a year nowbody.
Yeah, I know. I just called.
We're getting the party started. Hello
everyone.
That was my Carl House moment there.
Is everybody ready to begin? Am I on?
Yes. Thank you. First um order of
business. I don't know if it's an order,
it's a guideline. Um make sure we all
talk into our microphones tonight
because there is a huge television
audience watching us tonight. Come on
in. Come on in. So, um I just had a
reminder from AV that we should all talk
into our microphones to make sure that
all of our comments are heard. Welcome
everybody to the first of um several um
meetings with the planning policy
commission, the human services
commission, and the economic vitality
commission. F I'm Trish Hainan. I'm from
development services, and I have the
happy honor of being part of the housing
strategy that we're all going to be
working on together. And first I would
love everyone to um say who you are and
what commission you're on as we go
around the I'm going to call it the
United Nations table where all the
commissioners are. We'll start with
Joan. So I'm Joan Pro. I'm the chair of
the planning policy.
I'm John Stab. I'm on the Planning
Policy Commission. I'm Joy Lewis. I'm on
the Planning Policy Commission. Derek
Franklin, Human Services Commission.
His human services commission.
Ron Fall on the Policy and Planning
Commission. Jeff Howard, Economic
Vitality Commission.
Derek Do, Economic Vitality Commission.
Laura Milligan, Economic Vitality.
Christy Triple, Rally Properties. And
one thing I did, and I'm on the Economic
Vitality Commission, one thing I did
want to share, I do work for a property
owner here in Isiqua and that manages
property. We have an affordable housing
component within our development
agreement with the city. But I wanted to
make that aware to all of you as my
peers this evening that I'm here with my
hat on for the good of the city and the
overall vitality for this community. So
if anyone has an issue or thinks it's a
conflict of interest, I definitely want
to make sure I put that on the table.
Uh Ethan Styles, Economic Vitality
Commission.
Richard Gable, Economic Vitality
Commission. That didn't work. Excellent.
And Elizabeth, you get to go now. Just
say who you are and which commission
you're on. Elizabeth Mopen. I'm on the
Human Services Commission. Excellent.
Anybody else we missed?
Okay, then. Um
um this was in your packet. You've
received some information this past week
and there was a few homework
assignments. Um but first, I'm going to
give you a little bit of why we're here.
And uh the council has a goal to have a
housing strategy partly because they had
a affordable housing goal a few years
ago. We did a report card on affordable
housing last summer and we weren't doing
very well as a city and we're not doing
very well as a region. So they asked us
to do a housing strategy, not just for
affordability, but a complete housing
strategy. And this is the uh work plan
we came out with. We're in the second
step of the um housing strategy. We had
an inventory that was presented to the
council in September and you all are
going to help us with the needs analysis
so we can figure out do we have any gaps
in affordability? Do we have gaps in the
types of houses that we offer in Isiqua
and we're going to be doing outreach?
We're going to be using all of your
heads and thoughts and experiences to
help us craft a really great um needs
assessment so we can send that off into
step three, which you'll also be
involved in, which would be figuring out
um the policy conversation and what
policies will help us to implement a
good housing strategy for the city.
Um one of the homeworks I uh that we
asked you to do is some items that you
thought were amazing. uh some t some
numbers or some statistics that you
thought were pretty amazing in the
inventory in the material we had you
read. And these were um a couple of mine
that um that surprised me is that um
over 30% um are are people with kids in
our community. I thought it was higher
than that, but it's it's not as high as
I thought it was. And 30% of folks are
just living on their own here. Um so we
have a whole singles component. So, I
thought that was really interesting as
as the types of households that we have
here in our community. The other one
that I I was I knew about just because
I've been doing so many annexations is
we've grown a lot a lot since 2000 and
this doesn't include um the folks like
from South Cove that we inherited um the
other um annexations. So, this is just
actual people that have moved here since
2000. So 16,000 have moved here since um
since 2000. of those folks that live
here and work here, only 1,500 people
actually live here and work here. Which
gives us an idea of why there's so much
traffic going in and out of town is we
don't have a huge amount or even a um
small amount, you know, like a majority
of folks that actually live and work
here and don't have to go in and out on
our arterials to to go to and from work.
So, one of the things we're looking at
is is there a way that we can make the
balance a little better to have people
able to choose to work and live here.
Um, that's something that we'll be
working on. Um,
the other housing fact that felt was
interesting is the largest share of our
housing inventory is three bedrooms or
more. So when you think of the kids that
we have and the singles that we have,
three bedrooms or more, they they may be
pretty big for the folks that actually
are living in the community. So that was
something that that I thought was an
interesting fact. So with that, my time
is up and I think it goes to to Jen,
goes to Arthur already. Are you ready?
See, I have to escape.
No. Escape.
And then what?
You don't want these markers? I do. Oh,
that I will leave in there. Do you want
me to start it or do you want to start
it?
Why isn't it easy to start it?
There it is. Right.
Hi everybody. So I'm met with some of
you in the past and your different
commissions and um over the years and
I've basically been working on housing
stuff. The city of Isiqua is a member of
ARCH and ARCH is just a partnership of
cities in East King County um that was
formed by the cities to provide
resources to the cities to have
specialized staff and the ability to
work together on some issues around
housing and with a special emphasis on
what we refer to as affordable housing.
And so I have been literally working on
stuff in Isiqua longer than Keith I
believe. Um, I literally worked on the
original development agreement for
Isiqua Highlands back in the early 90s.
So, I have been around this city off and
on. Um, and so tonight and and my job is
one of our jobs at all is to help cities
talk about the issue of housing in their
community. So you got some data there
and before we come back to you and let
you start what's your reaction to data
and see what questions you have. I
wanted to give you some thoughts and
context that might help set up not only
tonight's conversation but the work that
you're helping the city do which is to
work on creating a strategy plan. So,
it's about thinking about housing in
different ways besides just what you saw
from Trish, which is, well, we have this
many housing units and we have this many
one-bedrooms and two bedrooms. There's
other ways of thinking about housing
when you're trying to put a plan
together. Um, and so the first thing I
want to do is put up on here is what do
we mean? Because the term affordability,
I could probably go around the room and
ask each of you what you think
affordability means. And there's 1 2 3 4
5 6 7 there's over 10 of you and there
would be over 10 answers and you'd all
be right. Okay. So, one of the things um
I used to do development, we never use
the term affordable, low-inccome housing
or anything like that. We would say
we're helping people at a certain income
level with rent at a certain level. And
that's what this chart does. It sort of
gives you some context as to what we're
talking about because this is what the
comp plan says. So, this is the plan
that we have to work from. This is the
terminology we use. And so in the last
few years, we've in in the comprehensive
plan work that we've done, we identify
three different levels of quote
affordability per se. Um, and they all
work off of median income. And the
median income right now in King County
is 90,000, just over 90,000 for a family
of four. And all the numbers you see in
this chart work from this table, from
that one number. And so, um, what it is
for a f for what we call very low
income, that's 30% of median income,
that's an income of 18,000, just over
18,000 to almost $27,000 a year.
Somebody in that income range would be
able to afford a rent of around $500 to
around $700 a month. That's what would
be considered affordable. Affordable is
defined as onethird of your income
towards housing expenses.
Low income is $31,000 to $45,000 a year
depending on your household size and
means rents of $790 to $1,130
a month. And moderate income is 1,264
to$,800
um and is an income of up to $72,000 a
year. So if you translate that to hourly
wages, um $30,000
that's the low end for the low income is
$15 an hour. that magical number that we
hear about in context sometimes in
discussions like in Seattle and around
the country about minimum wages. So you
can see here that when we're talking
about these different affordability
levels, they're still talking about
levels that are salaries for people in
our in in our community in our region.
Um, what we've also added on this slide,
and this is in the data that we gave
you, is what our average rents right now
in Isiqua, and you can see they
average,0 for a studio to well over
2,000 for a three-bedroom, which is
basically saying that you have to have
income over 80% of median to afford the
average price rental unit in the
community. We also have some information
here on slides that relate to um um
types of salaries you have in your
community and I'll come back to this one
in a bit but the point this slide makes
is there's a lot of jobs whose salaries
are in that even very low income and low
income range in your community. Okay. So
that's starting to get at a demand
thing. Where is the need for housing
coming from? A lot of it's coming from
your workforce. So the first thing I
want to ask you or now I'm going to sort
of back up for a second so that now that
you can sort of see these different
affordability levels is when I'm working
a community when I think about housing
and what I'm trying to do in a housing
plan or working with a city is what
we're trying to do is say what kind of
households do we have in our community
do I need to carry this with me when I'm
talking or
or be close to it. Okay. So, the
question is, what type of households do
we have in our community and what's
their income level? And so, I'm going to
ask you, I'm going to open up to you.
What kind of households? These are, you
know, household, you know, family type
units. Trish listed some, but let's
share with me what you think are the
different kinds of households in your
community. Anybody want to jump in
first?
So, I'm talking about like she said
there's married with children. Okay,
that's a kind of household. There's
different formations of people in living
in living situations. So what other
kinds of examples do we have?
Multigenerational.
Okay. So can I call it extended family?
Yes. Okay. So we have extended family.
We have
so that's one I said married
with children. Okay. Others single with
children. Someone else, please. Sorry, I
go way back with Elizabeth. Other
people, please. More than one family in
the same uh living unit. All right.
Family sharing. Does that cover it?
Okay. Others? Well, I'm just writing
while I hear. Married, no children.
Okay.
All right.
So, that was married, no children,
right? Yep. And I'm going to ask I'm
going to ask a leading question and that
is are there different types in terms of
pro potentially housing needs of that
group?
Within that group? Yeah. Within this
category of married with no children at
home, I can think of two very distinct
situations that are very different.
Yeah. Uh empty nesters versus young
family. Right. So you have the empty
neester and then you have the young
family. So you have both of those others
other types of households single single
with children. Single with children.
Okay. So a single parent with children
and just plain single individuals.
You do this all the time. Let's get
other people going. So I heard what did
I just hear? Single.
So I heard single others. Well, or let's
talk about singles for a minute. There's
probably different kinds of single
populations out there.
Seniors. Okay. You got single, senior,
others. Young adults. H young adults.
Okay. So you've got seniors, young
adults.
Okay. Others middle-aged adults. H
others I would say you're a college
student who's great student not yet
started a career. Okay. So college
student
which in some of the towns I work with
because Arch is a coalition of cities
all over East King County. That's a
really big issue in a couple of the
cities I work in. Belleview, Baththel,
right? Really big issue there. Even
Kirkland um has that and you're going to
maybe have that someday. So okay. Okay.
So, you have college, young adult,
senior, any other types of singles that
you can think of? Disabled. H disabled.
Thank you. Very good.
Disabled. And there's all kinds of
different disabilities.
Okay. Anybody else have any other ideas?
Divorces. Divorces. Okay. So, that's
okay. So think of this as one think of
this as a matrix and this is your y
axis.
Now your x- axis and I don't have a big
enough piece of paper here is I would do
income and income can be from zero
right no money to now depending on the
city we can literally say the richest
person in the world is king county if we
look at that area right and so it's
literally an exercise if you think about
it of drawing grids with different
income levels
and across like this,
right?
And the whole thing is you could look at
your community and you could start
figuring out
how many people you have in every box.
And your goal in a housing plan is to
have housing that matches that matrix.
Okay, that's when I go into a community,
that's what I'm always thinking. All
right. So that's just to give you some
context of how to think about a housing
strategy plan is it's really looking at
people in your community and their
different household and their different
circumstances which is primarily when
you think of housing types of households
and income and some different forms of
housing might be able to serve different
populations here. But the question is do
you have choices for all of those
different folks? Is that your workforce
population or your homeowner population?
that you're would be I mean your
workforce will have all different kinds
of people but you don't build a housing
for a workforce. I used to do
development. I buy saying okay I want to
do onebs because I think they're
singles. I'm going to do two bed. There
was a period when I first did
development we built a lot of twobedroom
two baths. Do you know why
was the Bay Area roommates?
