that they built on things she heard the community asking for.

“The city has done studies in the past as to what can we do, and things like land trusts have come up in those studies,” Palmer said, referring to information included in Affordable Housing Action Strategy work, “but we just haven’t followed through, and I think people are ready for follow-through.”

Palmer said that she is particularly excited about Home in Tacoma, because it opens up several middle housing options for people who already live and want to stay in Tacoma.

“There’s so much opportunity for the city to support our residents in creating additional housing for their youth that are becoming young adults and find it difficult to afford a place on their own,” Palmer said. “You can build more housing in the backyard for your son or daughter. Same thing with the folks that are taking care of their elders, and having that opportunity to move closer to home.”

Palmer also sees the need to create housing incentives for community members, not just developers, particularly so that elders — who are increasingly experiencing homelessness and who are bearing much of the brunt of rising health care costs — can have stable care and housing.

“Home in Tacoma reforms made it so that […] it should be easier to make more middle housing, when it comes to things like ADUs,” Palmer said. “It’s making sure that those allowances in the zoning are accessible to our everyday residents and not folks just coming in and wanting to take advantage of those changes from the outside.”

Traffic safety issues

Tacoma’s traffic collision rate, as well as traffic fatalities, remains exceedingly high, with more than 4,000 crashes reported in 2023 and in 2024. The city is currently on track to exceed that number again this year, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation’s traffic crash portal. Dozens of those crashes are fatal, and hundreds result in significant injuries.

In a special election this April, the City came up short in passing the Tacoma Streets Initiative II, a levy that would have funded investments in safer streets, through increased maintenance work, spot safety fixes, and broader street redesigns that would have included pedestrian crossing upgrades and traffic calming features. Voters nixed the levy, which called for a 0.5% increase in utility taxes and a property tax increase of 5 cents per every $1,000 of assessed property value.

Svancarek said that even though this measure failed, how to make Tacoma’s streets safer is at the forefront of voters’ minds, particularly with a tight budget and the city facing a significant budget shortfall. She said that it is “critically important” for the new council to bring the levy back to voters, and that the ballot language needs to be clearer.

“I think people were confused by the ballot language, and we all can come together to do a better job to articulate what this is and what it will do for folks, especially how the city has been able to increase the value of taxpayer dollars through accessing grants,” Svancarek said, referring to the city’s ability to leverage matching funds the tune of $2.27 for every $1 approved by voters. “I think this is an example of how the city can really well-steward taxpayer dollars for issues that are very, very critically important. My hope is that the council and Mayor Ibsen will come out in significant support, and really get out there and speak to the people of their district and the city as a whole.”

She also pointed out that even though there was a one-time allotment of real estate excise tax (REET) towards the city’s Vision Zero plan, it wasn’t enough. Last year, the city council contemplated cutting the plan’s budget by 90%. However, Councilmember Kristina Walker (who formerly led Tacoma On The Go) successfully added an amendment dedicating $1 million in grant funding to Vision Zero, but long-term funding is uncertain, and the funding levels remain below peer cities.

“We need a clear plan on how we’re going to maintain at least the current amount of funding for Vision Zero in the next biennium, otherwise, we lose any momentum that we have,” she said. “Having dedicated Vision Zero dollars gives the city flexibility, to be able to fix things as they come up and be ready to move on bigger issues.”

Palmer said that even though Tacoma residents know traffic safety is an issue, they don’t necessarily want to shoulder another cost. While she is not opposed to resident-funded levies, she said that it “seems like there could be already existing dollars that we can move from some of the other things we’re doing in the city over to support that type of safer infrastructure.”

“I would be open to looking at that first and seeing what our opportunities are, how to make the dollars that we already have more effective,” Palmer said. While Tacoma residents know that money for safer streets has to come from somewhere, she said, “from what I’ve seen knocking doors and talking to folks, people aren’t very secure in the idea that what they’re paying for now in their taxes is going towards the things that they would like to see it go towards. I think there’s a lot of work to be done building trust before we would put something on the ballot again to pay for these types of things.”

She also floated the idea of other revenue streams that the city could consider, such as surtaxes on blighted buildings — “we could maybe bring in some more revenue that doesn’t just fall on the backs of our working folks.”

Ibsen said that one of the reasons the measure failed is because “we weren’t ambitious enough and we weren’t broad enough in who we were talking to.”

If the city were to “take another bite at the apple,” he said, the conversation would have to be multijurisdictional and multifaceted — in other words, not just approached as a roads package, but as a package that demonstrates infrastructure meant for social good. This includes activating neighborhood business districts and areas for transit-oriented development, bringing greater connectivity to downtown Tacoma, and making school and parks spaces safer.

“How can we achieve as many multiple mutual wins as possible, when we look at these things, instead of thinking of it as a monolith, like a street measure, and thinking more multilaterally?” Ibsen said. “How can we use infrastructure to activate space, enhance affordability, make neighborhoods safer and cleaner and just increase the wealth building opportunities for it?”

Public transit

Pierce County transit has faced consistent budget woes that bus riders, in particular, feel, as they wait for infrequent buses along county routes. Svancarek said that while Pierce County Transit is a “scrappy agency,” they still receive half the level of local funding as peer agencies in the region. Without additional funding, service improvements will be minimal.

In addition to successful advocacy for public transit funding, Svancarek said, local leaders need to be “fully invested in and understand the importance of it and be able to communicate to their districts and to the city as a whole why this matters, even for people that don’t ride the bus every day.”

“Pierce Transit … [gives] people access to opportunities, jobs, healthcare, community — all of these things, that are the health of our community as a whole,” Svancarek said.

The agency has been mulling a ballot measure that would bring additional funds to transit, and Svancarek said she would support such a measure, but added that “we all want to see that tax dollars are used smartly.”

“What we hear time and time again from folks out in the community is that they want to see higher [bus] frequencies, that go later into the evening and, especially, better service on weekends and weekend evenings,” she said. “What I would love to see start to come back into the conversation is bus rapid transit service or high capacity transit service in general — but that currently is not part of Pierce Transit’s long range plan due to those funding constraints.”

Pierce Transit’s bus rapid transit (BRT) plans died on the vine a couple years ago, due to escalating costs and budget constraints. The agency replaced it with the Stream Community Line, an express bus which does come with BRT-esque amenities, such as real-time arrival information.

