On Common Ground - Summer 2016: Housing For All

designated urban centers and urban villages — to allow an additional one to two stories. The City Council in November approved the program for commercial development, which must pay a per square-foot “linkage fee” to a housing fund. The rules for multifamily housing projects are expected to be set by this summer.

“Typically inclusionary zoning is done in ways that cre-
ate a conflict between growth and affordability,” said
Alan Durning, executive director of the Sightline Insti-
tute, a progressive think tank, and a member of the
HALA committee. “This approach invites developers to
keep building to meet the overall demand, but we will
harness rapid growth to enhance affordability.”
Roger Valdez, director of Smart Growth Seattle, represents
a group of builders and developers of multifamily housing
and building owners. He isn’t so sure. “Politically it seems
attractive because, without using tax dollars to solve the
problem, you put developers over a barrel and out pops
units and cash. That’s the unicorns and rainbows picture,”
he said. “But it doesn’t pencil. The supposed value being
added by the up-zone isn’t likely to offset the added con-
struction cost or the lost revenue from rent restrictions.
And we’ve already begun to see neighborhoods resolving
to oppose the upzones, ‘unless’… And all those ‘unless-
es’ will make it even harder to do projects.”
Indeed, substantial opposition appears to be brewing
among owners of stand-alone houses within some of
the urban villages. Under the grand bargain, the exist-
ing single-family zones within village boundaries would
be eliminated, to permit small-scale multifamily at a
minimum. At a January meeting of more than 100 of
those homeowners in the Wallingford neighborhood, for
example, residents said that while they shared the mayor’s
progressive values, they weren’t ready for what felt like
potential wholesale change to the neighborhood.