Two individuals could live together and
both have bathrooms and because housing
expenses were getting so high that
having a two-bedroom, two bath could fit
for both a family and two individuals
and it made your market bigger for who
you could serve. So that's an example
where you know, but you're thinking
about all of these things. Oh, who might
go into that different product types I
would have and how many are out there in
the community? Are they having
challenges with other kinds of housing
needs? So, if I build that, I might fill
it up pretty good. That's why in
downtown Redmond, you see micro units
being built. And they built one and he
immediately built a second and he
immediately built a third because he
couldn't fill them up fast enough
because of the market demand coming from
a lot of the singles. You know, they
have a small school, right? They have
DigiPen there and things along those
lines. So it's taking the workforce but
you still transfer it back to incomes
and you know because there's a lot of
young singles in Redmond and therefore
they needed lower rents and given the
costs the best solution was small units
and not everyone will do that but there
was enough of a need that some
percentage wanted to do that. Okay so
that's one this is just sort of some
context for thinking about the issue. So
I started to allude to and you mentioned
it the workforce. So now I want to talk
a little bit about the demand and some
just show you a couple slides and again
all this information you have here was
in the report and we're going to come
back and let you share what you thought
was important. So I'm going to now do
what Trish did. And the first thing I've
always looked at and literally my thesis
was doing jobs housing balance in
Sunnyville, California. Anybody know
where Sunnyville, California is? It's
the heart of the Silicon Valley. And
they were having this was back in the
early 80s, believe it or not. they were
dealing with housing price issues and
what they looked at was jobs, housing
balance. So this idea is to say how much
demand are you generating from your
workforce and how much housing do you
have to house that workforce. Now the
reason we and you the first section is
looking at isiqua. If you're at one that
means your quote the amount of housing
in your community is equal to the amount
of demand from your workforce and the
amount of demand for workforce is you
assume more than one worker per
household. So, it's not a onetoone, you
know, if you have 10,000 jobs, you need
10,000 housing units. Like, if you have
10,000 jobs, you need like 7,500 housing
units because there's more than one
worker per household on average. On
average, there's not 1.4 in households,
but so when you go above one, it means
you have more demand from your workforce
than you do supply of housing. Now, it's
not necessarily a big deal if your city
is the like that and everybody around
you has the opposite because then it
adds up and you're at about one. Now, I
work in an area the arts sphere of in
arts is East King County and what what
we saw is back in 198 1980
the overall area had much more housing
than it had demand for housing from the
workforce. And that completely changed
over 15 years. Okay? from going from
well below one and this this only shows
you 2006 and then looking into the
future. But you can see when we add up
all of East King County, we are now to a
point where that ratio is 1.25.
You're higher than that. But even when
you add Bel when you add Belleview, when
you add the unincorporated areas where
there's no jobs, when you add that all
together, you have a ratio that's 1.25.
It's as high as Seattle's. And in the
old days, if you're old like me, the old
tradition was all the jobs were in the
central city and everybody lived outside
the central city and commuted back and
forth. Well, Seattle's that was the
ratio they had before. They've always
been around that ratio. But the thing
is, when we went above one, Seattle
didn't go down.
So now you've got two areas that are
creating more demand for housing, two
large areas, than they do housing
available. So that's what this chart's
trying to show you. And then the brown
is what does our plan say? what will
happen if we build exactly to our plan
and our plan says not only in your city
but in East King County as a whole we're
going to make the ratio even higher.
That's what our plans say cumulatively.
So that's and that's a simplistic kind
of thing. It's not meant to be an
absolute but it's just sort of a general
condition in your community. Not
everybody works and lives in their city
but that's why we broaden it out and
look at what does the surrounding region
look like. But then the other bigger and
as important thing is what's the profile
of the jobs salaries in your
communities. And so what we're trying to
show you here is that almost 40% of the
jobs in ASCO pay less than $35,000
annually. Okay. Um and what this other
chart shows you is that the income that
different kinds of jobs the top bar is a
ratio equal to 80% of median and the
lower bar is an income at 50% of median.
So what we're basically showing you here
is the first few jobs that are all
listed there have salaries below 50% of
median and the ones in the middle are
between 50 and 80 and then we have a
couple there that are just above 80% of
median. So the only point we're trying
to make here, there's a lot of jobs in
your community that are paying that are
integral part of your community that are
paying low and moderate salaries.
Illustrated by the fact how many people
are familiar with Isiqua Family Village?
Raise your hand, right? You're all
familiar with that. Everyone who moves
in there has to have an income. Their
household income has to be under 60% of
median when they move in. Some of the
people have to have incomes below 30 and
even 50% of median. Look at where they
work in your community. That's what the
chart this chart over here is showing
you. They just did a survey of some of
the residents to show you where they
they're not unemployed. This is where
they're working in your community. So
that's sort of the connection of types
of jobs in your community. So going back
to this matrix, you know, it's sort of
this thing here. And a lot of your
workforce have jobs that are low and
moderate paying. So what are the
implications to your households because
people are living here? Well, one of the
first implications of some of these
trends you see is what's being called
costburdened households. And this is
when people pay more than that 30%
figure. And what's probably even more
significant is a term called severely
costburden. And that's when people pay
more than 50%. So if 30% to stretch,
what does it mean when you're paying
more than 50% of your income for living?
Um, and I'll let you guys sort of think
about that. What we've seen is that
almost 40% of renters are costbururden.
And what's been really intriguing is is
that in the last 10 or 15 years, we've
seen a significant increase in severely
costburden renters in our East King
County community. And you and Isiqua in
particular went from 13 to 21%. And what
the graphic is trying to show you is
when you break it down by income level
that basically if you're under 50% of
median income, you got an 80% chance
you're going to be cost burdened and
most of you will be severely costburden
and they're in your community. Okay? In
other words, 21% of the renters in your
community living here now are severely
costburdened. That's what people do.
They just pay more of their income to
live. They don't necessarily always
move. They do things along that line.
Another trend is homelessness. Probably
some of you have heard this. There's
lots of different statistics, but one of
them is there. How many homeless school
children do we have in East King County?
And this shows it by district. And I
shaded Isiqua. So Isiqua has over a
hundred children in the school district
who are homeless. And that can mean
either they're doubled up or they're in
shelter. As you see, we've broken it all
out here for you. And other school
districts on the east side. So
cumulatively there's over 800 kids in
the East King County School Districts
who are homeless.
So this goes back to that earlier slide
where one of the things we look at on
sort of a cumulative level is when you
look at King County as a whole and your
salary profile in Isiqua is similar to
the salary profile of King County as a
whole. In fact, if anything, your
salaries are low a little bit lower when
you look at the cross-section of how
many are earning under like 30,000, how
many between 30 and 50, your percentages
are slightly different, slightly lower
than they are countywide. But what we're
showing here is when you look at
households cumulatively in King County,
you have 12% of households are are under
30% of median, 12% are between 30 and
50, and another 16% are earning between
50 and 80.
I've been doing this a long time. This
is not a new cross-section.
This is about what we've always been.
This is what our economy creates. If we
grow, there's a good chance that your
growth from jobs, etc. will have an
income profile similar to what you see
here. Now, what the yellow, the middle
bar,
and the green bar are showing you is how
much housing is affordable. what
percentage of our housing stock is
affordable at each of those levels. The
yellow bar, the middle one is in King
County as a whole and the green one is
isqua.
You're not alone. Most of the cities I
work for have very similarly shaped
graphics when you put this slide up on
the wall. That's the situation in East
King County has been for some time. Um,
this is another illustration is what's
been going on with rents in our
community. And again, I've been tracking
rents for a long time. And this graphic
shows you a rent over time of what's
affordable at 80% of median, what is
affordable at 50% of median, and then
what have rents been historically in
East King County as a whole, at least
since 2000,
and what have they been in Isiqua since
2000.
What stands out to somebody who looks at
this chart?
The discrepancy
between
what's
what the average rents are in Isiqua and
what's affordable for people at those
two levels. Okay. Particularly in recent
years. Anything else? Okay. Any Yes.
Incomes aren't keeping up with rent,
right?
Okay. What else? There's one other thing
in this graphic that's a little
different for especially the last few
years.
The steepness of the curve. For those of
you who do math and statistics and
stuff, steep curve means a lot of change
fast. Okay. What is the scary thing to
me is we have seen trends where rents go
up and rents go down and rents go up and
rents go down. And if they did King
County, and this has been true since
I've been here since since 90, the King
County overall number would be like
following my arrow. East King County
rents have always been higher than
countywide. That's been going on for 25
plus for forever, but
they never went across the 80%
threshold. And whether or not we're
going to have a correction like we saw
here may or may not um because the
income profile is the same that we've
had in the past. But this is a trend
that I haven't experienced in 25 years
and that's a flag. Whether or not we
might correct, I don't know. But right
now, that's something we haven't seen
before. Is average rents above 80%
affordable at above 80% immediate.
So now, and I'm going to keep this
because we might need it later. So now I
got another chart I want to do with you.
And this other chart is so what do
cities do about this? Okay.
So now another sort of general
conversation
about what affects the housing that's
put on the ground in our community.
Okay. So who are the players that impact
the form, the price, the location, etc.
of housing in our community.
The first one I'll put is the land
owner. Okay? They want a certain price
for their land. So the first player is a
land owner.
They impact what goes on with housing.
Another one is the developer.
That's the one who actually comes in and
builds something.
Okay, I'm going to open it up. What
other players out there impact the
housing in our community?
Employers.
Employers. And what? Say a little bit
more.
some
you know when when they offer good jobs
then people want to move closer okay and
you know increase uh
okay right the services they have okay
very good okay that's good one others
transportation
okay I'm not going to put that's you
know that's not a bad one I wasn't one
that I was originally thinking know, but
I'm going to put it on because it does
you're it does have an impact. I call it
more of an indirect impact.
Real estate agents and real estate
agents. Okay. Real estate agents have an
impact.
Schools. Hm. Schools. Um that impacts
demand. So, I'm going to put that down
there like with transportation.
What else? Who else is kind of impacts
what that house looks like? The city
zoning city regulations, right? Land use
regulations
has a big impact.
All right. And I didn't say city and
there's a reason why. You'll find out in
a couple minutes. But say, okay, land
use regulations.
All right. Others? Banks. Hm. Banks.
Banks. I just I'm going to put
financing. Financing. Financing. Okay.
There's reasons I'm using some of the
terminology I'm using here. And you'll
again, like I said, see in a minute.
Financing. Okay. Who else? Permitting.
Okay. Land use and slashpermitting. Yep.
But that's they are different and
they're both important. So, they both
need to be acknowledged
especially for the work you'll be doing.
Okay. Who else?
What the house or homes or whatever it
look like? The builder, architect, the
architect, the designers. Okay.
All right. Who else?
Uh, government fees and taxes. Okay. I'm
going to put that under
What would I put that under? Sure, I'll
put that. All right, we'll put in we'll
put fees. Okay,
public fees. Okay, what else? There's a
couple other players that were in my
mind. Construction market, general
contractors. Okay, so there you have the
builder. So, I'm going to put the
developer and actually, you know, the
builder is separate from the developer
and they can have an impact. Okay,
there's a couple other players. City
council. H city council. Um, no, I'm not
going to say council. I'm gonna put them
under land use regulation city, but
you're getting a little closer.
There's two main players that we haven't
talked about yet. Uh, state. Nope. Well,
yeah. I mean, yes. The market. Thank
you. The people are going to live in the
housing. The owners. Yeah. Right. The
buy the restorers. I'm going to call
them the res. But now take that same
concept and twist it a little
differently.
There's very similar but twisted. The
renter, the neighbors.
Okay. Neighbors have often a huge impact
because they provide input that affects
what councils are willing to do. In my
life, neighbors have been a huge impact
on what I do. Okay. So, neighbors. So,
that's a pretty full list, right?
There's probably a couple more, but that
gives you an idea. All of these things
affect housing. Now, most people I often
hear say, "Oh, government should get
involved with housing." And when you
hear a statement like that, what are
they probably talking about? They're
probably talking about public housing,
big huge public housing projects.
