Houses on Meridian Ave. Image Credit: Wonderlane (CC by 2.0)
Last week, Challenge Seattle, a group representing CEOs of Amazon, Microsoft, Boeing, Zillow, and other Seattle tech leaders, published a report outlining affordable housing solutions for the city. The group is lead by former Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire.
The report lays out 15 recommendations designed to “move the needle” on the city’s affordability problem. Some of these ideas include preservation of existing affordable housing, acquiring land for development, providing private capital for new projects, rezoning, and implementing tax credits that encourage affordable housing development. Specifically, areas south of downtown would be rezoned as an Opportunity Zone as established by federal tax law.
The report also pointed to troubling statistics outlining Seattle’s housing dilemma. In the last decade, King County added jobs at twice the national rate, with a population growth of about 300,000. While 90,000 new households have been added to the region since 2010, only 11,000 of them target middle-income families, resulting in long commute times. Additionally, the report found that 40% of middle-income households are cost-burdened by housing, and that the median home cost in the region is seven times the median household income.
The Challenge paper comes one month after Microsoft promised a $500 million affordable housing fund. However, after last May’s standoff on a head tax for alleviating the housing problem, it seems unlikely that a consensus between city government and the business community will be reached in the near future.
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