Seattle City Council rejects affordable housing development bill

A Seattle City Councilmember’s effort to incentivize the construction of apartment buildings that include affordable housing and ground-floor community amenities appears dead in the water after her land use committee colleagues voted against the bill on April 17.

Councilmember Tammy Morales’ Connected Communities Pilot would have allowed private or nonprofit developers to build higher or wider buildings, skip design review, and be exempted from certain development fees if they partnered with community organizations to construct projects where at least 30% of the units are subsidized at below-market rates and the ground floor included an asset such as a child care center or health care facility. The pilot was proposed to last until 2029 or allow 35 projects, whichever happened sooner.

Those partner community organizations would likely have been nonprofit entities that work with refugees, immigrants, communities of color, LGBTQ+ communities and people experiencing homelessness or at risk of economic displacement.

Morales amended her legislation to address concerns raised by colleagues at an earlier committee meeting, especially around the income level the affordable units would be targeted toward, as well as a complicated home ownership provision.

https://crosscut.com/politics/2024/04/seattle-city-council-rejects-affordable-housing-development-bill