Pierce County is in an affordability housing crisis. Can a new regional board fix it?
Pierce County, cities and towns have created a new board to address affordable housing, but there are questions about how effective another intergovernmental agency can be.
Some affordable housing experts said government bodies must do more than simply write policies and update zoning to encourage developers.
They are optimistic about Pierce County jurisdictions teaming up to collaborate on affordable housing, but they warn that some strategies implemented in other parts of the region haven’t worked.
Twelve cities and Pierce County have signed an intergovernmental agreement creating the South Sound Housing Affordability Partners, a board with no taxing or ruling authority made up of elected officials. The board is designed to encourage jurisdictions to work together in addressing the escalating costs of rent and home prices. The board held its first meeting Oct. 18.
County Executive Bruce Dammeier and Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards have spearheaded the effort. They told The News Tribune in October the board’s priorities are to lobby for more action in Olympia, push for more state funding in Pierce County for affordable housing and move forward at least three housing projects across the county this year.
Here’s what the experts consulted by The News Tribune recommend:
Board structure
One of the first recommendations is to prioritize the board by having it meet as frequently as possible. Currently, the intergovernmental agreement only requires the board to meet once a quarter.
The Washington Multi-Family Housing Association lobbies in Olympia for rental housing companies and providers. The organization’s policy director, Brett Waller, is a member of the South King Housing and Homelessness Partners (SKHHP), a similar organization for South King County jurisdictions and organizations.
He thinks the Pierce County board should meet more often.
The King County board meets every other month for two hours. Waller said that’s not enough.
“You forget about the issue for two months because you go back and do your own job or for elected officials, they’re going back to manage the city,” he said. “I guess it feels like we’re not moving fast enough, or we’re not moving the ball forward enough to solve the problem.”
Ali Modarres has researched urban planning and housing development in Pierce County since 1999 at the University of Washington Tacoma’s School of Urban Studies.
Modarres is concerned about the ease in which a member can leave the board, giving the impression that solving the issue is optional. The intergovernmental agreement states that before 2023, a board member just has to give six months notice of their withdrawal. After 2023, a member is given an annual opportunity to depart.
“There has to be an assessment component built into this. So it doesn’t become dependent on who gets voted into office for these mayors five years from now,” he said.
Incentives aren’t everything
Previously, Pierce County policy focused more on incentives, like tax breaks for developers building less expensive housing options.
Dammeier told The News Tribune about 682 affordable housing units have been built in the last decade.
“We have to understand that affordable housing is more than just supply-side incentives, that actually requires incentives for different kinds of developers to step into this space,” Modarres said.
More affordable housing could be built by housing nonprofits or market-rate developers, and Modarres said it’s important to attract both.
He wants to see governments more involved in offering more public land for housing and providing opportunities, like selling derelict buildings to housing developers and rezoning commercial areas for residential development.
Experts still are not sold on multi-family tax exemptions (MFTEs).
Both Seattle and Tacoma have MFTE programs. The property-tax exemptions are designed to encourage affordable housing development. Tacoma offers property tax exemptions for eight to 12 years.
Tacoma’s program began in mid-2019, but Modarres said he is not impressed with results. In his 2020 report on affordable housing in Pierce County, Modarres said few cities have reported using the program.
“I am not sure. I need to be convinced,” he said.
Spencer Anderson is the President of Washington Affordable Housing Management Association. He said nonprofits have not had much success with the MFTE program in Seattle.
“No one participates anymore in that program in Seattle. Even if you did it, the rents are still so far above what most people can afford,” he said. “I don’t think that that’s something that should go forward in the future.”
A state audit found it was difficult to determine whether millions of dollars saved by developers in the MFTE program created a net increase in housing across the state.
Seattle’s lessons
Anderson doesn’t think policies enacted in Seattle automatically work for Pierce County. Some have hurt affordable housing efforts, like a six-month requirement prior to rent increases, he said. He believes that impacts budgets of nonprofits trying to build more housing.
“You’re looking at people that operate existing large housing or trying to pencil out the development of new low income housing,” he said. “When you have to have a six month delay and be able to get your already slim margins going, you know, that’s just a disincentive to develop.”
He worries that smaller landlords who own older buildings with lower rent ranges are getting pushed out because of recently added tenant protections, like bills to prohibit the eviction of children, their families and educators during the school year, and one that requires landlords to give a just cause for refusing to renew a lease.
Smaller landlords are finding the new protections to be too much, Anderson said.
“You’re losing an entire sort of section of nonregulated, but yet still affordable housing, that continues to push people out farther from cities, like Seattle and Tacoma,” Anderson said. “How do you incentivize a smaller landlord to stay in the market and keep their rents low? How do you not scare them out of the market?”
Modarres recommends that the board recognize the importance of accessory dwelling units but not to expect them to be the only solution. Accessory dwelling units include smaller, independent housing like backyard cottages, tiny homes, basement apartments and mother-in-law suites.
He refers to a 2018 article in Urban Science that reviewed 750 ADUs in 57 California cities. The article concluded that ADUs rarely translate to affordable housing units without regulation and oversight.
“I think there is an overemphasis on ADUs that don’t necessarily translate to what they have in mind. They just increase the supply. The rent is not controlled,” he said.
Urgent need for change
Some people in Seattle’s low-income population are leaving for less costly housing elsewhere. Housing experts said for the first time, some organizations are seeing some affordable housing units empty in Seattle because many who would qualify for affordable housing in Seattle have already left the city.
“I have a problem with renting affordable housing in Seattle sometimes,” Anderson said.
Seattle’s population grew by some 50,000 people between July 2018 and May 2021, but the city saw a net loss of 785 rental properties and added just 4,455 units, according to rental data collected by Washington Multi-Family Housing Association.
Mercy Housing Management Group vice president Kevin Weishaar helps the nonprofit provide affordable, low-income housing. His organization built the 60-unit senior housing development between Eighth Street and Ninth Street along Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Tacoma’s Hilltop.
Weishaar said his organization has had difficulty finding enough interest in Seattle to fill housing that has been built for a subsection of the population, like veterans or seniors.
“We went every day to every veterans association, we were working with case managers. I was taking flyers with me. If I saw a veteran at a restaurant, I would hand it to him and talk to him,” he said. “Those special populations are about the only thing that can be challenging at times.”
Pierce County is on the cusp, Modarres said. Housing units are pushing not only the lower income, but those making between $50,000 and $75,000 are being slowly squeezed out of the Pierce County market.
“People in their 30s and 40s, who have not reached the income level that matches their region, but they came to this region when they could afford it. Now they’re hard pressed,” he said. “When that population leaves, what are you going to do to get them back?”
This story was originally published November 9, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