“As we look at what it could mean to bring BRT back into the picture, I think it’s a really good thing to ask, ‘How can we start including those amenities throughout the system even without full BRT lines?’” Svancarek said. “How can we slowly build up?”

Thanks to her ridealong interview with Tacoma On the Go, Palmer specifically noticed that bus schedules in traditional bus stations along Pierce Transit’s routes were not regularly posted. She said they need to be, and also said that she noticed several smaller issues that need to be addressed to create a better transit experience.

Again, though, she wouldn’t want to put funding transit on Tacoma residents without looking at other funding sources, first.

“Everything’s so tight. Some of the things that the money has been going to in times of more abundance, we need to look at those things and see [if we can] allocate those […] so that our basic needs and the more pressing issues are being addressed,” Palmer said. “I think we look at the budget and see where we can move things around. And then if we have to, as a last resort, put an initiative on the ballot and bring people along with that process and have them understand [that] we tried to find the money in these other areas, but it’s not there. […] I say, yes, after other things first.”

Ibsen acknowledged that “transit is woefully underfunded,” and that “we have to have a thorough conversation about what does it mean to sustainably fund the services people care about, while also being mindful of the budget constraint that a lot of working families are facing in Tacoma.” He said he would work closely with Pierce Transit, in his role as mayor and try to be as forward-facing as possible to gather community input.

Correction: The original version of this article misspelled Laura Svancarek’s last name. It had also once stated that Tacoma’s camping ban was recently killed, when it was in fact recently expanded. We regret the errors.

The post Ibsen and Palmer Prevail in Tacoma, Pledging Housing, Safe Streets Push first appeared on The Urbanist.

The fledgling proposal quickly became a major election plank for Zahilay after he announced a King County Executive bid in December. Under affordability accomplishments, Zahilay’s campaign website touts that he “championed the Regional Workforce Housing Initiative, directing King County to invest $1 billion in publicly-owned, rent-restricted housing for essential workers.”

Zahilay is the frontrunner after finishing 14 points ahead of King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci in August primary results. He will now go head-to-head with Balducci in the November general election to lead Washington’s largest county. (The Urbanist’s elections committee, on which I serve with 13 other members, has endorsed Balducci.)

While the candidate is gaining momentum, his housing initiative appears to be losing it. Despite the King County Council receiving the report in late June, the report’s findings did not get a public airing until late September, just as the council headed into two months of budget deliberations.

King County has around $9 billion in capacity to issue bonds that it historically hasn’t tapped into, generally only issuing bonds when it has dedicated a specific revenue source available to pay them back. In contrast, Zahilay’s proposal was specifically touted as self-sustaining.

“I am proposing legislation that will establish a $1 billion Regional Workforce Housing Initiative, a bold and sustainable approach to increasing our housing supply without necessarily relying on new regressive taxes,” Zahilay wrote in an op-ed in The Urbanist explaining his proposal. “King County has approximately $9 billion in untapped debt capacity, some of which we can use without jeopardizing our financial health. By issuing bonds, we can borrow billions of dollars from banks at relatively great interest rates, then use these funds to construct thousands of permanently affordable housing units specifically designed for essential workers. The rental income generated from these units would then be used to pay down the loan, making the initiative self-sustaining and more affordable over time.”

But such a plan likely won’t move forward until the County identifies a new funding source to pair with its bonding capacity, the report states — a tall order given the constraints that exist on King County’s ability to raise revenue and the need to address existing structural budget gaps driven by inflation, population growth, and Trump’s deep budget cuts. In its first five years, the sample plan developed by the Executive’s office estimated an additional $158 million in new revenue would be needed to sustain $1 billion in bonds, with most of that money simply going to pay debt service on those bonds.

“This Plan finds that County bond financing can provide relative benefit to workforce housing but is not sufficient on its own to meaningfully address the gap between development and operating costs and the income from rents or home sales affordable to workforce households. Therefore, the County will need to provide additional support for workforce housing projects to ensure these regional affordable housing needs are met. To utilize $1 billion in County bonds as envisioned in the Motion, new revenue authority in addition to bond authority is necessary.”

Zahilay’s proposal mirrored Seattle’s new social housing developer, targeting middle-income residents who would be able to pay high enough rents to be able to sustain the program’s operational needs. But Seattle’s newest housing authority does have access to a dedicated revenue source, with voters signing onto a new high-earner payroll tax that is expected to generate around $50 million per year.

The report looked at other bond-financed housing programs in places like Maryland’s Montgomery County, Denver, and the state of Oregon to discover potential barriers to implementing such a program at King County. The primary takeaway? King County lacks a flexible revenue source to be able to cover unexpected losses.

“King County’s lack of flexible taxing authority presents challenges to being able to take a similar risk exposed program to those detailed below,” the report notes before describing those programs. “The cap on property taxes results in a lack of sufficient authority over the General Fund to adjust revenues if a project needs to be bailed out and doesn’t have sufficient revenue to pay for the debt service.”

Oregon’s Metro Council went to the voters for $652 million in general obligation bonds to fund affordable housing projects across a three-county area in 2019, but that program is funded by a dedicated property tax levy in the same way that Seattle’s housing levy is. King County consistently goes to the voters for approval on levies to keep specific funding streams intact, including this year with a regional fingerprint identification levy, a parks levy, and a Medic One/EMS levy this fall, but has not to date proposed a dedicated housing levy.

Until such time as the state offers more revenue tools to counties, sending a property tax levy to voters would appear to be the most straightforward path to stand up a county housing initiative. Zahilay has stopped short of proposing such a step, but Balducci has expressed interest in launching that conversation. In fact, she was already making that point last October when the county council greenlit the study.

“We heard it said that this is a way to provide a lot more financing for housing without any additional taxes,” Balducci said at the time. “I don’t know that that’s the case. I think we may find at the end of the day that we need new funding tools. And I’m here to say I’m not afraid of that. We should have that conversation about the need for new funding tools. And if we do have that conversation, bonding against a dedicated housing revenue stream could be an extraordinarily powerful combination.”

King County already uses bonding to fund affordable housing, via the Transit-Oriented Development and Health Through Housing programs. This year, the county’s Housing Finance Program (HFP) made $38 million in funding available for non-profit housing providers across King County, with project awards set to be made early next year.