They're bad. They were bad. They had
crime. They had this. They had that. And
the point I'm just trying to point out
is in those kinds of developments and so
people say because that went bad,
government's not good in housing. We're
a private market system to build
housing. Our our country relies mostly
on the private market. But the comment I
would make is in public housing
that probably the government, the public
was the land owner, the developer, the
designer. Oh, I forgot one. A big huge
one. Property manager.
Okay. So you have property manager.
Sorry, I knew there was one I was
forgetting.
And the government
played all of these roles.
They pretty much did a lot of these.
Okay. And what's changed a lot in the
last 20 years is that maybe government
still has a role but not quite the same.
That they can pick and choose in which
areas. are always you know land use
regulation that's the most obvious but
as you'll see in some of the strategies
I can just go through quickly government
can sort of pick and choose how they can
interject or involve in order to allow
the market to do its thing and sometimes
they just make it so the market can do
it on its own and other times they sort
of go we're going to help steer the
market but we're still not going to be
the managers but that's something to
think about is different ways government
can help shape these players in order to
create back to here the housing market
variety of needs and we rely primarily
we're a system that relies on the
private market. So trying to blend those
two things together is when you start
thinking about a plan and how to go
about doing a plan and where the city
interjects. So that's just sort of big
picture thinking as we move forward um
how to do it. So just examples of
strategies that cities have used and
you've used over the years. just a
couple real quick and we're going to
talk about this more in other meetings,
but things like accessory dwelling
units, allowing people to build small
apartments in their homes. Um, you've
done that. Um, other cities in East King
County have done that. The next example
here is where cities will say I have
um we're going to change the zoning and
as a result of changing that zoning
we're going to ask tell request demand
the p the private builders to include
some housing at certain price points.
You have that up in Isqua Highlands. You
have it in the development agreement
that Christy was referring to. They have
it in other agreements. you have it in
your central Isco plan and other cities
in East County have been doing the same
thing. We're going to allow you to build
more. We want to capture some public
benefit out of doing that. We're going
to target it to certain needs. Other
times, it's just allowing the market to
be able to be more flexible to respond
to this circumstance.
Do you let the market decide? The
example I gave in Redmond, a builder
said, "I can build these really small
units and they will fill up and it will
meet a need." city had to do some stuff
with its code to make that product work.
Okay. So, that's another example of
doing that. Parking requirements. A lot
of cities are looking at that and I know
that's going to be an issue you're going
to talk about. What's the balance for
parking? Um because especially more and
more so it's becoming an expensive cost.
So, the builders say we want to do less.
You got transit. Do you need as much?
And others saying wait a minute, we
don't want spillover parking. Um so
there's a variety of types of things you
can do with your land use regulations
that are listed here. Another example
is, and I don't have anything listed for
Isiqua, is some cities now exempt
property taxes for a period of time on
buildings in exchange for some of the
units being affordable. So, they're
playing basically the fees and financer
financing piece that I had listed here,
right? They're saying we can do that,
but it's still going to be a private
developer. It's still going to be a
mark, you know, most of the project
market rate, but some portion of the
units will still be privately managed
just like all the others. But we can use
a financing tool in order to help the
private market meet a need that we've
identified. When cities do that, they'll
say this is the need we want. This is a
gap we see in the city and that's where
we want to go. Same thing with impact
fees. Sometime, you know, that was on
the list here, fees. Some cities will
wave the fees. you've done that quite a
bit up in Isqua Highlands and other
areas when projects meet certain
affordability requirements.
Um these are all let's see then the
other is the city of Isiqua combined
with other cities have actually put up
money and then that money gets shared by
cities to directly assist housing that
will be affordable. Usually those
projects are then going after state
money, federal money, county money, and
that's where we are able to get to much
lower income levels and serve people in
the 50% to 30% level. So that's
something that has been uniquely done in
East King County where sh cities share
their funds and and move them around.
And then sometimes when we do it, we
specifically are looking for people who
are going to provide housing that meets
people with special needs. Many of you
probably know of Leo House in town.
Serves people with disabilities. Um, we
have several groups on the east side who
are serving homeless households. You did
something with Compassion House where
the city donated a house and somebody
donated a piece of land and people vote
donated labor and that became a house
for people who are homeless. Um, so
sometimes you're combining private and
public resources um in order to make
special needs housing happen. And then
sometimes you supported through the
trust fund homeless housing in your
neighboring cities. Belleview and and uh
Belleview has some um in projects in
their community. and as does other
cities on the east side.
So in the past using the tools that we
have at our disposal um they generally
fall into three categories. One is when
you the purple bar I show here is when
just by allowing the market to build
more diverse forms of housing they on
their own create housing that is at a
lower price point than it might
otherwise you know by allowing multif
family housing by allowing things along
those lines. The second is the green
section which is direct indirect or the
the uh land use provisions. That's where
you say we let you build more you do
affordability but you have to do a
certain amount of affordability and
we're going to covenant it to make sure
it stays affordable over time. Um
accessory dwelling units we also put in
that category because they almost are
always affordable in the moderate income
range. And then the the light blue is
looking at um when the direct assistance
donating land is another way cities have
done direct assistance general fund
dollars. What this is showing you is
that when we try to help the 50% and
below, we almost always need to have
direct assistance. We can't just use the
market or those land use tools to get to
that affordability level. It's really
hard. A couple times we have, but not
often. It takes that extra direct
assistance because of the income level
and the rents people can afford versus
the cost of creating that housing. And
but when we do moderate income, all of
these tools have worked that all these
different things of trying to get other
players involved can help create
diversity of housing and affordability
in your community. What this graph is
also showing you is we had some goals in
the original set of plans that said our
goal would be to build 445 affordable
units to low income every year. We hit
about 22% of that number in that first
20 years of Arthur's existence. We
managed to get around 80% of the goal or
even higher for moderate income but with
a couple caveats. one and that was
because we used all those different
tools and for Isiqua your numbers look
very very similar you got about within
Isiqua through your efforts you were
right around 23 24% of your low-inccome
goal and you were right about 90% for
moderate income what was different about
you is you got more of your moderate
through all those land use requirements
up in the in the MP in the master plan
developments you got a lot through that
um the other is is that most of the
stuff in moderate is rental housing
not much of its ownership. You do have
some ownership and so therefore you
might not be you have it technically in
the categories that are moderate but
it's not necessarily spread across the
board of all these different needs we
talked about in terms of rental and
ownership or larger units versus more
more smaller units especially for the
market. The market rate units affordable
to moderate income are usually smaller
units that are built and this is new
production. This isn't existing. Okay.
And so finally, this is the report card
that staff does. And this is now going
back to that countywide need, which is
saying if we had a perfect world, every
city would have 12% of its housing
affordable to very low income, 12% to uh
low income, 30 to 50% of median, and 16%
to moderate. And what this is showing
you is the city's at about when you look
at all housing, both the new and
existing, you're at about 3% 3% and 15%.
Okay. Um, and then what I showed you on
the bottom is the thing I just explained
on the previous slide. This is what you
did relative to your growth. And if you
had done 24% of your growth, you would
have been at 815 and you got about 24%
of that number. You got 191. So this is
just different ways of thinking about
what have you accomplished over time and
where do you look at today. And then my
final two thoughts, and this is actually
a slide that I think um you saw from
Trish, is this is the beginning of the
matchup between here and here. What is
your mix in terms of tenure? You've got
condos, town homes, and apartments. And
then what's their mix in terms of size
of units? And uh Trish already made some
comments and observations from that, so
I won't repeat those.
And then finally is you have a certain
profile of housing today which is what
the first column is. The second column
is saying what is the potential profile
based on existing zoning. So that's
saying that you can get about another
375
or so single family homes and the rest
would be you have some like low mid-rise
or low uh medium density town homes and
then the vast majority in terms of your
capacity under zoning is that sort of
the four three to five story woodframe
type buildings and and then so you can
see well that's what we have today. This
is what our projection would be. What
does it look like when you put it all
together? And that's what the last
column is. Um, and so whether or not the
mix will be, this is showing no condos.
That's because right now, the last few
years, the market hasn't been building
condos. Will that change in the next 20
years? We don't know. But right now,
there's constraints to people building
condos. So they're saying it may be
primarily rental is what they're
implying. Um, I've seen market shifts
where sometimes it's all rental, then it
goes condos and back and forth, but
there are some constraints to that. So
this is just sort of general overview of
different ways of thinking about housing
as you move forward on your overall
strategy plan.
Any comments or questions or thoughts
initially?
Why would condos be under pressure?
Because I would expect as real estate
prices go up, your demand for lower
cost housing would go higher. Therefore,
condos would be the first thing I would
see increase, right? It should be
happening now. There's two there's a
couple different Well, anyone have any
ideas why we're not seeing condos built
right now? There's a couple potential
reasons. A lot of people don't want high
density, but I think the high density is
already being planned. It just hasn't
been built yet. Well, what I also, if
you look at that previous slide, you'll
see or that slide we had, a lot of
condos were built. A lot. In fact, we
were seeing about 30% or more of the
multif family housing built before the
recession were condominiums.
So, there was a market acceptance for
condominiums. So there, that's why I'm
saying it's strange that we're, you
know, from a market point of view, from
looking at this, everything says condos
should be on the rise. Okay, they should
be. And we are seeing very high-end
condos being built, but we're not seeing
the mid and lower price condos being
built. And there's potentially two
reasons why. There's three reasons why,
actually. Is that because the real
estate when during the real estate boom,
the condos took the hardest hit and
therefore people don't it's more
volatile? That's very close. people who
bought those are nervous about buy I'm
sorry are nervous about buying.
The millennials haven't gotten back on
the home ownership market yet because
they watched what happened. That's one
of the theories that's out there is that
they prefer the flexibility and not you
know what if there's another housing
bust. They don't want to go through
that. So that's one of the ideas that's
out there is that the market's a little
reluctant. the younger market's a little
re reluctant at this point in time to
get back into ownership um kind of
thing. So that's one of the theories. Do
people who want to own not want to be
part of homeowner associations where the
fees are going to go up? No, because
condos are out there. There's a lot of
condos were built and were filled and
we're doing fine. You know, they're out
there. So I can't I would say maybe but
that we didn't have that before. Were
you gonna Yes. you made reference to the
uh the impact um well the the regional
impact of our neighbors in Belleview and
how uh the the housing decisions and
marketplace there impacts us and vice
versa. I'm thinking larger for a second.
What uh what are we dealing with in
terms of you know neighbors to the
northwest the issues in BC? There's, you
know, there's new stories about dollars
coming from overseas and buying downtown
Seattle. Now, um some of those things,
how does that play in or not play in?
Maybe. Has anyone heard about how that's
impacting East King County?
I don't know if it's landed in Isiqua.
It sure has landed in Belleview. They
buy the homes. They're not they might
buy condos, but they're buying homes.
foreign money is b increasingly buying
single family homes in our market area.
So that's one thing we've seen. So the
other is a more subtle is that there's
liability issues with building condos
that are different and it's too much
risk. So we're still seeing high-end
condos built because there the margins
are enough that they can deal with that
issue and stuff. And they're also using
non-wood frame construction. Um, and so
liability has been one of the things
we've heard from the building industry
is it's too much risk for them in order
to go into that market. And then the
third reason is with low interest rates
and cap rates where they are, the
economics of multif family rental are
working as well as they've ever worked
for people who are developing. So you're
normally right. Your point was right on
to say, gee, you would think condos
would be able to outbid or whatever the
land for uh over rental. And that's
exactly what was happening in the early
2000s. Um, is that renter developers
couldn't compete on the land price, but
right now because of low interest rates
and everything like that, they're on it
on a more of a par from sort of the
investor point of view. So that's so
those are three different there might be
others, but those give you some of the
things that are out there. Um, and so as
a result, we're having an area that was
being served. Um because the average
size condo that's been built in the LA,
you know, that was built in the early
2000s is probably as large as the
average single family home built in the
50s and early 60s
because homes used to be really small
when they were built. They were under
1,000 square feet. So in terms of living
square footage, a condo isn't all that
different than all those small homes we
were building um in the general market
in the 50s and 60s. So it's sort of like
they've become a new form of, you know,
but they're serving a similar need.
