We live and work in a region lauded for its livability, innovation and “best places to live” status. Yet these assets are threatened by growing challenges to housing affordability, a key underpinning of our area’s economic prosperity and quality of life.
Critical to housing affordability is the availability of buildable land in the central Puget Sound area. We face a dwindling land supply in Snohomish, King and Pierce counties and run the risk of experiencing escalating home prices to a level that will be unsustainable.
Advancing a collaborative response to this challenge, the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties is bringing together top housing experts, and a panel discussion with legislators and homebuilders, for its 2014 Housing Summit, “Accommodating Housing Needs with Less Land” on Tuesday at Meydenbauer Convention Center in Bellevue.
Its goal: Start a conversation about this pressing issue, with a focus on ensuring an adequate housing supply in the future.
Across the Puget Sound area, average finished lot prices have risen dramatically over the past five years. King County prices jumped from $100,963 in 2009 to $185,555 in mid-2014. During same period, Snohomish County prices rose from $90,119 to $104,294.
A report to be presented at the housing summit by Bothell-based New Home Trends will reveal startling statistics about the area’s remaining buildable lots. Based on projected population growth, Snohomish County has only 3.29 years of supply remaining of assumed total inventory and 3.87 years in King County.
A number of factors have led to this crossroads, including population growth and the resulting housing demand, state and local restrictions, and opposition to growth at the neighborhood level.
The Puget Sound Regional Council’s Vision 2040 calls for central Puget Sound counties to focus future growth in three specific areas: inside Urban Growth Areas, within “metropolitan and core cities” that already have built infrastructure, and within urban centers inside those cities.
In short, Vision 2040 funnels housing to high-density urban centers and discourages development outside of those centers.
While the urban center concept offers benefits, there is no accountability or incentives to make other changes elsewhere in the Urban Growth Areas. Further, infrastructure improvements to support high density-growth in targeted areas are many years away.
Running counter to Vision 2040 and the Growth Management Act, many jurisdictions in the central Puget Sound area are resisting new growth and urban density, making it difficult to provide new housing. In some cases, local governments are acting in response to local activists opposed to growth.
In Seattle, infill development remains the primary option for accommodating growth. However, an ordinance adopted in 2012 made it much harder to build on smaller lots — one of several actions reducing the buildable land supply in the city without adding an adequate supply of new housing to the equation.
In King and Snohomish counties, the current buildable land is expensive or is significantly restricted by environmental constraints. Regulations, including critical areas ordinances, stormwater and floodplain rules, create added layers of no-build areas inside Urban Growth Areas.
The Master Builders Association 2014 Housing Summit is an opportunity to begin a constructive dialogue about the issues and possible solutions.
We are encouraging state leaders to provide local governments with more political backing to address neighborhood opposition to growth. And without compromising our environment, we are urging State Environmental Policy Act reforms to help streamline review processes.
While providing necessary environmental protection, counties and cities should consider adoption of available tools such as buffer averaging in critical areas, to provide flexibility for builders and accommodate new growth within cities and Urban Growth Areas. Transportation elements of county comprehensive plans must support growth in unincorporated parts of the Urban Growth Areas.
Cities accepting their share of the region’s housing needs and accommodating new growth have multiple tools available: faster permit approvals and other incentives for innovative housing types, easing height limits where feasible, and use of form-based zoning codes, which regulate the forms of development in a given neighborhood, rather than the uses, providing cities with greater flexibility.
There is much at stake, and we can’t take today’s prosperity and growth for granted. The looming issue of housing affordability is upon us. The positive steps we take today are critical to our vibrant future.
Shannon Affholter is the executive director of the Master Builders Association of King &Snohomish Counties. He is a former member of the Everett City Council and past vice-president of Economic Alliance Snohomish County.
Housing summit
The Master Builders Association 2014 Housing Summit is a free event scheduled for for 7:30 to 11:30 a.m. Sept. 23 at Meydenbauer Convention Center Exhibit Hall, 11100 NE Sixth St., Bellevue. To register, go to MasterBuildersInfo.com or call the association’s events department at 425-451-7920.
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