Big drop in money for Seattle affordable housing as construction slows

Excessive rates of interest and questions on the way forward for workplace work are consuming right into a Seattle program that mandates builders assist construct new reasonably priced housing.

The town’s Necessary Housing Affordability program, which requires builders construct or pay for brand new reasonably priced housing, noticed a 15% dip in revenues in 2023. That this system would generate fewer {dollars} is an unsurprising final result of the broad slowdown in growth in Seattle. However the dimension of the decline is notable — the earlier yr’s dip was simply 1.5%.

“We’ve entered a troublesome financial interval for builders,” Nona Rayburn, spokesperson for Seattle’s Workplace of Housing, stated in an electronic mail.

The town’s Necessary Housing Affordability program is one in every of three essential sources of funding for reasonably priced housing in Seattle, along with the housing levy and a payroll tax on the town’s largest companies.

This system got here out of a 2015 “grand cut price” between builders, reasonably priced housing suppliers and metropolis authorities. In change for elevated zoning capability, builders could be required to both put aside housing of their buildings or pay right into a metropolis fund to assemble it elsewhere. The price ranges between $11 and $45 a sq. foot, relying on the constructing’s location.

In 2023, this system introduced in round $63 million from 227 tasks throughout the town. That’s a notable drop from the $75 million generated the yr earlier than from 261 tasks.

For the town’s reasonably priced housing builders, the lower is one other piece of unwelcome information in what’s changing into an more and more troublesome constructing surroundings. Though voters authorized a $1 billion property tax levy to fund new housing final yr, bigger headwinds have posed a risk to including extra provide. Many builders are caught on costly development loans as they wrestle to lease up or gather lease on all of their models whereas others see their {dollars} run dry as rates of interest climb.

In response, Seattle already introduced a much smaller annual award for brand new reasonably priced housing earlier this yr, as an alternative dedicating metropolis {dollars} to shore up beforehand funded tasks and assist nonprofit suppliers of low-income housing with climbing working prices.

The Necessary Housing Affordability program and parallel upzones had been handed into regulation through a sequence of votes between 2017 and 2019. Since then, this system has raised greater than $300 million for reasonably priced housing. Fewer builders select the so-called “efficiency” possibility of dedicating on-site reasonably priced housing, although greater than 400 properties have been created.

In 2023, 123 new models had been devoted for reasonably priced housing in market-rate buildings in contrast with 77 the yr earlier than.

The mayor’s workplace has launched a overview of the Necessary Housing Affordability program, anticipated to be accomplished by the top of the yr. Councilmember Cathy Moore, who chairs the Seattle Metropolis Council’s Housing and Human Providers Committee, stated, “This can inform us much more about how that is working and what, if any, modifications needs to be made.”

Over the course of this system, a big slice of the {dollars} generated for reasonably priced housing have come from in and across the College District, the place growth of housing and business house has been vital. Subsequent is the downtown space, adopted by Northwest Seattle, close to Ballard.

Greater than 1 / 4 of these {dollars} have been spent in South Seattle — Othello, Beacon Hill and Rainier Valley. The Northgate and Lake Metropolis neighborhoods have additionally seen a big funding.

Estimates present that Seattle wants no less than 112,000 new properties by 2044 — 44,000 of which have to be reasonably priced to individuals incomes lower than 30% of the town’s space median earnings of simply over $100,000.

Seattle reached peak ranges of allowing for brand new housing in 2021, issuing greater than 13,000 that yr. Since then, the numbers have begun to say no: final yr, the town issued simply 6,000, lower than half of 2021.