AN ORDINANCE relating to low-income housing; requesting that a special election be held concurrent with the August 2, 2016 primary election for submission to the qualified electors of the City of a proposition to lift the limit on regular property taxes under chapter 84.55 RCW in order to authorize the City to levy additional taxes for low-income housing for up to seven years; providing for interim financing pending tax receipts; creating a levy oversight committee; requiring annual progress reports; providing for implementation of programs with funds derived from the taxes authorized; and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.
Bill passes and chair will sign it. Please read the report of the Select Committee on the 2016 Seattle Housing Levy. Three per the Select Committee on the 2016 Seattle Housing Levy Council 4118656 relating to low income housing, requesting that a special election be held concurrent with the August 2nd, 2016 primary election for submission to the qualified electors of the city. Every proposition to lift the limit on regular property taxes under Chapter 84.55 S.W. in order to authorize the city to levy additional taxes for low income housing for up to seven years, providing for interim financing pending tax receipts. Creating a levy oversight committee requiring annual progress reports. Providing for implementation of programs with funds derived from the taxes, authorized and ratifying. Confirming certain prior acts. The committee recommends the bill passed as amended. And will you please read the accompanying resolution as well? Item 11 Resolution 31664 relating to low income housing, accompanying an ordinance requesting the 2016 housing levy renewal and providing further direction regarding implementation of the program to be funded by such levy introduced May 2nd, 2016. Councilmember Burgess. Thank you very much. Since 1981, the voters of Seattle have chosen to tax themselves in order to build or maintain affordable housing for our neighbors most in need. The first was passed in 1981. It was the first housing that was a bond measure. The first housing levy was passed in 1986, and we've done that every seven years since Seattle led the nation. We were the first city in the United States to adopt this form of tax to help our most vulnerable residents. Over the years, the Seattle housing levies have created or preserved 13,000 units of affordable housing. The proposal before us today and what we will adopt in this ordinance calls for a $290 million collected over seven years, if approved by the voters in August. It would be the single largest investment in affordable housing that we have ever made as a city. If you own a home in Seattle that has a median assessed value of $480,000, this levy will cost you $122 per year. That's an increase of $61 over the housing levy that will expire at the end of this year. As we learned in our committee, work, property taxes and assessed values in Seattle are in the middle of the pack, if you will, compared to other cities in King County. Here's a quick recap of what this levy will accomplish in the rental production and preservation program. We will produce or preserve 2500 units of affordable housing. In the operating and maintenance program, we will operate support for levy funded buildings and supplement rents for those earning 30% of media in median income or less, including formerly homeless residents and supportive services. If you're a single person, 30% of median income is $19,000 a year. If you're in a family of three, that's just $24,400 a year. The Homeless Prevention and Housing Stability Services that go with this levy will offer rental assistance and homeless prevention services to 4500 households. The home ownership program, which we heard testimony about today, will provide emergency home repair grants. First time homebuyer and foreclosure and foreclosure prevention assistance to 280 households. And the Acquisition and Preservation Fund will dedicate up to $30 million in short term acquisition loans for purchase and preservation of existing affordable buildings. This measure, when it passes in a couple of minutes, will place this measure on the August 2nd primary election ballot. It's a worthy investment. And we also have an accompanying resolution which calls for a variety of policy research work to be completed and presented to the council this fall if the levy is approved as part of the administration and finance plan. Thank you, Councilmember Burgess. Are there any further comments on the bill? Councilmember Herbold. Thank you. I just wanted to say a couple words thanking the council for working with myself and Councilmember O'Brien on developing a new anti displacement housing preservation strategy. Housing preservation is important to us because it's important to the community of Seattle. Prior to the Hallow recommendations, focus groups in the South End identified the displacement impacts associated with with development as one of their highest priorities. And you know, the other the other really important thing to think of moving forward is working on the housing lobby is a is a good start to address those those impacts associated with development . But we have other tools that we need to look at moving forward through the ballot process. When we're looking at up zones, we also have to look at the the displacement impacts associated with us up zones. And then finally, I just want to say a word about the fact that this displacement strategy will help renters stay in their homes, but it will also assist organizations like Home Security, Land Trust in identifying potential new home ownership opportunities for potential homeowners. Thank you. Thank you. Herbold. Are there any further comments seen senior Hans Robin? Was it he was drinking? Katherine Johnson. Thank you. Councilmember Herbold, you have a nice halo over you, as you said, all those remarks. You know, I just wanted to add my $0.02. And I think the important vote that we're going to take today, I see affordable housing in the city as having a multitude of different resources that we need in order to accomplish our goals. And this is a very critical one to make sure that those folks at the 0 to 30% of area median income have the resources they need to continue to live in the city. There are a lot of other strategies that we really need to pursue, both on the market rate side as well as what we can do to promote workforce