96 percent of the workers in this Pierce County city don’t live there, report says
The city of Gig Harbor could allow different housing types in specific zones to create more affordable housing.
State lawmakers recently passed House Bill 1220, which instructs local government in Washington to plan for and provide housing for residents of all income levels.
The City Council and Planning Commission had joint meeting June 1 to review a housing needs assessment (HNA) completed by third-party consultant, Community Attributes Inc. (CAI).
In line with the Washington Growth Management Act, counties and cities must develop a housing element as part of their comprehensive plan, according to Robin Bolster-Grant, principal planner for the city of Gig Harbor.
The city is required to update its comprehensive plan every 10 years with a 20-year planning horizon. So, for housing, the city is looking at how to accommodate projected needs by 2044.
The housing element must include an inventory and analysis of projected housing needs, Bolster-Grant told the Gateway.
The city paid approximately $30,000 for the HNA, which is reimbursed by the state Department of Commerce Comprehensive Plan Update grant funding, Bolster-Grant said.
The assessment showed how much housing Gig Harbor has and how much more it needs.
Population growth
Gig Harbor’s population has outgrown its own projections and almost quadrupled from 1991 to 2022, according to CAI consultant Madalina Calen.
“As of 2018 the city exceeded its growth projections in the comprehensive plan of 10,500 residents by 2030,” she said at the June 1 meeting.
In 2021, there were more than 12,000 residents.
Calen said slower growth is projected in the future with about 1,100 new residents per decade.
The Gig Harbor population is also aging, showing a need for housing accessible for seniors, the assessment said.
Calen also said Gig Harbor is becoming increasingly diverse.
“The population of BIPOC in Gig Harbor has grown substantially from .4% in 1990 to 20% of the population in 2021,” Calen said.
The population of BIPOC in Pierce County is about 38%, according to the Pierce County website.
Higher incomes and larger houses
There’s been a slight increase in the number of households with one to three people since 1990.
Households with four or more people saw a larger increase, making up 15% of households in 1990 and 20% of households in 2021.
The average income of Gig Harbor households is about $15,000 higher than Pierce County, Calen said.
Gig Harbor also has a higher share of workers commuting into the city for work.
“Around 96 percent of people employed in Gig Harbor live outside the city,” Calen said.
80 percent of Gig Harbor residents are employed outside the city, she said.
Current housing supply
One-third of houses in Gig Harbor are cost burdened, which Calen said is when someone spends more than 30% of their income on housing costs.
Certain groups are disproportionately burdened by housing costs, including lower-income households, renters, older adults living alone, and Hispanic households, the assessment said.
The data also shows existing housing does not necessarily align with what residents need.
Although one-person households make up 30% of Gig Harbor’s population, over half of the housing units in the city are built for larger households.
“This could indicate a couple of things,” Calen said. “Either that there’s single workers or small families that are seeking to live in Gig Harbor, or existing households such as retirees that are looking to downsize their home and stay in their community might find it difficult to access smaller format housing.”
Calen said another reason could be that one- or two-person households are likely living in a home with at least one extra bedroom, reducing the number of larger homes available for larger households.
Planning commissioner Alison Snodgrass wondered at the meeting if people with extra space would even want to downsize, or if they’d want keep the space they have.
Calen said an outreach survey could help determine that.
Over the coming months the city will have a series of housing workshops.
“We will solicit feedback from the community regarding a wide variety of policy options that may be considered to address all housing needs, including any disparities in housing types such as 1-2 bedroom options,” Bolster-Grant told the Gateway.
Home values
The median home value in Gig Harbor increased by more than 260% from 2000 to 2020.
The median home value has reached over $800,000.
Gig Harbor median home values are higher than Pierce County’s median home value, which is $554,794, Calen said.
Rental prices have increased by 72% since 2016, Calen said.
The average Gig Harbor rent for homes of all sizes is $2,732, according to the Zillow Observed Rent Index.
How much more housing does Gig Harbor need?
The state Department of Commerce has informed the city it needs to plan to add 892 additional homes by 2044, 567 of which will identify as affordable housing.
“Commerce used metrics based on population projections, average household size and existing demographic data to estimate the amount of housing units required by income band,” Bolster-Grant said.
Affordable housing will accommodate income levels from 0-80% of the Area Median Income (AMI) and includes single-family homes, multi-family/apartments, condos, townhomes, and cottages, among others.
“Area Median Income (AMI) was developed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and is the commonly used metric for defining affordability,” Bolster-Grant told the Gateway. “A house is deemed ‘affordable’ if no more than 30% of household income is required to pay rent or mortgage costs.”
For example, the median income for a family of four in Gig Harbor is $91,100. Affordable housing for that four-person household would be housing with rent or mortgage costs of less than $2,278 per month, according to Bolster-Grant.
Asked at the meeting if the city has the zoning and land available for housing units, Community Development Director Carl de Simas said the land is there, but whether or not current zoning is right to accommodate different types of housing, more analysis will need to be done.
What are some possible solutions?
Based on the HNA findings, some of the housing types needed in Gig Harbor are “workforce housing, missing middle typologies, senior and aging in place housing,” according to Calen.
Workforce housing targets middle-income workers such as police officers, firefighters, teachers, and health care workers, Bolster-Grant told the Gateway.
“Middle housing refers to housing that falls between single-family housing and multi-family housing (apartments) and includes duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, five and sixplexes,” Bolster-Grant said. “Middle housing is not necessarily affordable housing as defined above, but is generally more affordable than single-family homes.”
Calen presented the city with potential strategies to encourage the construction of new affordable housing units.
The city could up-zone certain districts, allowing different housing types in existing zones. By doing so it would shift capacity to higher-density zones.
“One potential policy consideration would be to rezone R-1 (single family zone districts) to R-2 or some other zone district that would allow more than one unit on a lot,” Bolster-Grant said. “For instance we allow duplexes on R-2 zoned lots, but could change our code to allow more than two units without changing the zone. Either changing the zone district or re-defining existing districts could be code revisions that allow more housing to be built on existing lots of record.”
They could also work with developers to use city land to build high-density housing.
If the city were to reduce R-1 minimums (lot sizes, lot widths and parking requirements) it could also free up space for additional housing.
Calen encouraged the city to also seek nonprofit partnerships for the production of new housing.
“They work in partnership with local jurisdictions and state and federal agencies that provide funding and other related subsidies or incentives,” she said.
She also suggested monitoring and revising the new short-term rental regulations.
Council member Seth Storset said at the meeting that he feels the city is already monitoring them closely and asked what more the city could be doing.
In some cities, they’ll choose to limit STR’s to specific zones in order to not reduce the supply of affordable housing long-term, according to Calen and her staff.
Gig Harbor currently allows them in all residential zones.
