thank you
February 13th meeting of the planning
policy commission
the first thing I want to do is a call
to action as you all can see there's a
lot of empty seats up here and which
will be up for some of them not all of
them will be up for Renewal and so if
you have any interest in joining the
planning policy commission would
certainly love to see an application
from you you will hear a bunch of things
this evening on the projects that we're
going to be working on if they interest
you if you feel you can contribute
please do fill out an application the
first thing on our agenda is approval
minutes from the November 21st meeting
of the planning policy commission since
we don't have a quorum as of yet but
we're expecting that person to arrive
we're going to go to
um
a discussion on the proposed comp plan
amendments if you don't if you're out
there in television land and you don't
have an agenda what's going to happen
tonight is Jason is going to make a
presentation on what the proposals are
for any changes in the comp plan after
his presentation we are going to have a
public hearing where you get to give us
input on any of the comp plan amendments
and then we are going to have a
presentation from Arthur Sullivan who is
going to talk about Arch and housing in
the area so Jason why don't you start
thanks Joan my name is Jason Rogers I'm
an associate planner with the city's
development services department
so tonight I'll be talking about the
docket of proposed Conference of plan
amendments this is something we do every
year
amendments to the conference of plan or
rather the growth management act
requires that we do a continuing review
and evaluation of the comprehensive plan
but it only allows amendments once a
year and it recommends that cities and
counties establish a formal method of
taking in all the various review items
that we want to do in one year we
implement this with the docket of
proposed amendments
um this year there is a major State
mandated update which is uh which must
be completed by June 30th 2015 and so
we're kicking that off basically right
now this is to ensure compliance with
the growth management act
um which is true and there have been
some changes to the growth management
act in the last few years that we'll be
taking a look at there have also been
some court cases interpreting GMA and
various land use and planning laws that
we'll have to take into account
um the New psrc Vision 2040 plan which
was adopted fairly recently and then the
King County County Planning policies and
you can see along the bottom I borrowed
this graphic from
psrc but this kind of shows the the
bigger picture Regional planning process
that has happened you know they they've
adopted Vision 2040 various Regional
plans have updated the county-wide
planning policies and that you can see
outlined in red update Conference of
plan so that's where we're at right now
and that's what we're doing in Issaquah
so the timeline for this last year we
started and early this year we started
Gathering potential Conference of plan
amendments they can come from from the
administration they can come from the
public
you know anybody can propose one
You by code we're supposed to hold the
public Hearing in January for this we
had to continue the public hearing until
today so we're here tonight to review
the DACA hold a public hearing and so
the the commission can make a
recommendation to the city council the
city council will consider it in March
the landing Shore Committee of the
council and the council will formally
adopt the docket hopefully in April
this is taken from the the land use code
and I know it's completely illegible on
the screen this just shows what we call
the level six
review and all these bubbles are
different steps in the process showing
that we are at the moment all the way
back up here at PPC public hearing
where PPC will hopefully make a
recommendation tonight to the city
council and then it'll move on to
council decision at the bottom
as for code amendments I know
historically we have uh provided the the
commission at the beginning of the year
with a list of code amendments that we
plan on working on we haven't done this
in recent years for a variety of reasons
um
we can amend the municipal code at any
time there's no limit on how many times
per year it's more a question of how
heavy our workload is and how heavy the
commissions workload is we still plan to
do some code amendments this year but
we're not going to really discuss them
much tonight
so this is the next few slides here is
just the uh the proposed DACA and you
have this in your packet there's three
pages to this and I've got some more
detail you know in the next few slides
but as you can see there's 17 of them
which is
quite a few many more than we normally
do
so the first three one two and three are
annual amendments we do these every year
uh it's the capital facilities and
transportation Improvement Updates this
is to make sure everything's consistent
between our adopted plans and the
comprehensive plan population updates we
get a revised population estimate from
the State Office of Financial Management
uh in the middle in the middle of the
year we'll utilize that to help
determine our level of service with
capital facilities and also if the city
has bought any property in the last year
we would
um and assuming we are using it for
public purpose we would rezone it and
redesignate it on our various Maps
there are a few carryover amendments
that have been uh on the DACA for a bit
one is the centralized plan this has
been going for a long time at this point
what this number is really intended to
cover is just a little bit of cleanup
the plan was adopted at the end of 2012.