So
great. All right. Lots of good
information and it really helps to
provide a broader context because as we
as we know we are in a within a region.
Um so uh I'm here tonight to talk a
little bit about the housing strategy
and the and the process for the public
outreach we're we're doing. So, one of
the things the key things we're doing is
to hold some uh focus groups and to talk
to individually because obviously this
is a really this is you know all these
questions you kind of start seeing the
data and you start thinking about it. Um
we so we know that we want to hear the
different voices in our community and so
we decided to do focus groups and here's
a list of the focus uh groups that we
plan on doing um at the end of for from
now until the end of the year. Um we
have conducted three focus groups so far
for the businesses and school district
and the rest will happen after this
meeting and I'll talk a little bit more
about that later. We plan having this is
our first of our uh joint three
commission meetings and we'll have
another one in the beginning of next
year in about February January February
to come together provide the information
that we've heard so far and get your
feedback and input. Then we plan on
doing some neighborhood outreach. And so
those are going to be broader
communities for the community to come in
and listen to the things that we've
heard from the focus group. We plan on
developing some themes to test out with
the community and see are these things
um themes that you feel are a good fit,
the things we should be addressing in
our housing strategy. And then we'll
also do an online survey. Again,
realizing there's multiple ways to to
get input in from our community. So,
anybody can go, employees, employers,
visitors, residents, um, can go in and,
uh, complete the online survey when we
have that point. So, you guys are on the
ground floor of what we're doing here
for this housing strategy. So, as we go
along, don't be shy about saying, "I
have an idea. Have you thought about
this?" Um, we're definitely looking to
move move this forward. Question,
are we able or will we be able to watch
those focus groups? Um it was horrible.
Well, we actually had a commissioner uh
each from each of the commissions were
uh invited to the focus groups. We
invited the chair to them and so um so
we'll do it that way. The focus groups
are meant to be smaller groups and we so
we don't want to videotape them or you
know we want them to feel comfortable
talking so far but definitely in the
future for the future focus groups if
you have an interest in being in one of
those feel free to let your commission
uh staff person uh know and we'll
definitely uh get you more information
about that. So I think it's helpful yeah
to hear the conversation and and really
you know you're sitting there and you're
listening and you can definitely
contribute but it's about listening and
hearing and bringing that information
back to the commission. So um so I
wanted to first let you know so um you
know I work with the economic vitality
commission and I want to give you a
little bit since we started off with the
businesses I wanted to give you a little
bit of context of what we know about our
business community so far. Um we just
conducted um a 2016 business community
survey and as one of the results of that
showed that um Isiqua is a great place
to do business, right? So we know that
Isiqua is a great place to live. We've
heard that a lot from our residents.
Businesses also um kind of have
responded back and so um we did the same
survey four years ago and as you can see
the uh positive rate has increased. So
that's great. So things are working well
for our businesses. You know, obviously
the worldwide recession is improving,
but um they are also uh liking to do
business here in Isiqua. But we did have
um we did ask them what things are
working, what things are not working.
And this is a bubble chart uh a bubble a
cloud word word cloud um obviously. So
the larger uh words, the ones that have
responded more often. So no surprise
traffic is one of the concerns that
businesses have here. Um, anybody have
any comments about any of the other
words up there that kind of surprised
them or
affordable housing is on there? And
that's one something that's new has kind
of uh increased in in our results from
the last time and I think that has a lot
to do with them being able to to attract
and retain their um workforce. Anything
in there that surprises you or is
missing? Utilities because gas prices
have gone down. So, I don't know how
utilities would be
power outages,
internet service, broadband, fiber, the
whole the whole gamut of utilities.
Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Right. Yeah. So, um so
again, these are the Yeah. So, when you
say affordable housing recently popped
up, meaning on the previous survey, it
wasn't there. Is that what you said?
Yeah. I'm checking with our uh business
survey guru back in the back and yeah,
she's shaking her head. Yes. So, that
was a new response that that made it to
this level. Yes. But looking at the size
of the text, then I can see that it's
maybe very low on the list.
It's at the lower end, but it's not
like, you know, one or two responses.
And actually, if Andrea wants to chime
in, there's a microphone right there.
You can repeat this for me. You can
right there. Affordable housing came up
in other ways and we Great. Thank you.
Affordable housing came up in other
conversations too with the businesses
when asking about uh recruiting a
workforce and what they saw their
challenges were in terms of workforce
availability. They cited affordable
housing to be a concern because a lot of
uh most of their employees couldn't
afford to live in Isiqua and that was a
barrier to them for accessing talent.
Um, so we did hear about affordable
housing in a couple different ways from
businesses and overwhelmingly much more
so than in 2012.
Okay. And just to add on to that, would
it be safe to assume
that
regarding the retention comment or
turnover comment is because it's traffic
too hard to get in here? Is that a safe
assumption? That's yes. Okay, that's
part of it. Yes. And so, um, and we'll
be talking about that what we've heard
in actually in the focus groups in a
minute. So, yeah. And the
distance from Seattle, um,
was that at all related to the
differential in uh, pay scale?
I don't think so. No. Okay. Yeah.
So then the uh looking at what the the
businesses really liked about Isiqua and
if you look at this it's really pretty
much what residents also like correct.
So you have you talk about the natural
beauty the quality of life accessibility
the close-knit uh community historic
downtown. So so our business owners and
employee employees are very much um in
line with what why residents um like to
be here.
So knowing that we um we sat down and we
had three focus groups um in the in this
actually in the last three days and we
uh met with large employers in one
group. We met with um some small
businesses and the chamber and the
downtown is association in the next one
and then we also sat with sat down with
the school district in the third. And
we're just kind of digesting that
information now. But um uh these are the
general themes that we've heard in these
in these um focus groups. And I want I
want to encourage any of the
commissioners that have sat in those
focus groups to chime in anytime they
like uh along the way. So basically um
one of the first one was about the
affordability concerns and ownership and
rental. And so I think um we all know it
may be challenging to purchase a home
here in Isiqua and we may have heard
that it's also challenging uh for
affordability for rental. But one of the
things that they really brought out was
that um while we may think, oh, it's
cheaper to rent than to own is that the
uncertainty of renting here or renting
actually anywhere in our region um is is
a detriment because they they know the
rate there's a a fear that the rates
will go up pretty quickly at their next
um lease turnover. And there was an
anecdotal story of an employee who was
recruited into the area. he was looking
at the new apartment complex here. Um,
and there's a three-month delay. I'm not
sure if it was for his job or for the
apartment community. And when he came
back, it was a $500 uh increase in what
he was quoted the first time around. So,
um, those are things as people think
about what I'm going to do, where I'm
going to live. So they are then so then
what what business employers had told us
is that so then they decide instead of
renting uh closer to work if they feel
that they have to go someplace to own
they have to go farther to actually
purchase. So it actually encoura there's
there's less stability in knowing that
okay I can afford rental now but I may
not be able to afford it in six months
or a year when my lease comes up.
Any additions or thoughts with that from
folks? Okay. people were moving further
away to find affordable housing. Yes.
Yes. Right. And and because of the rent,
usually renting is kind of the easy way
to to afford a community, but the fear
that you you won't be able to afford it
pretty soon encourages you to move out
farther even quicker than you may
normally want to go and own. And so it
yeah pushes you out a little farther. Um
then there's missing diversity of
housing types. And I think um Arthur uh
talked a lot about this. the um pretty
much across the board two bedrooms is
what people want whether it's a house or
apartment or a condo and um I think what
uh the chamber prese director mentioned
that uh she had heard somebody recently
talk about how we thought that the baby
boomers as they uh were downsizing the
millennials would take over their
housing right so I you know I'm a baby
boomer my kids are gone I'm gonna I want
to downsize the millennials will be
starting to have families and go and and
move into those homes. Well, what's
happening is they are all wanting to
have either the smaller home or the the
condo townhouse that doesn't have as
much yard work so they can go enjoy life
and uh have time for the things they
besides yard work. And as we look at
what was being built in our last 10 or
so years, it's not the two-bedroom condo
or house. If there's any place where
there is a two-bedroom house, it's it's
very sought sought after. So, um, look,
people like the idea of accessory
dwelling units, mother-in-law
apartments, other things, but we don't
see that as as, uh, growing quickly in
our community. We see the three and
fourbedroom homes that are being built.
Um, and now, you know, a little bit
uptick of the multifamily
transportation. Yes. So, traffic,
transportation is is important. Um
getting people in and in and around town
is of course challenging. Um and also
uh we had a lot of uh businesses who
talked about shifting their start times
in order to uh allow their employees to
come in later to avoid that that
traffic. But then sometimes it didn't
work because their clients needed them
there at 8 or 9:00. So they uh some
businesses that worked okay for some
didn't and some you know weren't able to
be that flexible. And so again, small
businesses, large businesses are dealing
with having um not just affordable
housing, but how do people get in and
around? And they even mentioned about
not even getting into the city and out
of the city, but around the city during
the day and how challenging it is. One
employer talked about how his uh
employee who lives in Isiqua, I think is
actually right outside of Isiqua. He
comes in on Isiqua Hobart Road.
Sometimes he's the one that's late the
most often because of traffic. So, um,
we may think, oh, it's so hard to get
from he, uh, from north or from, uh,
from other areas, but sometimes getting
around the city can be just as
challenging.
Um, so ret recruitment and retention of
employees. Um, so again, not having
housing that they can afford nearby. Um,
one of our um, employers talked about
that he may get a really good
salesperson and they are they're fine
driving a little bit uh, farther than
they normally would. Um, as soon as they
get kind of some experience under their
wings and they can transfer to another
location that's closer to home, they're
gone. So, he's constantly renew, you
know, kind of losing employees um, and
having to start the team over and then
keeping employees. Um, so we talked to
the school district today and they also
talked about once you once um, uh,
they've been in this in the school
district for a couple years and get some
experience and there's if there's an
opportunity to be closer to where they
can afford to live, they usually take
that option. And I think, you know,
there's a lot of um, and that goes into
the next one. There are a lot of reasons
for the housing choices people make. And
as you think about where you have chosen
to live or where you have cho in the
past, it's not just affordable housing,
although that may be part of it, right?
You may be making decisions for based on
on all these things here. So, who's
who's the person that first got a job
and where they moved from? Um what
what's most important to you? Do you
prefer to be in a more open area? You
want a more urban set area? Um, I think
one of the things that uh that some of
the uh employers talked about is that
their young employees want to be close
to amenities. So we, you know, we think
about the Bellev or downtown, but they
also like the outdoors. So Isiqua is
attractive for that. And we are trying
to add more of those amenities and more
of those um entertainment options so
that people can go and and feel like
there's some some opportunities in the
evening to go out and and and uh enjoy
themselves.
And then um as Arthur also uh talked
about is that uh we we asked them
because we c we know we can't solve all
housing issues at once right here at the
city. We're trying to really figure out
where can we best have an impact and
again this is three focus groups so this
is not the answer yet. Um, but what
really seemed to be key is talking to
the employers is if we could provide
some more housing opportunities for
those who make between 40 and $60,000,
that would really help them. Now, that
doesn't mean that all their employees
make between 40 and 60. That that's a a
key area of um of their employees that
would really help to keep them there,
help them to attract other employees
from other areas. And um so that was
just something again from three focus
groups that we heard that was about in
that range.
Any questions or comments
or anything that people like to add who
who sat in in those u focus groups? So
Joan joined us, Derek joined us, Christy
joined us, Elizabeth was there as well.
Thank you for all for doing that. Yes,
Richard. Where do the lower income
employees in Isiqua live now?
I don't know that I know that. Um there
are some there are some uh low-income
housing op uh complexes or apartments
here in um or housing in Isiqua. I don't
there is a I believe there's actually a
map in your packet that shows those are
the subsidized ones. Um in general um I
think what are we heard from employers
that those are not living in Isiqua.
They're living That's what I was
assuming like or so. Oh, okay. So, we
asked Yeah, we did we we did ask where
they are mostly coming from and south.