At a September 23 discussion of the workforce housing report hosted in the council’s Committee of the Whole, which Balducci chairs, Zahilay framed the workforce housing report as a positive step exactly in line with what his expectations for the motion were.

“I think the report did exactly what we asked it to do,” Zahilay said. “It showed us clearly what’s feasible, what’s not, where the gaps are, what the risks are, and what it would take to make a workforce housing initiative work. And I think it’s not surprising that in this high-cost, high interest rate environment, that we learned that bonding alone doesn’t fully close the gap, but I think the model does work if paired with external sources. I think they mentioned external revenue sources, and that’s important information. And it means that this idea can be alive and very much worth pursuing as new revenue sources become available or or existing ones like the hotel motel tax become healthier in the future.”

On the other hand, Balducci painted the report’s results as more sobering.

“There were a lot of expert partners at the table who gave their input into this, and it found, not unsurprisingly, that they would not recommend a large bonding program without an associated revenue source,” Balducci said. “So it truly is no free lunch. Like, surprise: we have rediscovered the maxim. There are no other programs that they identified that do something similar without subsidies. There are no other models that were identified where rents were able to fully cover the cost recovery for capital construction or acquisition, including principal and interest. And there’s a reason for that, because there’s no free lunch.”

Zahilay’s office told The Urbanist that he’ll be prioritizing other issues ahead of the workforce housing initiative in the county’s biennial budget, which the council is considering now.

“In this budget, our immediate focus is on protecting core services and addressing urgent shortfalls across housing, health, and public safety. That said, the Regional Workforce Housing Initiative remains part of my long-term housing strategy,” Zahilay’s office said through spokesperson Rosa Mai. “The report makes clear that bonds alone aren’t enough right now and that a dedicated revenue source is needed to make the numbers work. Because that dedicated revenue source is not currently available, that means we have to be strategic about timing. In the meantime, I am committed to keeping the groundwork alive: confirming the legal basis for workforce housing bonds, exploring pilot programs like acquisition and conversion loans, and looking at updates to the credit enhancement program.”

Why didn’t the report get a hearing earlier? Zahilay’s office told The Urbanist that it was up to Budget Committee Chair Rod Dembowski to schedule such a discussion, and that other issues had taken precedence ahead of the workforce housing initiative. Dembowski, who officially announced his endorsement of Zahilay last week, had appeared next to him at the announcement of the workforce housing initiative last September.

“The timing of budget committee briefings is set by the Budget Chair. My understanding is that when the report was completed this summer, the budget committee was focused on urgent items such as Harborview, MIDD [the Mental Illness and Drug Dependency sales tax hike], and Crisis Care Centers,” Zahilay’s office said. “Since the workforce housing plan did not have immediate deadlines, it was reasonable to prioritize limited committee and staff time for those time-sensitive items and schedule the workforce housing discussion for budget season.”

On top of a busy council calendar, both candidates are navigating a county executive race that, as a contest between two Democrats, could be decided by which way the county’s Republican voters swing. Rather than new taxing initiatives, both candidates have been emphasizing messages of budget discipline and fiscal prudence since the primary.

Regardless of which candidate prevails in next month’s election, it remains very unclear what the future of the workforce initiative will be, given that similar funding challenges are likely to persist for the foreseeable future.

The post Buried Report Throws Cold Water on Zahilay’s Billion-Dollar Housing Bond Proposal first appeared on The Urbanist.

The program represents a small step toward rebalancing the areas of the city where affordable housing projects have been located. Wealthier lower-density neighborhoods have largely shunted those affordable projects elsewhere.

In crafting Roots to Roofs, Rinck retooled a 2023 proposal from former District 2 Councilmember Tammy Morales called Connected Communities. Morales’ bill, which received a rare “do not pass” recommendation from the council’s land use committee and ultimately failed last summer, was met with skepticism from several of the centrist councilmembers who took office in early 2024.

This year, the composition of that committee took a big shift, with three members changing out. Rinck secured incoming land use chair Mark Solomon — who replaced Morales on the council as an appointee — as a co-sponsor. The revised bill earned a committee greenlight in a 4-1 vote early this month.

“The idea of bringing back legislation of this kind that failed to pass last year came from conversations with community-based organizations and affordable housing providers back in January of this year,” Rinck said Tuesday ahead of final passage. “And from there, we’ve worked to draft and redraft and redraft again with input from stakeholder roundtables on the changes that needed to be made.”

Qualifying projects would need to set aside 25% of all residential housing units as affordable to working class households for a term of 50 years, and would receive a base-level density bonus that varies across Seattle’s different types of residential zoning. In the city’s lowest-density Neighborhood Residential (NR) zones, that bonus is significant, especially compared to the previous baseline that was in place before the adoption of new rules as part of the Comprehensive Plan update. In denser zones, the bonus is more modest, but could allow nonprofit groups to significantly leverage their properties to add housing.

On parcels within the city that have a documented history of a racially restrictive covenant, the density bonus is even higher. The University of Washington’s Racial Restrictive Covenants project has identified more than 37,000 properties across King County as a whole where deed restrictions locked entire ethnic and religious groups out of home ownership opportunities, with those areas remaining some of Seattle’s most exclusive neighborhoods to this day. This provision around restrictive covenants would even allow a Roots to Roofs project within a city-designated historic district, where it normally wouldn’t be permitted.

Ahead of the vote, Rinck laid out some of the organizations that could be poised to take advantage of this new program, making projects viable that previously wouldn’t have penciled out as financially feasible. They include the Filipino Community Village, Friends of Little Saigon, Central Area Youth Association, Urban Family, Brighton Communities, African Community Housing & Development, the Ethiopian Community of Seattle, Nehemiah Initiative, El Centro de la Raza, Bellwether Greenwood, Mercy Housing, Northwest Greater Mount Baker Baptist Church, the African Cultural Arts Center, and the fledgling Seattle Social Housing Developer.

“Altogether, this represents thousands of homes coming online, a large chunk of which will be affordable. And we need more housing of all kinds. We know we are in the midst of a housing shortage. The data has been clear. We need to create over 112,000 new affordable homes by 2044,” Rinck said. “We know homelessness is a housing problem, and this bill offers an opportunity to help projects pencil now, creating more housing, community ownership and jobs. It adds another tool to our tool box in addressing the housing crisis.”

