EDMONDS — With the median home price here climbing to $550,000 this year, the city thinks it’s time to tackle the issue of housing affordability.
“I just heard of someone renting a house for $3,200 a month,” said City Council President Adrienne Fraley-Monillas, a member of the city’s recently appointed housing task force.
“It’s crazy,” she said. “I don’t know how people can afford it.”
The housing group, appointed by Mayor Dave Earling, will begin monthly meetings in the fall.
The challenge in creating more affordable housing is doing so in a housing market that is among the hottest in the nation.
The median home sale price in Snohomish County in June was $450,000, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
One area where low- to moderate-income housing could occur is the Highway 99 corridor, by adding higher density housing.
Earlier this year, the city received $1 million from the state for what’s expected to be a series of pedestrian, street safety and landscaping projects. It also might include moving overhead power lines underground.
At the time, Earling said it was part of a plan to encourage affordable housing in the area, along with retail and office space.
“We’re hoping to create affordable housing throughout the corridor,” Fraley-Monillas said.
Planning changes could limit building heights to 75 feet, about six stories, with the potential for allowing commercial development on the first floor, Fraley-Monillas said.
“We do have quite a bit of interest in the redevelopment of some of the properties up there,” she said.
There will be prescribed setbacks and no single family residences “will have a tower of a building next to them,” she said.
Three- to four-story apartment or condominium buildings next to residential areas will need to have buffers between the new buildings and the homes, she said.
The city hopes to encourage developers to include low- and moderate-income housing in their developments through a state law that offers 12-year tax breaks for doing so.
In Edmonds, the tax exemption will be granted when at least 20 percent of the units in a multifamily development are priced to meet low- and moderate-income requirements.
In Snohomish County, that is defined as a two-person household with a maximum annual income of about $53,000, said Shane Hope, the city’s development services director, who will lead the housing task force.
A development that includes affordable housing already has been approved in the Westgate neighborhood near the Bartell store on 100th Ave. W, Fraley-Monillas said.
The city is considering a zoning change to allow mixed-use development with housing constructed above commercial development in the Five Corners area, she said.
“We’re not mandating anyone redevelop, but we’re saying, ‘Here’s the possibility if you do want to redevelop,’ ” she said.
The new affordable housing group’s goal is simple, Fraley-Monillas said. “I want to see just as many as we can possibly put together.”
Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486; salyer@heraldnet.com.
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