So, you're talking about Maple Valley,
you're talking about Reton, you're
talking about Kent, Auburn. Sometimes
people talked as far away as uh the
other side of Tacoma. Um and uh yeah, I
think we had a Black Diamond. Ellen,
Black Diamond. Yeah. Uh Ocean Shores for
one person, but that was a per that was
a nursing staff that actually could stay
overnight. They they worked three days
in a row and then So, shift work. I
mean, that was one of the things in a
couple of our businesses and not just
the hospital, but shift work also
allows. So, if you're working for three
days and you're off for four or five,
maybe that drive isn't so bad, right?
You're coming in and driving out on on
an odd shift. So, again, that's more of
the the reasons for your your housing
choices. You may you may be fine with
that, but I think, you know, our goal is
to allow you the opportunity if you want
to live in Isiqua um to have that
choice right?
Hey, Jen. Yeah. Um, and Arthur probably
can answer this better. Um, as a
developer, you always have a hard time
of saying, "How do you make these
pencil?" I mean, at the end of the day,
you got to be able to afford it. Um,
I've grown up in the area. I grew up
down south as a kid, so I watched Summer
grow like crazy, and my dad commuted to
Boeing. That's where you could afford to
live. And I think for generations, it's
always been that way. I mean, there's
just certain income levels that have
different areas to live. And
unfortunately, it's just very difficult
with a we're constrained by geographic
challenges here. We've got wetland
issues. We've got streams running
underneath everywhere to build something
that can make it truly affordable in
these numbers. It just it just doesn't
work. So, the question is how do you
make that work and how do you incent
developers to look at it and say yes,
this is going to work for us and we can
develop. Well, I think that's what we're
hoping to and I'll let Arthur come up
and talk. I think he had one of those
slides that talked about them, you know,
tax tax credits and or exemptions and uh
fee waiverss and those types of things.
So, if you have some other question or
answers, but that's one of the things
we're looking at. So, if we want to do
that, what are our tools?
So, I'm going to take the liberty to say
there were two questions in there. One
is sort of the historic patterns of some
areas just have had lower, you know,
that lower cost housing and people
commute. I think, you know, I first
lived here in the 70s and you could
commute from here to Seattle in 30
minutes or less. What's often a key
issue for location is how how long it
takes. It's not necessarily what mode,
it's how long does it take you to get to
your job. And if you're spending an hour
and a half, then it starts to be a
burden. So, sort of like it's sort of
I've heard it's 20 minutes is the goal,
but 20 to 30 minutes is when people are
like, "Okay, whatever." And then so if
you drew a map back in 1970s and you
said what can you get to in 30 minutes
you'd see a different size circle than
when you have that today. So the company
that I work for in the barrier was
formed by the business community where
that was already happening. Same issue
and they were saying we've got to find
ways to get that time down. So we are
going to create a company to build
different cost housing because otherwise
we're worried about recruitment etc and
we need a better balance in our
community. So it's about time. I mean I
mean it's about the issue of time and
how that plays out for getting to work.
Now in terms of what do we do? That's
what we're saying is the different
strategies that we've had. Sometimes the
strategies are how do you ooch the
market within a normal market rate
development. So that's where you allow
more units where some of them now come
down to a different price point. And the
two main tools that we use are more
density because land is an expensive
component. So if you can get them more
density, you essentially got them free
land, but instead of having all the
units a little bit less, you say, let's
take that extra density and have some of
the units be at a lower point. The other
is property taxes or fees is so you're
taking costs away from the developer so
that that allows the math to work. The
other is when we provide then direct
assistance that's also leveraging that's
usually also leveraging other subsidy
sources. And so that's basically a
different financing mechanism where the
the user of that in exchange for not
having to pay it back or having really
really low interest rates gets to have
to have certain amount of housing
affordable. But when you combine your
city resources with higher, you know,
state and county resources, that allows
us to get all the way down to 30 and 50%
of median because of it's just like you
say, it's all math and things along
those lines. So a little bit of all of
those factors um are part of what you're
saying and that's one of the ch and then
other times like I said the example in
Redmond is would somebody have built a
200 to 300 foot unit 15 years ago here?
No. But when they build it now it gets
filled. People might you know people
sort of look at housing a couple
different ways. One is what you'd like
to have and what works for you. Okay.
And sometimes that second one, look at
how many of you were in when when you
were students lived in something
significantly small when you were doing
that. How many of you were in dorms or
something along those lines? You did
that for how long? Maybe four or five
years. So that's a need out there. Um
and so the market sometimes we as
communities assume what is good housing
and we assume it over when we don't
think about everybody but some of the
stuff we think isn't good housing for
somebody else maybe it works just fine
and so one of it is do you that's where
I say the neighbors can come in and
affect what happens is do you let the
market how far do you let the market go
to being creative in doing this kind of
stuff so those small units in Redmond
not a dime of subs subsidy. Okay, he's
getting more per square foot than
anybody else and his rents though are
affordable at 55% of median income.
They're really small, but there are
enough people and not all singles are
going to do that, but he's found 300
people in Redmond who are willing to do
it. So that's, you know, so all of those
are parts of get what you're asking.
Just a follow up on that. I think one of
the other stats that might be
interesting is know how many people
actually have vehicles and commute
versus is it a onecar family, twocar
family, threecar family, sixcar family,
you know, I mean, so u back to your
micro units. I mean, who would have
thought downtown Seattle you could build
an apartment building with no parking at
all, right? I mean, I would never do it,
but other developers have figured out a
way to do it, right? Good point.
Yeah.
So, um I do have another question. I
might have to go back to your slide that
shows his slide. His slide. Yes. That
shows um
proportional need of low and very low. I
thought it was like 13% or something and
we only have 3%. Um
if you could go back to that. What?
What? I My question is um is that it is
that the right one? It's a table. I
thought the one that showed the 3%. You
had the 3% 3%. Okay, got it. I think you
mean
that one. Correct. Thank you. So, um,
what what I think I understand so far is
that we have a proportional need and and
my question is going to be I could you
walk through that just again quickly on
how that 12% is derived. But what I'm
hearing is is that we only have 3%
compared to the 12%. Right. And then I
see information from focus groups
saying, "Yeah, you know, we're having a
little bit bit of a retention problem
with our employees because it's too hard
to get here and they have to live too
far away. So, it's hard for me to
connect the dots that we're having a
crisis. Mhm. But I think it is it fair
to say that we're seeing enough evidence
that I um we do have a shortage of some
sort. It's hard for me to get to the
shortage you're showing in the table.
12% versus 3%. It seems like a huge gap,
right? But I'm not seeing evidence that
we're that that that screams to me
crisis, but I'm not seeing other
evidence of oh my god, I hear about it
in Seattle maybe, but maybe not here in
Isiqua. So, okay. Can you can you cover
again just quickly how the proportional
need of 12% was was derived? So the 12%
is that is saying that
when we look at the county as a whole
and I kind of call that an economic area
that of all the households 12% of the
households earn 0 to 30% of median
income. That's what their income is and
then another 12% have incomes between 30
and 50. And my com and and what's
interesting is now we do this data all
the time. You know, this is census data
and they do it now on a rolling basis,
but for most of my life, it was every 10
years they'd ask this question. And they
always ask that question based on our
peak economy years. You know how we've
had our cycles? Our cycles of peak
economy have coincided with the years of
the census 79, 89, right? 99. They're
all that's usually when our peak economy
is. So what that is telling us is that
even in a peak economy period that's the
profile of households income and it
hasn't shifted. If anything what's
happened you know you hear about the
disparity of incomes that incomes are
sort of nationally more you know that
maybe the percentage has gone up a
little bit of the very low income and
and low income relative to and then has
gone down a little bit in the middle and
then has gone up a little bit at the
high end. Generally speaking, this is
the percentage distribution we get from
the economy of King County. Now, that's
why I made the point about, well, that's
King County's economy. We have higher
median income here, but that's of the
people who live here. That's why I made
the point earlier, your profile of your
jobs in this community, and we have a
chart that we've done that shows the
profile, how many jobs are at different
income levels. Your profile is very
similar to the countywide averages. If
anything, you're a little bit lower. So
that would imply that from your
workforce you are probably generating
households that is a mixture that's not
that dissimilar than these countywide
figures. Okay. Okay. So that's where
that's coming from. Now you say where
are the numbers and you're right and I
showed it two different ways because
we've kind of changed how we look at it.
This middle chart is looking at overall
housing supply which is how we're asked
to sort of think about it now. What we
were asked to do from 1992 until this
year, so almost 25 years, is take it as
a percentage of your growth. We're we're
not going to make you think too hard
about all the existing inequity. Let's
just try to deal with the growth
component each city. And so that's we're
showing you numbers here that you would
have created 815, you know, based on
your growth targets, you would have
created 800 units that are affordable up
to 50% of median and you created 191.
You would have created 540 units
affordable between 50 and 80 and you
actually created 477. And that's where
I'm saying now is when you really start
getting in the strategy plans. You heard
the comments from the employers saying
stuff. Well, probably very little of
that housing is ownership. It's almost
all rental and it's mostly probably
smaller rental. But there is a certain
amount that is because for you at least,
you did have the requirement in Isqua
Highlands and in in Talis that they had
to do a lot of the developments included
it and they had to have the same unit
mix as the rest of the development. So
you probably have a better mix than most
cities within this moderate range of
meeting a wider range because you have
ownership units in there which very few
cities have any of in that in this 477
figure but you did get that through that
intentional activity. Okay. So, it's
important to not is to also start
looking at this chart because in a
healthy housing market,
firsttime home buyers, when you get to
70% of median income, you should be able
to start thinking about, hm, maybe I
could be a homeowner. Okay, that's if
you look at historic nationally and
stuff. That's about the income level
where hm I should be able to save a
little bit. I should lowerric ownership
homes in a healthy market where you want
people moving through from being renters
to owners and then up to scale. That's
where you ideally want to start having
some housing affordability for
ownership.
Thank you. So could you go to slide 13
because I think that the other side of
the coin is well how much does it cost
us to create these units? And so you
mentioned uh if sort of it's the
moderate income segment the 40 to 60k
that uh was what the initial survey said
was the gap and it looked like we were
successful relatively on the if I'm
looking at the right hand side of the
chart and that on the past. Do you have
a sense for how much that cost the
community or the city or the tax base?
Great great question. And before you
answer it, I think the other important
thing that I'm thinking about is in the
context of, hey, part of all the
complaints about traffic are because
people can't live here. So there's
there's as many people trying to come in
as there are people that live here going
out. So if you could live and work in
the same community and we're putting up
bills with with substantial price tags
um on that side to solve something. This
is kind of um as I see it very linked uh
in that if you provided different
solutions you might have fewer people
commuting um which would be a different
way other than trying to build more
roads or improve the roads we have to
reduce traffic and and kind of help
everyone out. A quick note on that front
is in California, they have figured out
in the Bay Area that they get more bang
for their bucks in some circumstances to
use transit dollars to build housing
right next to transit stations because
the people who live in that housing are
going to use transit versus other roads.
And they've actually found they get more
the amount of wrership they get from
doing that is as high as is it makes up
for the cost of building the housing.
Now, but going to your other question
about um the cost here, which is a great
point, and that is that the purple bar.
Now, the answer to that question
depends
also
on
which
who you're asking. It's not the same for
everybody. Okay? So, I'm going to give
an illustration of that in a minute. So
theoretically the market doesn't cost
the public anything per se but some
people would say but I need all these
roads that need to get built if I let
there be more housing built. So right so
there can be different ways of looking
at that. Um there is no capital housing
outlay per se but now you've got a city
with people if you use it you know if
you have diversity of housing. Now that
may or may not be the case but diversity
of housing theoretically is you're
letting the market play without any
direct intervention other than what you
allow get built. The green section
typically doesn't have a direct monetary
expense, but this is definitely one
where there might be considerations of
maybe there are costs because if you're
using more density to allow that to
happen with some of that being
affordable, some people will say there's
pluses and minuses to that extra
density, but there isn't a cash outlay
per se. Okay. So, for the green and the
purple bar, a lot of those don't have a
direct capital outlay. Now the light
blue bar is definitely a c direct
capital outlay of one form or another
can show up as property tax exemptions.