Going from a failed proposal to a fully unanimous vote is an impressive feat for Rinck, who faces an election this fall in which she’s highly favored to secure a four-year term. Winning 78% of the recent primary vote, Rinck seems to have impressed voters in her first year on council after winning special election last fall, replacing appointee Tanya Woo. The citywide Position 8 seat had previously been held by Teresa Mosqueda, until she won election to the King County Council, creating a vacancy.

The unanimous vote is a partial credit to District 3 Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, who proposed a series of amendments that appeared to go a long way toward winning over the council’s more moderate members, including District 4 Councilmember Maritza Rivera, who opposed the bill in committee.

“I voted no at committee because I had heard a lot of concern from community about these projects. There were concerns about whether or not these projects are actually going to yield to actual affordable housing, and whether or not this is going to help the very communities it portends [sic] to want to help,” Rivera said. “I still heard from community that they still had concerns, and I will say community still has concerns despite today’s amendments, but I do think that this is in a better place.”

Among the amendments put forward by Hollingsworth: a cap that ensures that no more than five projects are approved in any individual city council district, a requirement for tree preservation in “environmental justice priority areas,” an exemption for off-street parking from floor-area requirements, and a stipulation that all affordable units built under the pilot have at least two bedrooms.

“I think I had seven [amendments] to this, trying to make sure that I listened to everyone in the community, and trying to find a right balance in supporting the concept and spirit of this bill,” Hollingworth said. “There are some projects that I’m looking forward to getting off the ground, and hopefully this is an avenue for them.”

The land use committee did reject an amendment Rivera put forward that would have restricted Roots to Roofs projects to the city’s growth centers, a move that would have kept most of the city’s most exclusive areas completely off-limits.

“When I think about some of the community organizations that are in District 2, and where they actually own property, they’re not in neighborhood centers or urban centers,” Solomon said in voting against that change. “Thinking specifically about [the] Ethiopian community, Somalian community, Eritrean community, Filipino community… when they already have stuff there, this seems to restrict their ability to build on stuff they already own.”

Unless the pilot program is renewed, Roots to Roofs would sunset in 2035, or sooner in the event all 35 projects take advantage of the program. This new program’s approval came just days after the council’s Comprehensive Plan committee finalized amendments to create new rules on overall residential development citywide in Seattle, work that also sets the stage for zoning changes to allow denser housing within growth centers and close to frequent transit.

The post Seattle Council Approves Density Bonus, Targeting Areas of Past Housing Discrimination first appeared on The Urbanist.

Challenging Harrell from the left, Wilson won the August primary by nearly 10% — a margin of more than 18,000 votes — stunning those who thought the seasoned incumbent was a lock for reelection. With a gap to close in order to win reelection, Harrell was clearly on the offensive.

“It almost feels like Harrell’s slogan for this campaign is: we can’t do better,” Wilson quipped in one exasperated moment, as Harrell continued to nitpick her plans rather than focus on his own performance and vision for the next four years.

Repeatedly, Harrell posed attempts at ‘gotcha’ questions to Wilson, hoping to paint her as unqualified and land a knock-down punch that could stir up the race. Meanwhile, Harrell presented his own record in office as virtually unassailable.

Harrell noted he had twice been elected by colleagues to be city council president during his 12 years on city council and had been managing partner at a law firm, which he contended demonstrated his executive leadership skills. Boldly, the mayor claimed he had received no complaints from the 14,000 City workers serving under him, which papered several complaints about a poor workplace environment and patterns of sexual harassment that have gone unchecked.

“She’s never led anything,” Harrell said. “Number one, just look at her background. I mean, she’s run a nonprofit of one employee. An executive has to make some tough decisions. Okay, sometimes this could be reprimanding an employee, terminating employee, and when you run an organization of 14,000 employees, you have to make these tough decisions.”

Wilson countered that Transit Riders Union had more than one employee and that the model was built around mobilizing dues-paying members and volunteers and doing coalition work that brought other groups together for a common goal. From the beginning, Wilson’s pitch to voters was centered on her track record doing that coalition-building to enact progressive policy wins like the JumpStart payroll expense tax that saved the City budget amid the pandemic, reduced transit fare programs, expanded tenant protections and assistance, and raising the minimum wage in neighboring cities like Tukwila and Burien.

Wilson also fired back to note the pattern of bad hires by Mayor Harrell.

“The job of mayor is about assembling and managing a team, a team of people with integrity, people of competence, keeping them oriented toward a common vision and keeping them motivated,” Wilson said. “And that is exactly the work that I’ve been doing my entire career, and I think what we have seen in the last four years under you, Bruce, is a demonstrated failure to do that effectively. Okay, it’s not just Diaz. You hired your high school buddy to lead the KCHRA [King County Regional Homelessness Authority] at a very sensitive time for that organization, and that was a disaster, and he had to resign. You hired an External Affairs Coordinator that resigned under allegations of sexual assault. And you know, if you have one bad hire, that’s one thing, but when that becomes a pattern, at some point, you have to begin to question the judgment of the person who is assembling that team.”

The candidates sparred over homelessness response. Harrell claims to have created 3,000 units of emergency housing, but those claims do not hold up to scrutiny. PubliCola‘s Erica Barnett flagged the problems with Harrell’s list includes projects that were funded before he took office and several projects that were abandoned due to local opposition or other obstacles.

While Harrell came up short on his own pledge to build 2,000 units of emergency housing in his first year, he harangued his opponent for pledging to stand up 4,000 units of emergency shelter in four years, which he said would be too expensive and face too many obstacles. He pressed Wilson to identify funding for her plan, repeatedly badgering her for an exact figure. Wilson pointed to using existing funding more effectively, such as spending less on aimless encampment sweeps, and raising new progressive revenue. She also highlighted that shelter capacity space had shrunk under Harrell’s watch.

“What we’ve seen over the last four years is that Seattle has lost shelter capacity every single year that Mayor Harrell has been in office,” Wilson said. “We have more people sleeping unsheltered on our street than we did four years ago. We have two homeless people for every shelter bed. Like the numbers don’t lie, and this contributes to our public safety problems too, right? Because the mayor’s policy of removing encampments, sweeping people around without actually providing the shelter and the support that people need to be successful there destabilizes people, right? And especially when people are struggling with substance use disorder and mental illness, right? It means that they’re more likely to contribute to our public safety problems.”

