2/1/2023
####################################################
The Spokesman-Review
OpEd - Shannon Corrick
KREM
KXLY
The Center Square
####################################################
The Spokesman-Review
OpEd - Shannon Corrick
Cheney’s my home. I’ve lived here since 1999. There’s a lot I love about living here, but rising rent is definitely not one of them.
Most of the homes in this area are rental properties. It’s great being in a community with so many young people who are college students, but landlords know they can rent to groups of college students who can each pay $500 for a room in a shared house or apartment. Workers and families are being displaced because this raises the rent for all of us.
My husband and I raised our kids in the house we rented.
We cared for our home, and made several improvements while we were there, including putting in a garden and flower beds. My grandson could spend time playing in the yard. It was a nice, safe house, it was our home.
On May 29, my “mom-and-pop” landlord sent us a letter saying our rent was going up from $990 to $1,395, effective July 1. With such short notice, I didn’t have enough time to get a new job or a second job to save up money to cover rent. On grocery store wages, I couldn’t afford that, so we had to move to an apartment right next to the tracks with trains coming through 36 times a day.
No more gardening for me, and no yard for my grandson to go outside and play.
My landlord said he was hiking the rent because “that’s what the market will bear.” I don’t feel like it was a personal attack on us, but I do feel outrage that this is happening to so many people. I call it rent gouging, and it’s a crisis that’s displacing thousands of people from our homes.
Homeowners can count on the relative stability of their mortgage. But for the rest of us who rent, landlords can raise the rent as much as they want.
In fact, on average, rents increased by 63% between 2010 and 2021 across the state. Many of us are paying more than 50% of our income to rent.
Bills being considered by the state Legislature would provide more protection for tenants.
They would require more notice from landlords when they significantly raise the rent, tie rent increases more closely to inflation, allowing landlords to increase rents, but not more than 7%. If we had had these policies in place, our rent would have gone up no more than $68 a month, not $400 a month. We would still be in the house we called home for so many years.
I hope our legislators – Sen. Mark Schoesler and Reps. Mary Dye and Joe Schmick – will support action to protect so many of us who are vulnerable to displacement when landlords decide to hike rates because “that’s what the market will bear.”
Shannon Corrick is an essential worker who lives in Cheney.
####################################################
KREM
Woodward highlighted the city's efforts to hire more police officers, present projects to increase housing availability and prioritizing mental health.
SPOKANE, Wash. — Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward's annual State of the City Address tackled three main points: public safety, housing and mental health.
The State of the City Address is a time for the mayor to reflect on the city's accomplishments while looking forward to current and future projects for Spokane. In her address, Woodward highlighted the city's efforts to hire more police officers, present projects to increase housing availability and future endeavors to prioritize mental health for local youth.
"Our greatest accomplishments are achieved through collaboration and compromise," Woodward said.
Woodward commended the city's dedication to adding more resources around Spokane, including new police precincts in downtown Spokane and East Central, and the new Spokane Violent Crimes Task Force. According to the mayor, an overall increase in police hires has also led to more patrols around neighborhoods and more proactive initiatives to prevent violent crime.
Fentanyl was also a big part of the mayor's address.
"Sadly, we’ve allowed our state to remove some of the very interventions that help law enforcement redirect damaging behaviors," she said.
Woodward announced she's working on a new ordinance with council members Michael Cathcart and Jonathan Bingle focused on "returning accountability to those who openly use drugs."
That ordinance has not yet been introduced to City Council.
In housing, Woodward said steps have been made to bring more affordable housing to Spokane, including the building of new multifamily units.
"Spokane has experienced two consecutive years of record demand for residential and total construction to add inventory and help people realize the dream of homeownership and for families to evolve their housing as they grow," she said.
The city of Spokane received $33 million to help with rent and utility bills and has worked with organizations to help people experiencing homelessness move into permanent housing.
Woodward also mentioned the regional collaboration to address homelessness in the Inland Northwest.
Woodward did not address the I-90 homeless camp in her speech.
The mayor's mental health task force focuses on young people impacted by traumatic events in the past few years. As the need for mental health resources grows, she hopes her Task Force will create partnerships to help address growing needs.
The Community Safety Initiative work group was also reinstated under Woodward. She hopes this group can improve public safety and overall reduce repeat offenses and crime rates, as well as create opportunities for those who need it, from employment to housing.
####################################################
KXLY
SPOKANE, Wash. -- As more people pack into the Inland Northwest, there could be more affordable housing on the horizon in Spokane. Lawmakers say, we're facing a housing crisis. As a result, they're now trying to pull out all the stops to incentivize more housing.
The Pavement to People Ordinance would bring that housing downtown and they plan to squeeze more housing into the spaces that are currently dedicated parking areas.
We're told, parking lots take up about 30% of downtown land. Of that, at the busiest point in the day, half of the available parking is actually used and lawmakers say creating housing units here would be a much better use of the space.
"We know a lot of people are concerned about housing. It's the number one priority for the Mayor, the Council and the State Legislator," said Zack Zappone, Council Member, for the City of Spokane.
Zappone says this is one tool that would help address the housing crisis.
"This would take underutilized land, surface parking lots, and pavement, and incentivize the development of those into affordable housing units," Zappone explained.
To incentivize developers, this would be done through a tax deferral for affordable housing.
"So 50% of the units would be required to be affordable housing units at different affordability levels. The other half could be regular, market-rate housing," Zappone added.