So you're foregoing tax revenue. Now
some people will argue but sometimes
that's getting stuff built that's paying
other forms of taxes that aren't
otherwise generated. And so therefore
why you're not getting one tax source,
you're getting the sales tax from the
construction. You're getting the sales
tax from the retail if it's built on the
ground floor if it gets built. that
sometimes there's other forms of
taxation that can help offset um or at
least help make that decision. Um but
again, there's a debate back and forth
there. So, it's that land donations. So,
if you have surplus land, you don't need
it for any other public purpose. Can you
use that land? And if you do, do you
make it available at some kind of
discount? Now, I got my living going
building on surplus school properties. I
didn't get a nickel off because they're
saying that's a public benefit. we need
the money from the land so we can't give
that up. So you are there's a trade-off
there of that money from a land sale
could be used for some other purpose. Um
but sometimes just having access to
land. So we we made a living doing
affordable housing even when we paid
market value because no one else would
even talk to us. At least the school
districts were willing to talk to us and
try to get us the land because they saw
we were building housing affordable to
their teachers maybe. Um, so there's,
you know, now one of the the things I
say because everyone says, "Well, you're
an affordable housing people. Why do you
care about housing?" And it's, this is
the chart that tells you why. Because
there is no way there's enough money and
there never has been in this country to
direct assist everywhere where if you
just let the market do it on its own,
that gap between what the market does
with nothing versus direct subsidy,
there's just not enough money. So the
better job every community does in
allowing that purple and green bar to
work than with the green with that light
blue your resources part you can serve
the hardest to serve need and still by
doing all three meet a wide range of
needs in your community. Again my
premise always is this is your goal and
that includes like I said Bill Gates as
well as the person with no income who's
homeless and standing on the side of the
road. Yeah. Um,
addressing cost, we have to look not
only at the cost of providing housing,
but in that discrepancy area between the
12% and the 3%. We have to look at the
cost of not having housing.
That's the 109 homeless school children,
the people who are packed in like
sardines.
uh into very small homes that they're
trying to share because there's nothing
left. Um
some of
some of the cost of not building the
housing is that we have people who
draw on the community for a whole lot of
needs that they wouldn't have if there
were housing.
So to that point, there's two words that
I, you know, when I'm trying to do this
and I look at the world when I'm working
on housing, I look at the world from the
point of the builder and I look at the
word world from the point of the
community and the existing and the
people who are having challenges. And
there are two words that stand out to me
when I'm trying to think about that. The
first word is for the builder. There's a
four-letter word that dictates the life
of a builder. Anyone know what that
four-letter word is?
Risk.
Okay, that shapes that. If you want one
word to define so much, the company I
work for, we worked with for-profit
developers and partnered with them. And
the whole thing we did is we said, how
can we reduce risk in exchange for them
giving us affordability as a
partnership? And there's so many ways
that plays out. time, costs, market
conditions, market profile. The word for
the community is stability.
Okay, that communities can be more
stable if they have a more diverse form
of housing. And the stability is for
those people who are struggling, but
it's also for the broader community.
People don't get insurance because they
can't afford it because they're doing it
all in housing. So, you have uninsured
people out in the community. That's just
sort of one kind of example. But part of
this is if you create stability for
families, it creates stability for
community as a whole. And there's lots
of different ways that can play out. So
the example with homeless is if they
don't if they have a home, they're not
using the emergency services which costs
a ton of money when they're constantly
in the hospital or high cost services.
And if you can get them in housing, they
don't cost that as much. So we can save
Seattle has a study that for one place
they built saves thousands and thousands
of dollars per year per person because
if they're on the street they're
constantly being going into emergency
services which cost a lot because they
have no insurance and the high stress
makes it harder for them to be
productive. Well, and that's right. So
if people are commuting an hour and a
half each way, how well are they doing
and they do you get a full eight hours
out of them or not? Or is it seven and a
half and some days seven? Those are all
different kinds of things that you know
potentially you think about. What
percentage of the need for affordable
housing do you think we can um achieve
under some reasonable plan moving
forward?
That's a great question and that's
something you're going to grapple a
little bit more with. Ryan, do you think
we can actually move the needle?
You know, there's sometimes I look at
stats for East King County and I go,
"Wow, we may be
we're getting really hit hard by the
really fast rising market rents because
that's taking the overall supply of
housing and making it less affordable.
So, if that bar doesn't, you know, that
chart if
if we don't see the kind of corrections
that we've seen in the past here, if we
get that correction, we get back down to
here.
there are it's been in a high-cost area
here. Sometimes when I look at the
numbers I can almost say, wow, we didn't
necessarily move the needle way up, but
we didn't go down and we didn't go
backwards, which in an area with a
booming economy is sometimes an
accomplishment. It hasn't gotten certain
things I look at, it hasn't gotten
worse. Um, but that's something you guys
are going to have to grapple with as we
talk about strategies because you can
see to get more done, there are choices
the community needs to make about what
they're willing to try to do to create
that diversity.
And the question becomes how far do you
want to go trying to achieve that? Um,
but you did get to 24% and 100 when you
looked at the growth projection
approach. you you know you can see some
numbers of relative to some numbers we
were working with how well we did. How
do we control rent in a matter because
we're in capitalism it's whatever the
market will bear. So if rent is going up
$200 a year and people are willing and
able to pay that then that is hence the
market rate and sustainable
to make it affordable. How do you
actually control the rent? Then if we
build affordable housing, let's say we
do, you know, 500 units of affordable
housing out on the valley, how do we can
keep it from going beyond the means of
the people who are living in the So
one thing this chart shows you is that
rents have a tendency if you take
economics or those kind of things, they
call it um liquidity or whatever that
fast reaction to conditions in the
market. And this is why this is so
surprising to me is because the rental
market income profile isn't all that
different. So why did this why has this
happened? Why didn't the market force a
correction already? And I don't know if
it's because the jobs housing ratios got
to a point where we only right the
supply only allows so much. So some
people would say supply and demand. If
you're going to generate jobs then
generate more housing. And if you
generate more housing, that will help
skew this. I do guarantee you, you know,
right now you literally have to pay a
reservation fee. This came up yesterday,
right, in one of the interviews. You
have to pay for the right to even submit
an application. Now, not accountant does
not go towards your first month's rent.
If you don't rent the unit, you don't
get the money back. They're doing that.
And they're not alone in your town.
We're seeing this around this region.
Now,
at this point in time, it probably felt
the same. At this point in time, you got
your first month free.
Okay, we won't see that forever.
There will be some correction at some
level, but some people would argue it's
supply and demand. So, one is supply and
the other is you can do a Detroit.
Okay? I mean, that's another part I
mean, that's part of the reality of
housing markets is Detroit used to have
some of the highest housing costs in
this country
back in the boom of the auto industry.
So, jobs, if jobs were to go away, that
would have an big impact. Now, we're all
hoping that doesn't happen. Um, that's
why things like this do happen, right?
This one is attributable to the dotcom,
right? Bust,
right? We had jobs go down in our
region. So rents went down. So it's a
that's why it's not a perfect answer. Um
but some people argue to some extent
it's supply. So you need to have supply
that's somewhat proportionate to your
demand, you know, your workforce and at
some level. Um some people resort to
rent control. Now that's not a common
approach and in this state it's not even
an allowed approach. But some areas have
said we're going to go that far with it.
not the typical American, you know,
economic system and it's not one that
I've ever worked within or have preached
or anything. It's just that yeah, you're
right. Your point is well taken is we're
you're not that's a really important
thing to keep in mind as we're doing a
strategy. You can't guarantee any result
overall in housing unless we completely
change our housing how we do our housing
market because most of our housing is
done through the private sector and
conditions impact them. If interest
rates all of a sudden go up to seven or
eight% versus 3 to 4% now that will have
a huge impact on what happens with
housing and this you know both ownership
and rental. So there's so many things
that you as government aren't act. It's
not like parts where you say we want 10
acres. This is how much money we need.
We're going to do it. It doesn't work
that because you are going to rely on a
lot of other players and all the
different factors that impact them.
Developers are driers are financing is
huge for what builders can do on a lot
of different fronts in a lot of
different ways. So that's one of the
challenges in this conversation is I
can't give you a guaranteed answer on
what if you do this you'll get that
answer. It's sort of what setting do you
get so that where will you be relative
to other players out there or other
cities? What can be done to enforce a
change in the numbers when a developer
applies for a permit to build in an area
I mean talking about isa
to increase the percentage of affordable
housing within the mega number of
housing that they're going to build. So
that's the the the primary thing that
you and other cities have done of
require at least a certain some
percentage that's not just pie in the
sky. You can't just say I want it to be
30% at 50% or 24% at 50 because that's
what our needs say we want. Then it's
going to make it the economics whoever
said all the things about the economics
not work. So you but you do that as a
starting that's one thing that a lot of
cities have done is say we want a
certain percentage at a certain
affordability price. So, I recently read
that there's a a permit and out of the I
can't remember the numbers of all the
housings, it was going to be one
affordable housing and it was going to
be be given to a firefighter or some
kind of you know, right? Uh employed
person, but what about those that are
homeless or that don't have the income
of a firefighter? I mean, we need to put
a stop and and push a little bit more
for those affordable houses. So, that's
we're gonna allow them to build in our
city, right? And so the general premise
has been that within the market, you're
not trying to dictate that level of
affordability that that requires such
low rents that it's unreasonable to ask
the private sector who has lots of costs
to buy land and build it and manage it
and everything. It just doesn't
correspond. And so that's where we use
the direct assistance to work with
people saying if we can get you're not
gonna have a lower cost, but if we can
cover a lot of the costs for covering
that cost with subsidies, etc., then we
can ask you to have really low rents.
And that's what you and that's where for
your numbers when we go back to that
chart, you did manage to get
um 400. You've got 200 units that are
priced at under 50% a median and some
are as low as 30%. Some have section 8
which means it's any income and you can
afford to live there. So to get to that
level that's where the direct assistance
tools have to come into play. And so
that's trying to attract
federal and state dollars because this
country has believed that we need to
supplement the market and often those
kind of dollars don't land in co in
communities like yours because the costs
are high. So the cities have used their
resources to say we'll help take some of
the edge off the higher costs here so
that we can help people who are going
after that state and federal money.
So you stay here stay here. Um so one of
the things that it's really tempting to
do is to try to figure out how we can
fix this. So but we are in still the
stage of figuring out the needs right
and so we wanted your role to help us.
So, one of the things that was your
homework was to figure out what what
piece of information was confusing, what
piece was really good because when we go
out and talk to the focus groups, when
we go out and talk to the to the uh open
houses and the community and broad
broader, we want to make sure that
information, you know, it it makes
sense. It rings true. It it kind of
provides some context. So, um I mean, we
could talk all night about how we can
fix this and that will be our our next
step, right? Our next conversations. So
is there anything that you of the data
you saw or that you have question more
questions about or that you think is
important for us to share? Are there
needs are there things that we are
missing with this? Um anything else that
we kind of need to be able to go and and
and help us inform the further
conversations and believe me we will be
back and we will not that we will have
the answer but we'll have more
information so that we can help and you
can help us grapple through what can we
do. So, is there anything else, Arthur,
that we need I know that you need to
leave at 8. Okay. Right. We'll start
with that. Yeah. So, is there of the
information you saw, is there any is
there anything again that sticks out?
Yeah, I I would like to see some of the
same data on the communities where we
think that the lower income workers are
coming to work in Isiqua, like Reton,
maybe Northbend, Victoria, I don't know.