The candidates disagreed sharply about social housing as well. Wilson argued Harrell had sought to undermine the project, while Harrell said he was worried about the new tax causing a business exodus and had done enough to help the effort.

“Bruce was the face of the opposition to that campaign funded by Amazon, Microsoft, and the Chamber of Commerce,” Wilson said. “This it is very important that we get this project right. We have a new social housing developer. There are complicated issues of governance and financing that need to be put together in the right way for this to be successful. People around the country are looking at this experiment in Seattle and seeing whether it’s going to be successful or not. We need city leadership that is going to fight to make it work. And Harrell not just in his support of the opposition campaign, but in other things that he’s done over the last couple of years as mayor, has done nothing but try to undermine that project, and it’s not going to work unless it has strong collaboration from the mayor’s office.”

Harrell argued that the loans his administration had negotiated to stand up the Seattle Social Housing Developer signaled his cooperation. While the grassroots social housing measure Proposition A won by 26 points in February, Harrell continued to make the case that the high earners’ tax Prop A authorized risks stunting business growth.

“We wanted it to be funded in the existing payroll expense tax, because we need those businesses to stay in Seattle, as we’re hemorrhaging businesses out of business downtown Seattle, that hurts us,” Harrell said. “That’s how we filled potholes. That’s how we feed the hungry.”

Public safety was also a flashpoint in the debate, with Wilson arguing Harrell had bungled the hiring of his first police chief Adrian Diaz, who the mayor ousted in December amid numerous scandals, which contributed to low morale and retention issues at the Seattle Police Department (SPD).

“[Crime] has actually come down more slowly in Seattle than in other cities around the country. We had a spike when other cities were falling, during your tenure, and it’s not hard to understand why that happened,” Wilson said. “You hired and stood by Adrian Diaz as police chief, and under his reign, SPD lost many high integrity career officers, morale tanked. So, we’ve had a dysfunctional police department.”

Seattle’s newly expanded CCTV surveillance pilot program was another area of sharp divides. Agreeing with the vast majority of public comment against the expansion, Wilson argued the City was rushing the expansion and the risk was too great of surveillance data falling into the federal hands and being misused, including in aiding Trump’s mass deportation efforts.

Harrell provided his personal guarantee that wouldn’t happened, and argued Wilson did not clear for communities of color — despite the aforementioned swell of public criticism of the proposal which included many people of color and the city’s own Office of Civil Rights and its Community Policing Commission.

“The people of color and people from immigrants or refugees communities who are asking me for tools to become safe now we will address all of the concerns about federal overreach, the misuse of surveillance,” Harrell said. “I remind everyone I was the one that authored the privacy surveillance ordinance. I was the one that authored the bias free policing. So how rich is it for this person to talk about protecting my community? My mother was interned through an executive order. This is very personal. I will never allow my community to be over-surveilled by government technology.”

Author’s note: The Urbanist Election Committee, on which I serve, endorsed Katie Wilson.

The post Sunday Video: Harrell and Wilson Spar in First Post-Primary Mayoral Debate first appeared on The Urbanist.

Despite leading the curve on many metrics among U.S. cities, Seattle still lags behind countless cities in Europe and Asia in key areas like affordability, climate preparedness, and emissions reductions. While many other American cities look to us for examples on how they could smarten their city planning and design, the individuals and organizations working to steer Seattle toward a brighter future have their gazes fixed firmly on the examples of superstar cities like Vienna. 

The Austrian capital has been a leader in public housing policies since the early 20th century. House Our Neighbors, the nonprofit that championed social housing in Seattle, hopes that the newly established authority can take inspiration from the Viennese as it seeks to develop buildings that are affordable while meeting the strictest of green building standards, called “passive house.” 

Achieving these standards would ensure that apartments use a minimal amount of energy and are well-prepared to withstand the onslaughts of climate change, something that can’t be said for the overwhelming majority of Seattle’s building stock.

The ambition for super efficient buildings that adhere to top tier standards for green design isn’t an aspiration held by a minority of members on the board of the Seattle Social Housing Developer; rather, passive house is a requirement for the authority, embedded in the organization’s charter. The eighth principle that the authority must follow under the second section of the charter’s second article states: “New developments must meet green building and passive house Standards.”

Passive house encompasses a set of high efficiency building practices that aim to create buildings that are as energy efficient as possible while ensuring comfortable conditions for residents. This is primarily achieved through four main principles: air-tight designs, continuous insulation, heat-exchanging ventilation, and high-performing windows. Altogether, these principles aim to limit the heating and cooling required, often the greatest energy drain in any building. 

These standards were first developed in Germany in 1996 and have become increasingly adopted throughout Europe. In the United States, however, these standards have only stumbled and staggered onto the scene over the last decade and a half. Today, across the country, many professionals in architecture, urban design, and building trades remain either unaware of or wary about passive house, except for in certain states like Massachusetts and Pennsylvania where policies either mandate or incentivize its adoption.

House Our Neighbors nestled the requirement for this standard into the charter adopted under the 2023 ballot initiative at the suggestion of Michael Eliason, an architect and founder of the firm Larch Lab. Eliason first learned of passive house and related practices that prioritize sustainability and public health through urban design during his time working in Germany. Through those experiences, he was “exposed to a radically different way of how we design and build housing,” Eliason told The Urbanist.

So when Tiffani McCoy, co-executive director of House Our Neighbors, contacted him to solicit his opinion on what green standard to include in the charter, he had no doubt which would be best. 

“I don’t think there’s another green building standard that approaches climate adaptation and public health to the degree that passive house does,” said Eliason. 

The approach ensures that the building comes together as a comprehensive system that can easily endure temperature extremes on either end of the thermometer while keeping indoor spaces comfortable, with minimal need to warm or cool the air and providing a constant supply of fresh air that’s kept crisp and clean even on days when wildfire smoke infiltrates city spaces, a health hazard that increases in frequency and severity each year. These boons are inherent to any building that receives a passive house certification.

One of the ideas central to passive building principles is continuous insulation. “It’s like putting on a sweater over your whole body,” described Greta Tjelveit, a building science consultant and current board president of the professional association Passive House Northwest.

Most buildings rely solely on cavity insulation, which fills the gap between the structural beams in the wall. While this can provide a decent barrier, it often leaves the studs themselves in contact with both the exterior facade and the inside wall, affording a bridge that heat can use to worm its way through. Continuous insulation provides an additional layer of wrap around the exterior of the building between framing and facade to, as Tjeltveit said, “get that sweater over it.”