The rate of these units would be 80% to 120% of the median area income.
"It creates that workforce housing that is important for teachers, firefighters, healthcare workers and nurses. Everyone in the city of Spokane needs housing and that alleviates pressure on the rest of the market too," said Zappone.
Through the program, developers could defer construction tax for up to 10 years. If the units stay affordable after those 10 years, they'd be able to write off the tax permanently.
"We're also looking long term about more options downtown. You could build garages with housing on top of those garages. So lots of opportunity in the city of Spokane and all Council Members and the Mayor are all in alignment for increasing housing affordability in the city," Zappone said.
Some of the property owners of those surface parking lots tell us, they're open to it.
City Council will vote on the Ordinance Monday. If passed, developers would take advantage of the tax incentive program within the coming months.
####################################################
The Center Square
Franck Boston
(The Center Square) - The Washington state Legislature in recent years enacted laws intended to incentivize local governments to create regulations conducive to building more housing. A Senate proposal would remove the carrot from the stick by withholding some state funding if certain benchmarks are not met to build more residential development.
Under the state Growth Management Act, or GMA, cities and counties have to regularly update their comprehensive plans, which include projections for population growth and how zoning will ensure enough housing is built to accommodate them. There is currently no legal requirement for them to do this.
SB 5609 sponsored by Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, would change that by requiring cities and counties approve enough building permits to meet its “share” of the housing shortage as to be determined by the state Department of Commerce. Local governments that don’t meet those quotas face losing their share of revenue collected from the state’s real estate excise tax, or REET.
Braun told colleagues at a Feb. 20 public hearing in the Senate Ways and Means Committee that the bill isn’t concerned with what type of housing is built, but that enough of it is constructed. He added that although GMA requires the type of work in his bill, “we’re well behind on building housing. The main focus is to get them planning to meet the current needs instead of waiting on this 5-10 year needs analysis from the Growth Management Act.”
According to the Building Industry Association of Washington, or BIAW, it takes an average of 6.5 months for a construction permit to be approved, and permit delays add on average $31,375 to the price of a new home. Additionally, zoning regulations typically add $71,000 to a new home’s cost. However, those added costs can vary depending on the jurisdiction.
BIAW Legislative Director Josie Cummings told the Senate Ways and Means Committee that “from what we hear from our builders, there are cities that allow building and are accepting permits, and that is where growth is happening. The cities where there’s too much of a regulatory burden, we aren’t seeing that, but we think if the regulatory burden is taken away, the market will follow.”
While Braun referred to the bill’s penalty as a “nudge,” some cautioned that local governments might be punished for factors beyond their control.
“What if they don’t get enough permits?” Sen. Keith Wagoner, R- Sedro Woolley, asked. “That’s not the municipality’s fault, that’s just the way business is done.”
Sharing that view was Carl Schroeder, deputy director government relations director for the Association of Washington Cities, or AWC. He told the committee that “it doesn’t seem to fair to punish the city. We can’t control whether permits come in the door, cities don’t build housing.”
He also questioned whether GMA regulations was slowing down the housing market.
However, Braun argued “there’s no indication they don’t get enough applications to meet this requirement. This is intended to drive them to figure out what’s broken in their process that’s taking so long and it’s so expensive that people are not applying applications to build.”
Seattle’s social housing authority measure near approval with latest vote count
The Space Needle and the Seattle skyline are shown against a cloudy sky, Thursday, April 30, 2020, as seen from Kerry Park. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
Ted S. Warren/ AP Photos
(The Center Square) – City of Seattle Initiative Measure 135 is close to being approved after owning a 14% lead with results expected to be certified on Feb. 24.
The measure would create a public development authority to develop and maintain mixed-income social housing developments. The authority would finance the housing developments through municipal bonding and not raise taxes for property owners in the city.
The proposition requires the housing developer to build permanently affordable housing in which no one spends more than 30% of their income on rent regardless of increasing rent across the city. Any funding from subsequent city support for the authority would become available only at the Seattle City Council’s discretion.
Seattle would be the first city in the nation to create a social housing developer through a citizen initiative process, according to the city.
Last December, Seattle City Councilmember Tammy Morales worked with Representative Frank Chopp (D-Seattle) and Senator Rebecca Saldana (D-Seattle) to fund $880,000 in operational funding for social housing through the state legislature. The move was made in anticipation of the City of Seattle Initiative Measure 135 being approved by city voters. The funding would cover start-up costs for the Seattle Social Housing Developer and provide seed funding for a city-run Social Housing Fund, according to the city.
“We look forward to working alongside Councilmember Morales and our state partners to implement I-135 without delay,” Tiffani McCoy, Advocacy Director of Real Change, said in a statement. “The social housing developer needs to staff up immediately and we will be there every step of the way to ensure that the council funds these positions in the next supplemental budget.”
Despite the majority of votes being in favor of the bill, some oppose the creation of a social housing authority.
“Social housing run by the government is doomed to become an expensive failure,” Washington Policy Center’s Mark Harmsworth said to The Center Square in an email.
Harmsworth’s example of government-run social housing failing is when Great Britain created council houses after World War II to primarily help with reconstruction efforts. However, the government was soon unable to maintain properties to appropriate standards and housing quality fell.
“Seattle’s efforts to create government housing will not work and will only cost the existing Seattle homeowners and businesses more money,” Harmsworth added. “Why would Seattle want to ignore the lessons learned in [Great Britain] and try to create another failed government program.”