Sure. And we do actually have data where
people are traveling from. So, um, and
we had that in our economic vitality,
uh, strategic plan. Um, so we can pull
that data. I'm not sure if it goes into
the income levels, but it gives you a
better idea. Sure. Okay. Actually, I'd
like to see a breakdown of the types of
rental units that we have in terms of
luxury condominiums versus the what
everybody else can afford. Okay. So, can
I ask a clarify question? Sure. So when
you are you saying
multif family what are rental what are
owner and then price points for both or
is that what you're asking? So we have a
lot of luxury condominium units that are
being built right and when I see your um
your averages is that a weighted average
or is that actually a straight average
because luxury can actually skew those
numbers substantially.
So you will see in that report and we
can but we can high this is helpful to
us because the report's big and fat. So
let's hone in on what ones most stand
out to you. So we do have information on
the profile of the pricing of both rents
and ownership housing. And I can't
remember for the ownership we know if we
know if it's condo or single family. So
is that what you're sort of asking for
is understanding the volume of units
that are on the market for rent right?
What per what portion of those are
considered luxury and what are
considered and I don't use the term
luxury I'll say how many have units with
rents over 2,000 versus how many have
rents between 1500 and 2 I mean we can
give you several cross profile works so
that gets at it will you also be
breaking it out by number of bedrooms
we'll have to do some research to see
what it takes to be able to have the
price point breakout also be done on a
unit size. That sounds like a cross tabs
is what they call it. And I'm not quite
sure how readily available, but we'll
check that since we have some
information that there's a particular
number of bedrooms that's the preferred
thing, right? It would be helpful. Look
into that.
So, one of the things that I think we've
seen, if we go back to the notion of
supply and demand for our specific
community, I think we owe it to
ourselves, and I might hopefully I'm not
complicating the issue too much, but
there's been a lot that has changed in
our region and in our economy in the
last five years. And so I think it's
really important to think about things
like climate refugees,
the tech sector growth, and also foreign
capital investment or foreign
individuals who are coming to live and
work here too because we might hit the
needle for our community specifically,
but if we're not aware of the forces
that are around us, I think we might
miss that. So I think having that
conversation and understanding the data
from a big picture is important.
And um so I think that that is that is a
key to understand. And then I also think
if it's possible to understand what the
2015 census data is telling us, I think
that it might tell a potentially
different story than what we saw in
2010. If you also look at it in context
of the Great Recession, so there's been
a lot of es and flows since that point.
That's where we want to ask you what's
I'm not going to redo that whole big
report. I don't expect which are the
pieces of data that getting that updated
information you think would be most
helpful. I have and if you don't have if
you have an answer right now I'll take
that but also that's what we need to
hear from you is because we do update
some of our data but we can't afford
every year to update all the data to but
we're more than happy for key data.
There is certain data we do every year
and you may already and so we there are
certain things we are tracking like
rents. We track rents every year. We
track ownership prices every year. So
there are certain things we are tracking
on a very regular basis. But it'd be
helpful to know it would help you. I I
have one I think just if we're trying to
fill out that grid, it looks like the
household data type data is 2010. So if
there's an update on that given those
changes, that might be one that would be
important. And I'll just let you know,
we're seeing what I've seen in the
communities in East King County is when
I first showed up here, you were kind of
different than countywide averages. And
more and more of the cities are looking
more and more like the countywide
averages. And we're now seeing
stabilization in the household mixes and
not seeing as big a shift as we saw like
in the '9s where cities over here had
more families with children and now you
have less. It's not like it's still
going down. You sort of the plateau, but
we'll double check that. Okay. Okay. I
also have another question about rents.
Do you also take into consideration
homeowner fees when we do pricing of
ownership units?
We
in the data that's probably in your
back. We do not when we talk about
affordability and what's affordable we
do. But I'm not sure there's always a
direct correlation because then the
census data. I'm not sure how much the
census gets into that. So that is a you
know we do know if it's multif family
and therefore you have a sense of what
they are in general. Um so but I don't
think the census explicitly calls that
out but it's a great point and it is
something when we design programs we're
very conscious of because we do consider
that a housing expense. I'd be more
interested in the um the cost burdened
and severely costburdened categories and
if that's increased or if people seem to
be stretching themselves or being more
conservative. Okay.
All right.
Are we I'm sorry. Are we tracking how uh
how many people uh in these different
income brackets are staying in our
community? I'm thinking of uh the
explosion of growth that we've seen
through the sens through the census data
and I'm curious if we're tracking how
these income levels are staying or
moving in and out of our community and
at what rates. So, we do know the
profile
of the incomes in your community and
that we can update every year. Is it due
to who's moving in or some are moving
out that we don't know from the data we
have? We can only look at the overall
mix.
And I'm not sure that's really getting
at your question
and I'm not sure how we would get it
sort of being able to track individ
what's causing the change in profile of
incomes. I'm curious if people moving in
and out of our community uh is different
than that uh for our neighboring
communities um considering how much
growth that we've had. I want to know
how much of that is uh sticking around
um in the more traditional sense of how
our community used to be a few decades
ago or if that increase of population
has been more transient and is moving
through into neighboring communities.
That's a research issue that I'm not
sure how, but I I'll note it down and
I'll challenge ourselves to see if
there's some way to get at that issue.
Um, but I don't know if that's an
anecdotal is what we'll find or if
there's something else that gives us any
clue on that. But that's an interesting
question and but I'm going to let you
know up front. That's a challenging one.
Okay.
Is there a way to look at um
or our current state how long people
have lived here? Yes. Okay. You can look
at length of residency overall, right?
because that is something that is asked
in the a in the census data. That would
be interesting to know. Okay.
Do I Oh, sorry, Jeeoff. I'm going cut
you off. Do uh do we have the length of
time that they're renters? I think that
was kind of the question that John was
hitting on is do they rent for a certain
amount of time then buy or are they
longtime renters? So, is there a
anything that shows the the life cycle
of the the renters in our community of
how long they rent for?
And that's again, like I said, that
would be
you'd have we'd, you know, you'd call a
couple property owners and my guess, you
know, is your profile different than
other cities? I'm not sure. I would
assume that's the case, but um that
would be a matter of calling some
property owners and they'd give you
their anecdotal information. I don't
think that um there's enough correlation
to specific households in the data
that's typically out there. So, it would
be that kind of process. So, I'm trying
to think if I should if there's a
question I should ask you to sort of
help better understand that question to
see if there's another way to I what I'm
trying to get at is understand the um
the life cycle of the community. as our
community gets more expensive to live
in, those with families and kids,
they're going to move out of the area
and then who's going to take over those
larger houses that are going to have
families and kids in here. But that's a
that's a bigger issue on the east side
altogether, right? Um because this was
an affordable community when I moved
here 20 years ago and now it's not. So
you're starting to see, you know, people
are moving in the area, they have two
kids, they're going to the great school
system, and then the ones when their
kids are done, the last one leaves, they
either move to the Highlands or they're
moving to Phoenix. So, you know, it's
kind of a I'm just trying to get at
what's the inventory going to look like
10 years from now, 20 years from now.
So, that you've raised a question I
often raise with cities when they're
doing their comp plans, which is I grew
up in a town that that is totally what
happened. Very few people stayed. We
were actually a third generation family,
but nobody else was. And that was
intentional. Okay, when you're done with
school, move on. We got a great school.
Let people move in. And one of the
questions I've because I've been here
since 90 asking the question and this is
the question in Seamish because they're
you 15 years ago is do you want you most
communities on the east side start out
very family orient familyheavy
mostly sing a lot of single family and
then it starts infilling and the
question is do you want housing options
for people to be able to stay in their
community other than staying in their
home and that's a consc and so you can
consciously decide we're not going to
even try to accommodate it and that I'm
not saying that's right or
you know, certain cities land on that's
not what we're about. And so the
question I always ask the community is,
do you want choices? So like both
created a senior overlay zone next to
their senior center and they now have
hundreds and hundreds of senior housing
units that were built all around their
senior center. Okay? And that was a
conscious decision um kind of thing. And
they did an overlay where senior housing
totally made more value for land than
what was the underlying zoning. So land
owners waited till the senior people
came around and wanted to build senior
housing. So the question is is
understanding what you do have for
senior housing is that feel like
proportionate or do you need you know
should you encourage more of that? So
that's the kind of question a city can
ask. I I I appreciate that and um
because that's kind of the heart of the
matter here as I've been grocking in my
head as to what is the problem statement
here we're trying to solve. Right? is I
I didn't see it on a slide actually.
Problem statement. I get it with after
all this data which is an amazing amount
of data.
Um it's hard to
boil it all down into a a story that
people can understand. Meaning, okay, um
the problem is we don't have enough
lowincome housing.
just saying that you're gonna have a lot
of people disagree with them. But then
back that up with this, you know, no
one's going to read a 40 slide, you
know, deck to figure that out, right?
They need a bullet point as to, well,
here's why it's a problem. And
which I get there eventually,
but it's hard following, you know, it's
hard to get there and it's hard to a
little bit to believe. And so to your
comment about the senior citizen thing,
that was a conscious decision. It's kind
of like, well, I think the city council
has taken a decision that okay, well, we
do want lowincome housing.
I think that's what they're saying. We
need more of it. That is a decision
they've made or that is a conscious
decision that they've made or not made,
I guess. How do you how do you think
that they made that decision? I'm I'm
asking actually. Oh, you're asking if
they have. No, we're doing this housing
strategy right now to determine
determine if it's a problem or not. And
when you say low income, I mean, again,
we're talking about income affordability
across the range, right? We're talking
about actually if you look at the
numbers about 600 units were short
or the numbers could be interpreted
differently if you look at overall, but
am I right? Is that about right though?
About you know, if if you look at from
the that time period and how we measured
needs back then. Correct. Right. That is
correct. Now, but let me can I take your
point and because you you've made some
really really important points and it's
almost like you set up the last question
here because to me I agree that if you
can boil it down to and I sort we were
using the term vision. What's the vision
of what you want your community to have
and calling out areas where you think
you may not be achieving things for the
housing. In other words, what would
create a good balance in your community,
however you think that feels. And it
isn't lowinccome to me. That's not a
word to me. I'd rather hear things like
what you said the se you know types of
households in particular because if I
say let's and income levels. So that's
where you see what the employers are
saying. For us it's 40 to 60,000 would
be really helpful and we would like to
see some twobedrooms and stuff. So,
we're trying to have you as a community
do exactly what you're saying using
terminology that makes sense to you. And
so, that's why I put this up here is I
was hoping this might make it a little
easier for you to talk about where you
want to go by talking about types of
households and income levels. And then
once we get that identified, then we'll
start thinking about because you'll say,
"Oh, wow. If that's what we're doing,
which of these tool where should we try
to plug in tools to help get there?"
Right.
And this is very complex and I
appreciate the work being done here.
It's uh and if I what I get from it is
that well um
first of all most people in this
community are not business owners.
Right. Exactly. Yep. Um they're driving
to Redmond or Seattle
or Belleview. uh you know so it will be
hard for people to without without uh
you know pretty short sleeve English
saying hey this is a problem and why for
some local business owners you know we
need a couple few hundred more units for
people can work here and by the way you
do that and you're going to solve a
little bit of the traffic problems
but uh and that that story makes sense
to me more you
Um, if we can piece together four or
five more stories like that, that would
help a lot. So, we only did the
business, not because we think that's
the primary driver. It's a big driver.
Well, I'm on the Economic Vitality
Commission, so that's that's where my
head's coming and that's who we've
talked to so far, but we're going to
talk to other players in the community
and you. So, that's a good example
though, what we gave you of the kind of
stories we're looking for from you. Now
we're ready to if you have thoughts on
that right now of you know thinking
about we we started talking about the
seniors a little bit you know we would
like to see housing for seniors who are
on fixed income be able to have options
that are attached or with service you
know those are the kind of stories we're
looking for and we'll try to match up
data to help document why that might be
important or not but to some extent you
live in this community the stories we're
telling telling you about up on here are
probably reinforcing things you probably
already have in your heads or know
about. And so the better we can do of
telling a story in a way that not only
you but the broader community gets, the
more likely it will be that oh then
let's do something about it. And to
Ethan's point, um you can tell the story
but then put the price tag next to it.
Yes. Exactly.