In addition to this strong thermal barrier, passive buildings also emphasize airtightness to eliminate another pathway for outdoor temperatures to influence those inside. On its own, however, this airtight barrier could cause the building to get quite stuffy, which is why the standards also require constant ventilation that cycles air from indoor to out. This ventilation also includes devices that exchange heat, filter air, and capture moisture.

By exchanging heat, the system can capture all the warmth that tends to pool in kitchens and bathrooms and, in the winter, redistribute that throughout the building to other rooms that need to be heated. It can work in reverse as well: capturing the chill from already-cooled air to help pre-treat ambient air to limit how much conditioning is required. 

“It works in all seasons,” said Mike Fowler, an architect and Passive House Northwest board member. But, in Seattle, it’s most effective in winter, Fowler added, “because ​we typically have a longer heating season than we do a cooling season.” Mithun, the firm where Fowler works, has designed passive house projects.

The filtration, naturally, helps to prevent dust, smoke, exhaust fumes, and all manner of air pollutants from getting inside. Meanwhile, the moisture recovery system helps moderate indoor humidity, which can ultimately prevent mold from forming. “The air that you’re breathing is far superior than the status quo development,” Eliason said.

The requirement for high-performance windows also helps improve the quality of life for residents as well. Though the push for triple-pane windows within the standard is mostly about insulation, it further dampens sounds from the streets. Despite Seattle’s numerous public transit improvements, it remains a car-dominated city, and is burdened with all the air and noise pollution (and concomitant health issues) those vehicles bring. As such, triple-pane windows are of pronounced importance.

Of course, with all the benefits that passive house standards can bring, it’s natural to wonder whether or not it can be done affordably. “If you spend more up front,” said Al Levine, a former executive with the Seattle Housing Authority, in a February interview with Grist, “you have to recoup that in rent.”

But Eliason, Tjeltveit, and Fowler all argue that passive house can be achieved without paying a large premium, and that concerns about extra costs come from a lack of familiarity with the standards. They point to ample examples to support their argument, such as Pennsylvania. In 2016, the Keystone State was among the first in the nation to incentivize passive house for affordable housing projects in the state by giving such projects a boost in their funding projects. 

“In the first year of that program,” Fowler said, “the prices were five to seven percent higher for passive house. In year two, they were two or three percent, and then in the third year, they were the same cost as everything else.”

All it took for passive house projects to reach cost parity with status quo developments, as Fowler sees it, was for developers, architects, and contractors to get familiar with the standards. Fowler himself has seen how passive house can even lead to cost savings in certain building systems. For instance, on a project in Atlanta, the overall cost of the building project was just 0.6% greater than it would have been if they had designed to Georgia’s minimum code requirements. 

“The biggest thing,” Fowler said, “was that our mechanical systems came in half a million dollars less because we didn’t need these giant pieces of equipment to throw a lot of air conditioning load at it.”

There’s also projects here in Seattle that show that affordable, passive house-certified apartments can be built without exorbitant cost increases. For instance, a three-story, 12-unit apartment building was recently developed by Red Door Sustainable Housing in South Seattle and, in a talk for Passive House Accelerator, Dan Whitmore, one of the firm’s founders, estimated that the cost premium for meeting passive house was likely between just 3% and 4%.

Even with a small, initial upcharge of this kind, the diminished size of mechanical units for heating and cooling translates to reduced operational costs for the building in the long term, both in terms of energy and repairs.

So while it seems distinctly possible for the Seattle Social Housing Developer to reach passive house standards in new projects without jeopardizing its other goals – namely, ensuring affordability for a range of income levels to promote an economically diverse community of residents in its projects – this will likely have to wait. The developer is still waiting for the newly-won funding to arrive since the passage of Proposition 1A earlier this year, which is set to provide more than $50 million annually. Additionally, most of the units that the developer first brings online will come not from new construction, but from the acquisition of existing buildings.

Even once the developer gets its own projects underway, Seattle will have much to do if it wants to emulate the examples of cities like Vienna. McCoy and House Our Neighbors are actively meeting with experts from Urban Innovation Vienna to learn as much as they can about what the Austrian capital has done to become the world’s most livable city. But as one report on the steps Vienna and Singapore have taken over decades to transform their built environments demonstrates, Seattle and its neighbors will have to think far more holistically about how it builds and meets the needs of a fast-growing population in the coming decades if the Emerald City wants to have any hope of replicating Vienna’s greatest successes.

The post Seattle Social Housing Developer Strives for High Sustainability and Affordability Standards first appeared on The Urbanist.

Still pitched as a pilot program, Roots to Roofs would allow up to 35 projects across the city to take advantage of additional density allowances as long as they set aside at least 25% of planned housing units as affordable for lower-income households for up to 50 years. Furthermore, the proposal includes additional density bonuses on parcels that previously been under racially restrictive covenants, now-illegal clauses in property deeds that prohibited certain racial and ethnic groups from being able to live in those areas.

Rinck’s legislation will face its first committee discussion on Wednesday.

“The spirit of this legislation is to make sure that we have more community-led affordable housing, especially in areas that haven’t seen affordable housing growth,” Rinck told The Urbanist. “We know affordable housing is such a critical need right now, and we know it’s also an increasingly challenging time to be able to build and develop. So steps that we’re taking at the city level to make it easier for projects to pencil is something absolutely within our power. Beyond staff time, this doesn’t cost the city anything.”

Morales’s Connected Communities pilot was relatively straightforward: new housing projects partnering with community organizations and setting aside a certain number of units as badly needed affordable housing would receive additional development capacity. In the works before the 2023 council elections but put forward after a wave of five new moderate councilmembers took office, the idea faced a litany of concerns that seemed secondary to the fact that Morales was the bill sponsor.

Roots to Roofs, by contrast, already another co-sponsor in Land Use Committee Chair Mark Solomon, whose support for the bill could help help convince other centrist councilmembers to get behind the idea.