housing. Those are big issues that are going to be coming up in front of us over the next year or two that I want to continue to work on. I wanted to highlight a couple of things I'm particularly proud of about this loving. One of the issues that was brought before our committee was around, in some cases increasing the eligibility framework up to 40%. We're seeing some really good data. That's from the $15 minimum wage that's allowing us to really see the benefits of raising our wage and allowing for people to be able to earn more. Yet as a result, that's pricing some of those folks out potentially of the housing that we're trying to build with all of us. I think in this case, in certain instances, approving for higher eligibility framework makes a lot of sense. And then I also want to thank my colleagues for working on the issue around healthy housing, how we find resources to provide mold abatement, asbestos abatement and other sort of unhealthy elements inside single family homes and multi-family homes is critically important to making sure that we've got health in the community and healthy housing for our community members . I know many of my other colleagues are going to talk about other elements of the plan, including family size, housing and a lot of other issues that I think are really critical. But I just want to add my my words of support for the actions we're going to take today. Thank you. Councilmember Johnson, Councilmember O'Brien. Thank you. I'm I am thrilled to be voting yes for the housing levy. I think it's an amazing it reflects on Seattle's the voters of Seattle's generosity and commitment to providing affordable housing. And no time has it been more evident that we face a housing crisis than we're facing right today and the ability to to double the size of the housing levy, well, certainly not enough to relieve the crisis. And we'll take great steps in the right direction. I want to speak specifically, as Councilmember Herbold did, to the anti displacement work that I'm really excited that we'll be exploring in this housing levy. We talk often about the number of units that are produced, and that is critically important. We also talk about the affordability levels at which those are being produced, also critically important and the doubling this housing levy will show a significant amount of units produced. But in addition to just producing affordable units, it's important to understand the dynamics that are actually happening in our neighborhoods today and what happens when someone is displaced from their housing, in addition to them having a housing challenge that they now need to find new housing. The connections that have existed in that neighborhood and the connections of those people to that neighborhood are broken and often can't be rebuilt. And so by looking at anti displacement, we're going to be working on finding some new tools to keep people who have been in their community, in their neighborhood, in their housing, often for decades, to find tools to allow them to continue to stay there as a community, as the city grows, as it becomes more expensive, there's an opportunity in this levy with using the. The timing of the funds as they come in to help acquire properties, land or properties that might prevent displacement. There's ability, as Councilmember Herbold mentioned, with homeownership, to possibly work with partners to buy existing rental units that aren't protected for income income qualification, to convert that to homeownership and also opportunities, as we've done in the past, to find opportunities where people are living in existing rental units that are not protected and bring those into the fold of a nonprofit provider or others to make those income protected. This is a great step forward. It's great to work with so many folks on the council and in the city who care so passionately about affordable housing. And we look forward to what the next number of years bring forward once this passes. Thank you, Councilmember Brian, any further comments from any of my colleagues? I'll just say briefly that I want to thank the Select Committee for doing this great work. I'm very confident that we're trying to target the right investment strategies for someone that's been in this city a long time. It pains me when my friends say very simply, I can't afford to live in the city anymore, or when their children say, There's no way, I just can't afford to live in the city anymore. And this is a resounding message that we hear repeatedly. So this is an investment to ask the voters to recognize that we want to keep the diversity in this city as much as we can. And so this is a great investment strategy. And so, Councilmember Burgess, I'd like you to close this and take us home. Thank you. I just want to point out that each time this levy has been adopted by Seattle voters, we have set specific targets. And those targets for a number of new units constructed or a number of units preserved or a number of families helped. All of those targets have been met in all of the previous levies, and we're on course to meet them. And this levy, which expires at the end of of this year. I want to thank our Office of Housing for the good work that they did on preparing the recommendations. Thank you to our central staff for their help, to Sara Day in my office and to my colleagues who were engaged over the last several months. We had seven meetings in committee and we asked great questions. We made some refinements. We targeted where we wanted this money to go to do the most good. And who knows, maybe in the future the people living in these houses will be able to come down and go to a Sonics game. I won't touch that one. Yeah. Okay. Please call the roll. Please call the roll. On the passage of Bill 118656. Just. Hi, Gonzalez, I herbold. Hi. Johnson. Suarez. O'Brien. Sergeant Major. President Harrell. I. Nine in favor. Nine opposed. The bill passes and the chair will sign it. I'd like to move the accompanying resolution 316664. So it's been moved in second. Any more comments on the resolution? Those in favor of adopting the resolution vote i. I. Those oppose vote no. The motion carries. The resolution is adopted and the chair will sign it. Thank you. Report of the full Council. Please report the full council agenda item to Resolution 316 59 revising certain general rules and procedures of the Seattle City Council. Amending Chapter one a Resolution 316 39, Section 11 point D.