Actually like what he said about the
vision statement. So, you got me kind of
thinking,
you're asking us basically to come up
with a vision statement. What do we want
our affordable housing vision look like
moving forward? Take one word out of
there, affordable. That's a part of your
housing vision. That's not this focal
point alone. Okay. So, you want
what do we want our housing vision to
look like moving forward? Yes. That's
the Yep.
And then so we come up with what we like
it to look like and then you'll come up
with the solution on how to get it.
We'll come up with ideas for No, no.
We're we're going to come up with ideas
for you to think about to see if they're
worth solutions in your community.
Okay. We're going to give you some
options. I have an idea I've been baking
for a while and I was actually going to
talk to city council about it. Um, but
one of the thoughts was uh open up a uh
a program with uh first responders
where the city could go in and pay a
portion of um a house or a condo if they
purchased and then we would have
ownership stake in that property. So
when it comes time to sell, we would get
proceeds, a profit of that portion. Um,
is that the kind of solution that you're
looking for us to come up with kind of
ideas? That is definitely the kind of
ideas that can be put out there. Yes.
And that's a little more outside the
box, but that's ex, you know, we can be
in the box and out of the box, right?
Exactly. And I have to run to another
city to have a similar conversation with
their planning commission. So Jen will
be here to help keep the conversation
going, but I'll be back on the other as
you move forward and appreciate all your
questions and comments tonight. So thank
you. Thank you.
So, I could take a Yeah, go for it.
crack at a very vague but uh uh maybe uh
something to get us started on a vision
statement. I think for me it's I
there's something around I'd like uh our
housing mix to better reflect the u mix
of people that actually uh work here.
It doesn't have to match it exactly, but
it seems pretty far off that sort of
people that work here generally can't
afford to live here was my takeaway.
Yeah. Um and it seems like it's gotten
worse. And so to me, it's, you know, if
there's something about stability in a
community, if everyone that works there
like leaves it when the sun goes down
and everyone that lives there comes
back, that just seems like not maybe the
uh That's good. you know, just in a very
kind of idealistic sense, not not my uh
picture of a community, right? Well, I
think you you have to temper that
somewhat with uh we have an inordinate
uh retail presence for our you for the
population. So, we're never going to
come near. Yeah. I said better, not
exact. Okay. Yeah. Yes. Anna, when you
mentioned the focus groups that you're
going to have um you know the business
school district service providers you
seniors and realtors
have you thought of how to target a
broader community participation with
several languages and interpreters
that will bring their cultural
background ideas and their specific
needs because sometimes
we're missing some links in the whole
puzzle. That's a great idea. I think we
will hit some of that with the service
providers and we also talked a little
bit with the school district but um I
think that's not um that's on our
current list but that's definitely a
great idea. Thank you.
Go ahead. I've got another one. Okay,
good. I'm taking another shot based on
uh Richard's feedback. Um so I think the
other one would be if you think about a
community, it's a place where people can
grow up and live and potentially when
they you know finish school maybe stay.
Um it doesn't seem like that's realistic
for someone leaving our wonderful
schools at this point in time, right?
Unless they're, you know, winning the
lottery in terms of the job market,
which some will, but a lot won't. It
seems like you kind of have to leave as
a recent high school grad or even a
recent college grad. So, um a mix of
housing that allows people to, you know,
be born, live, and and grow old here.
So, any stage of life. Yeah. Mhm. Not
that they they have to, but there's an
opportunity allowing for that. I kind of
disagree with that though.
That's why this is what a conversation.
I kind of think of Isiqua as a bedroom
community. You come here for great
schools and uh I I am not going to stay
here after my kids graduate. So, okay.
And so, and I'm not looking for housing
to stay here actually. But if I might,
but what if your kids wanted to? Would
you want them to be able to have the
option to? My kids don't want to live
near me. No. Well, maybe when you move
to Arizona, they can live here. But
anyway, this is the kind of discussion
that would, you know, can go on forever.
But it's definitely healthy to have
because people have an idea about, you
know, where they live and their town,
why they live there and what it could
be, should be. So, um, I'm not I'm not
dis disagreeing or anything really. I'm
just saying it it's I'm not sure there's
going to be a, you know, that's why we
vote for people to come in and and make
a decision, you know, to help represent
us all. So, it's it's going to be hard,
right? Yeah. Well, and I think you are
representing our community in this
conversation as well. And so, you're
helping to shape it. It doesn't mean
you're helping completely decide it, but
you're helping us as staff. We're coming
with data. We're coming with some
experience from other uh voices, but
we're hoping that the combination of who
we have here tonight helps us again to
make it match and make it fit our
community. One of the things that uh
gives a community character is a sense
of history. And when I moved here, there
were still a great many families who
were sort of like the pioneer families
of the area.
And it I think it would be a great loss
to the community if their children,
grandchildren, and great-grandchildren
were not able to stay in the community
because we lose a a sense of who we are
and who we've been if families aren't
able to to stay for generations. Sure.
Again, I think it's a choice, right?
Like you said. So, so, um, I agree this
conversation probably go on for another
four hours. Um, and so one of the things
I want to be cognizant of time. It's um
a little after 8 and we have public
comment yet. Um are there any other
comments, burning comments? What we I
think we're going to do is actually send
you out some questions to think about
and respond to. Um again, this is a
conversation. This is the beginning.
This is uh the opportunity and we can
talk about having additional meetings.
We plan on having one in January. Um a
special meeting again of the three
commissions. Um we have to figure out
schedules, but we're looking about the
third or fourth week of January. Um but
if there are things that you'd like to
have smaller conversations with or other
things um let us know. There is going to
be again uh focus groups and we'll look
to have an representative from the
commissions at those to again inform and
help share with your other you know your
other commission members. So is there
anything else that you want to share
tonight? Yeah, Anna, can those slides be
made available so we can refresh the
information and Yes. Thank you. Yes. One
last as far as the focus groups. Do we
have any uh high school kids that would
be involved in that focus group? There's
a youth group. Yeah. Okay. Excellent.
Yeah. So, nice. And if you know anybody
who we should include because a lot of
you um a lot of it is about having the
right people in the room, right? So, you
want about five to seven people who have
an interest and not you're pulling out
information but that have an interest.
Now, they don't have to be advocates,
experts, whatever, but you want them to
have um an un uh a story to tell or kind
of some information that would be
helpful to our stories, to our process.
So, if there's somebody that you think
should be in one of those focus groups,
please let the staff person know and
we'll make sure that we reach out to
them. So,
okay. So, we again, we will send you
some more homework and we appreciate the
conversation today. It's just the
beginning. you will get um and actually
I think uh Arthur's slideshow actually
has more data beyond the 17 slides he
shows. So when you get it, check it out.
It has two blank slides and then you'll
have some more information to look at.
We'll make sure we'll actually probably
maybe post that so then people can
access as as well. And so um we can go
right into public comment. Just one more
question. Did your uh big business focus
group include uh developers, real estate
agents, and those people you've listed
over there? I think we need a focus
group with them. We we do plan actually
once we have some some of the
strategies. We think that's a a better
place to get their feedback on it
because is this realistic, right? We may
sit in this room and we have as many
conversations and look at data. Um then
we need to have some that and we do have
some of those people in our room here in
our economic vitality commission. But
yes, we think they're they're definitely
play a role in that. And we do have a
real estate brokers um uh group as well,
a realtor. So yeah, thank you. Okay.
Anything else? So public there is there
any public comment? Yes, you've come up.
It's only a computer.
My name is Mary Lynch and I reside at
2690 Northwest Oakrest Drive, Isiqua,
Washington. And I also was a member of
the central area um task force. And part
of the vision that we heard from the
community then was there was a desire uh
back then of people to be able to age in
place and to be able to downsize and age
in place. And part of the strategy we
had was that's why we saw mixed use
would allow you to with that mixed use
have apartments and smaller places that
were above uh grocery stores,
restaurants schools
um that would allow people to age in
place. I personally would love to age in
place, but I can't stay here. It it's
it's totally outpriced itself and in my
lifetime I'm not sure we're going to get
affordable housing so I could stay. Um,
but I know in talking with the police,
um, Bob, uh, Porter said he only had two
of his officers that lived in town. The
rest couldn't afford to. Um, I know with
the schools, one of the decisions that
they make on whether they're going to
open schools or not, if the roads are
bad, is how bad are the outline areas?
Because the majority of our teachers all
live extremely long distances from here.
Um, a lot of the school bus drivers live
a little bit closer because they're
older and they can afford to live here
or have homes right now. Um, so they can
get there, but that's not the issue.
It's can the teachers get to school
because they can't open the schools if
they don't have enough teachers to open
up the school. So that's another issue
is is they can't afford to live here.
Um, one of the projects that I've talked
about before is the greenhouse project,
which is a totally different concept of
housing than what was talked here
tonight. But those are little cottages
um that may have just little cottages
with one central kitchen. That is a
national and beginning to be
international way of allowing older
people or people single to live in a
little community and have a community.
And so that's where you need to look at
maybe changing policies. Um I know um
Elizabeth has talked about, you know,
more of a boarding house style. So
there's other types of homes and what
you've talked about that I hope going
forward that you consider and looking
at. Um and I really stress with also
policy is we ought to have schools where
people can live above them, whether they
be teachers or whatever. And that's
going to be forming more strategic
partners. and hopefully this group can
help some of those partnerships form.
Thank you.
So, my name's Connie Marsh and uh this
is more
things I think are missing. And so in my
brain, I see this as the gentrification
of the suburbs.
Um, we're changing forms and we're
kicking out some of our affordable
housing that was pre-existing and we're
actually creating more dense housing
that is more expensive than the existing
housing and so that I think we have that
data um how many lowerriced units are
going away as we develop highpriced
units. So, we are actually eroding our
affordable housing. Um, so I didn't see
that there. Uh, also
for King County, um, I don't think
you're going to even be able to solve
the problem of allowing people to live
in King County and work in King County,
much less live in Isiqua and work in
Isqua and age in place in Isqua. I think
the conversation needs to be broadened
to surrounding counties because that is
where people are commuting from. And I
don't think the vision is how do we
create this in place for Isiqua. I think
it is how do you make people be able to
get their employees live in places that
are safe and healthful and and live
successfully while doing what they need
to do and want to do in Isiqua, which is
a a much broader
vision because I don't think the vision
that you're asking for is solvable. So,
I would like to see something that is
that is more uh has a higher chance of
success. Okay. So, I would see if you
could maybe broaden I want to see Pierce
County statistics. I want to know why I
can buy a house in Auburn for a third of
the prices in Isiqua and it's cuter than
most of the places in Isiqua.
It's just in Auburn. So, that's why
people are commuting from Auburn to
here. Oh. Oh, I digress. So,
uh, I've been reading some literature
from some other places, and some of the
ways that other places are looking at
their issues is they're looking at
commuting sheds and trying to figure out
how to actually move the people to where
they need to go as compared to how to
house them in their areas. So, instead
of um uh instead of putting people in
place, it's the motion of people. And I
don't know if that makes sense to you or
not. If you I didn't see the statistics
on um
whether our housing prices have gone
down as we have added more houses. I
mean I know the answer to that. Uh but I
think those statistics need to be in
here because the supply and demand in
this situation
um is an important question. Has that
been working? And then of course I want
to see what other people have done to be
successful in trying to solve these
problems. And really it's an unsolvable
problem. So, I don't think you're going
to find success. You might find helpful
suggestions, but I also want some input
on on ideas from other people who've
already done it. And uh okay, I only
have a little bit more. Um
am I going to skip that one? Skip that
one. Ah, our form of solving affordable
housing in the past. So, what has Isiqua
done in the past itself that was
successful and unsuccessful? We had
$50,000 that we were trying to create
some sort of uh center for help for
those who were low income and that just
sort of went away. It never happened.
Why not? We've had a land land in the
Isqua Highlands that was slated for
affordable housing. It's never happened.
Why not? And so, what can we learn from
our mistakes?
And there we go. I'm at the end. Thank
you very much.
Thank you very much. Anybody other
public comments? Okay. And with that, I
guess I will adjourn the group. Thank
you very much everybody for coming
together in this conversation.