To qualify as a Roots to Roofs projects, developers would have to have ties to a non-profit organization, a public housing authority, or a public development authority — a group that includes the Seattle Social Housing Developer. Participating projects would be able to rise to four stories in the city’s lowest density Neighborhood Residential (NR) zones, scaling up as allowed density increases in the city’s Low Rise (LR) zones. Projects in LR2 would be allowed to be five stories, and those in LR3 zones inside urban villages and centers six stories. In Midrise (MR) zones, projects could rise to nine stories.

Roots to Roofs projects could also take advantage of additional development capacity provided in terms of floor-area ratio (FAR) allowances. FAR determines the maximum amount of space that buildings are able to take up on a lot. It is calculated by adding up area across all floors in a building and dividing it by size of the lot.

A baseline Roots to Roofs project would be able to increase their FAR by anywhere from 27% — in a denser neighborhood commercial zone — to 260% on a lot within a neighborhood residential (NR) zone.

Projects would be eligible for even more FAR if the parcel’s history includes a racially restrictive covenant, a move that could allow a project in a neighborhood residential zone to increase total FAR by five times what the existing limit is, and double the amount that was proposed in Connected Communities.

The University of Washington’s Racial Restrictive Covenants Project has mapped tens of thousands of properties where covenants were in place, but new ones continue to be uncovered all the time, and it would be up to the property owner to provide proof of a past covenant. In Seattle, the places where covenants were in place largely remain the most exclusive areas of the city today.

In other zones, additional FAR would be provided for projects setting aside space for equitable development uses — arts and cultural uses, child care centers, theaters, educational space, and commercial uses that could include maker’s spaces, commercial kitchens, and cafes. Adding additional development capacity is one way that the city can help scarce Equitable Development Initiative (EDI) funding go even further.

Rinck said the idea to reboot Connected Communities came about, in part, due to delays in advancing the zoning changes included in Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan. The council is not set to adopt the most substantive citywide zoning changes — creating new neighborhood growth centers, expanding existing urban centers, and allowing apartment buildings along frequent transit corridors — until early 2026. Meanwhile, the environmental review for Connected Communities had already been completed, and was sitting on a shelf.

“It’s on a prolonged timeline, and we don’t want that to stand in the way of making progress on building more housing. By being able to pass something like this over the next couple months, we can get the ball rolling on some of these projects, be able to the go into the design phase, start working on permits,” Rinck said.

The Roots to Roofs proposal has been in the works for months. Rinck said legal review by City Attorney Ann Davison’s office took longer than expected, and needed to be cleared before the bill could move forward. The bill also builds in some ramp-up time, providing up to 160 days for the city to create rules around how EDI projects qualify to take advantage of the program, and around how the city will integrate a Community Preference policy, which would prioritize systemically disadvantaged populations when it comes to finding tenants or homebuyers for new housing in areas of high risk of displacement.

Even with those delays, Roots to Roofs could still take effect before the biggest zoning changes included in the Comprehensive Plan.

Connected Communities faced the most skepticism from three councilmembers: Maritza Rivera, Cathy Moore, and Tanya Woo, who Rinck replaced on the council in November. With Moore’s forthcoming departure from the council, the dynamics look to be very different this time around.

Moore’s Council-appointed replacement to fill the District 5 vacancy is set to be seated on the Land Use Committee by late July — likely before Roots to Roofs will come up for a vote. So, that council vote remains a wild card. Also on Land Use Committee is Dan Strauss, who was the only other final vote in favor of Connected Communities, apart from Morales. The fact that Connected Communities didn’t receive a “do pass” recommendation from committee went a long way toward dooming the proposal. Councilmembers can pass legislation without a committee recommendation, but it often is cited as a reason to oppose legislation.

Through the city council has spent considerable time considering land use proposals submitted by Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office, no significant proposal to encourage the development of affordable housing has come out of the council itself, at least since the failure of Connected Communities. Whether Roots to Roofs can advance will be a big test of whether this council can advance big ideas that are geared at tackling the city’s housing crisis.

The Land Use Committee will take up Roots to Roofs this Wednesday at 2pm.

The post Rinck Retools Housing Affordability Bonus with More Density first appeared on The Urbanist.

I-137 authorized an excess compensation tax, targeting employers who compensate individual employees in excess of $1 million, but it won’t begin pulling in revenue until early 2026. Since it hit high-paid executives, that tax earned the ire of big business while Harrell and his centrist allies on Council opposed the ballot measure. Voters ultimately saw it differently.

The short-term loan would allow the new public development authority to begin scaling up and advancing plans to create publicly owned, publicly financed, mixed-income housing in Seattle. It addition to sustaining core operations, the loan may allow the public developer to “potentially pursue near term property acquisition opportunities until the first tranche of new revenue generated,” the mayor’s release noted.

So far, the Seattle Social Housing Developer or SSHD has received about $1 million in start-up support over its first 18 months of operations. Passed by voters in 2023, Initiative 135 created the SSHD and required the City to provide start-up support for the first 18 months of operation. “The City has provided $870,000 in financial assistance to the developer to meet this obligation, in addition to $180,000 from the Washington State Department of Commerce for a total of $1,050,000 in start-up support,” the Mayor’s Office said.

The startup funding helped launch SSHD operations, in particular hiring its CEO Roberto Jiménez, who previously worked in the Sacramento Valley developing farmworker housing.

“The Seattle Social Housing Developer is focused on addressing the city’s urgent unmet need for affordable housing that many of our citizens have experienced through the establishment of the innovative social housing model,” Jiménez said in a statement. “This housing will be inclusive for all residents, including low-income households and working people like teachers, service workers, firefighters, and more. This loan from the City will allow us to build out the staffing and operational support needed as we look towards property acquisition to make this vision a reality in Seattle.”

In a March interview with The Urbanist, Jiménez noted the SSHD is itching to begin acquiring property, and was hoping to get an advance on expected revenue.

“The real issue, I think, is that there are real estate deals, projects available, and we’ve getting a lot of phone calls,” Jiménez said. “There are properties that are developed, that we could acquire and put them to social housing make them permanently affordable. And there are properties out there that we’ve been analyzing, that we’re very interested in, all just to get that tax revenue flowing in.”

Without the bridge loan, the SSHD could be in a financial pinch to cover its operational costs under ballot measure funding kicks in.

Legislation heads to Dan Strauss’s committee

Councilmember Dan Strauss (District 6) was among the few councilmembers who didn’t vote to put Council’s competing Proposition 1B on the ballot — a weaker alternative that would have resulted in much less revenue over a limited period of time, repurposing existing payroll tax revenue. Strauss and Cathy Moore (District 5) were absent for the vote, while Tammy Morales (District 2) cast the only vote against running Prop 1B.

The effort came at the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce’s behest and was clearly intended to hinder Prop 1A’s chances. Harrell endorsed Prop 1B and appeared prominently on campaign mailers urging voters to back it and oppose the grassroots Prop 1A.

“Voters have been clear,” Strauss said. “Seattle is ready for social housing. Now, we need to do everything we can to make sure this transformative investment is successful. This agreement will help ensure the Social Housing Developer has the resources they need now to hit the ground running next year, when tax revenue starts coming in.”

Harrell said he would transmit loan legislation to the City Council for consideration in the Finance, Native Communities & Tribal Governments Committee, which Strauss chairs. Ultimately, it’s the Council President who decides which committee legislation is heard in.

After Prop 1A’s decisive victory earlier this year, councilmembers who backed Prop 1B have generally said they would respect the will of voters and seek to support the SSHD as it scales up to invest the new revenue.

Harrell pitches progress on housing

Harrell’s statement alluded to his earlier efforts to block the grassroots funding measure, but he argued he shared a vision for social housing and framed the differences as minor.

“While there were different strategies for how to fund the social housing developer, we share a vision for this model to be successful and add more housing options across our city,” Harrell said in a statement. “This loan will provide critical support during this interim period for planning and capacity-building so that the developer is set up for success and can achieve its goal of operating publicly owned, mixed-income housing.”

Additionally, Harrell announced that he is appointing Brian Abeel to serve on the Seattle Social Housing Board, as recommended by CEO Jiménez. “Abeel is an experienced finance executive with extensive non-profit board experience who will bring these critical skills to the board as they begin overseeing more capital projects,” the Mayor’s Office said.

Harrell’s announcement also pivoted to point to broader housing wins his administration oversaw: “Through an expansive One Seattle Housing Agenda, Mayor Harrell continues to drive progress to support more affordable housing and greater housing production in the city. In 2024 alone, Seattle added 14,683 new homes, a record high.” Not mentioned: new permit applications have reached record lows, as interest rates remain high and market uncertainty pervades.

The mayor also pointed to his One Seattle Comprehensive Plan as expanding housing opportunities across the city — though it has yet to make it through the legislative process. Under the state Growth Management Act, the Comprehensive Plan was due at the end of 2024, but it still has not been passed into law after numerous legal delays, internal revisions, and last-minute tweaks.

After passing temporary interim legislation to meet the state deadline to allow middle housing (such as fourplex townhomes) citywide, Council is aiming to approve the Comprehensive Plan later this year and follow up with permanent zoning legislation next year. The City has said the zoning changes would roughly double Seattle’s housing capacity, if and when they are finally approved.

House Our Neighbors was the nonprofit advocacy group that ran the I-135 and I-137 ballot measures and the group’s co-executive director Tiffani McCoy applauded the bridge loan.

“We are grateful to Roberto Jiménez, the Seattle Social Housing CEO, for working to negotiate this bridge loan for the Prop 1A funds. Thanks to the Mayor and City Council for securing this loan,” McCoy told The Urbanist. “We hope the Mayor and City Council will show similar support to the social housing developer in the City’s Comprehensive Plan update.”

McCoy said that affordable housing bonus proposed in the new plan would not work for social housing model. The mayor’s proposal had floated the possibility or achieving 12-plex buildings on a typical 5,000-square-foot single family lot within a quarter mile of frequent transit via the affordability bonus. The proposed bonus would require at least 50% of the units are affordable to low-income households.

“As it stands now, social housing would not be eligible for affordable housing bonuses that are only available for income-restricted affordable housing developers across our city,” McCoy added. “It is crucial social housing is included in these density bonus schemes to ensure the comp plan maximizes every tool in the city’s toolkit to deliver housing. Though many candidates have talked about their support of social housing, we are not seeing it in the comprehensive plan process.”

Despite the squabbles over details, Harrell has stressed that housing remains a top priority.

“Increasing housing supply and diversity have been top priorities for my administration, creating more safe, affordable places for people to call home,” Harrell said.

Harrell pointed to “passing the largest housing levy in City history in 2023” as another victory. That $970 million levy tripled the size of the previous levy it renewed, but unfortunately due to inflation and a financially reeling nonprofit housing sector, the increase in levy funds has not led to an increase in the rate of affordable housing production.

The Seattle Times recently covered the issue, noting several of Seattle largest nonprofit housing developers are at risk of financial collapse. Instead of funding the construction of new affordable homes, City housing funds have increasingly gone toward stabilizing existing affordable housing units. Plus, each public dollar cannot be stretched as far due to fast-rising construction and operations costs.

Furthermore, the levy funding bump was partially offset by Harrell’s decision to cut housing funding elsewhere. In his last budget, Harrell reallocated $287 million in Jumpstart payroll tax revenue largely dedicated to affordable housing previously in order to patch a large budget hole and fund around $100 million in new budget priorities.

As part of his broad housing strategy, the mayor also pointed to his efforts to streamline design review and the broader permitting process. However, as with middle housing upzones, it took a state mandate to galvanize Seattle to citywide action. Harrell recently proposed a temporary holiday on design review requirements on new projects in order to get ahead of the state deadline while his administration continues to work on permanent reforms.

Harrell has increased the size of the Fort Lawton affordable housing proposal long in the works, hoping to produce more than 500 homes on the derelict Army base. However, that project remains mired in process and several years away from delivering homes on the ground.

Several of Harrell’s challengers, including frontrunner Katie Wilson, have sought to make his earlier social housing obstruction an issue as he faces a tough reelection fight this fall. In her interview with The Urbanist, Wilson has called for more urgency and concerted action around the issues of housing and homelessness.

“We need city leadership that’s going to step up and work for the people of the city and not for their corporate backers,” Wilson told The Urbanist. “And I think we just saw with the social housing vote on Prop 1A how out of step Harrell is with the voters. He chose to be the face of the opposition campaign that was funded by Amazon and the Chamber of Commerce. Seattle voters overwhelmingly said that they want to see bold action on affordable housing, and so do I. So that’s why I’m running.”

The post Harrell Proposes $2 Million Loan to Kickstart Seattle Social Housing Developer first appeared on The Urbanist.