we adopted the development and design
standards early last year I know the
commission has seen a lot of this over
the years
this amendment is really just to review
the sub-area boundaries which was one of
the last tasks in the Central Coast plan
um but hasn't been accomplished yet
uh number five question yeah when I was
on the environmental review study for
the Central Area plan it was decided
that there was enough space to put all
the people and traffic could be
manipulated to be reasonable but what
they didn't do was divide
housing within the 10 sections
are are there plans to do that
there are certain areas that maybe
something can't be built if there's
we're figuring 7 500 people were going
to need
you know we don't want to build four
stories for nine
parcels and then the tenth one have a
20-story building so how do you divide
that right are you looking at that
am I on now part of it is we're doing a
monitoring report every year as part of
the plan and it's part of its monitoring
where the housing is going and if we're
finding that most of it's going in the
core or we're hoping most of it's going
to go then that'll be great but if we're
finding we're getting just sprinkles of
it and we want it to be in a different
way we can try to fiddle with the either
the regulations or the incentives to
make it go more where we would want to
go but when we first thought about do
you allocate 400 units 400 units we
didn't want to mess with the market
because if the market wanted it all in
the urban core with all the mixed uses
we didn't want to put a barrier in the
way by saying no you can only have this
many so we sort of wanted to see how the
market went for the first few years well
I I understand that part of it okay
there are areas that only so much area
exists for building if we're planning to
put parks and and other facilities
within that
space
is that Wetlands is you know how much is
not available
I just think that's important to know
where you can build and how much you can
build on it
okay
um
the number five for carryover uh the
Second carryover Amendment is the is
klahani this was put on because at the
time we were creating the docket
um obviously there's a you know there's
an election a couple of nights ago
they're still counting the votes we'll
see how it turns out but this was a you
know if in if necessary Amendment
because we didn't want to have to wait a
long time to be able to amend our
various maps and Conference of plan
policies to accommodate Kahani should
that be necessary
the bacon pedestrian plan is also back
we were hoping to get this done toward
the end of last year and unfortunately
they didn't that did not happen but the
development of that plan is ongoing and
so when that gets complete we'll be
looking to integrate a lot of the
recommendations and policies from that
into the conference of plan both in the
you know mostly the transportation
element probably but also in the land
use element and possibly in some other
places
annexation of the is called Middle
School unincorporated Island this was
actually completed I believe very early
this year December yeah in December
unfortunately it didn't quite make the
cut off for the actual
package of amendments from last year so
it's an outstanding item but we've
already annexed the the island
the sustainable indicators project this
it would investigate the goals and
policies for indicators working building
off the work from the uh the indicator
sounding board this is something again
we were hoping to do last year and
unfortunately it didn't get done but now
with the major update underway we're
hoping to be able to take advantage of
that and partner with the office of
sustainability to continue moving this
forward
the brand new amendments is number 9
through 17 and this covers an amendment
of every element that's in the
comprehensive plan so that's land use
housing Transportation utilities you
know and on down the list
um and what we'll be doing through the
throughout the year is you know we'll be
working on
on all these on automating all these
elements and and they're all linked
together of course into one big
Conference of plan but the idea here is
we'll be working on on these and we'll
be bringing them to planning policy
commission throughout the year and so
for example we'll work on housing pretty
early this year and so we'll bring the
housing element you're going to talk
about housing later tonight and so
you'll get a chance to review every
individual element through as the year
goes on and then toward the end of the
year we're going to bring them all to
all together at once that you can review
the entire package of amendments in one
go and make a recommendation to the city
council
oops I don't know why that one got on
there
so tonight excuse me there's the public
hearing and we'll ask the commission to
make a recommendation to the city
council and then again the council will
review it in March and hopefully approve
it in April
all right so
and hearing none
um
just out of curiosity what the latest
vote count is on the Kalani annexation
as of the update this afternoon
um
it is 29 votes in favor of not of not
annexing
is the margin
okay thanks
with that if Jason if you're done and
there's no uh further discussion here
I'm going to open the public hearing
so I'm going to open the public hearing
at six
44.
and ask if there's anybody here that
wants to make any comments on the comp
plan
hearing and seeing none
I'm going to close the public hearing at
6 45.
okay
um
we now have a majority of
Commissioners here
so I don't know if we should um
vote on this now or does
um
I'm not sure if you've read the docket
of information on the comp plan if
you've heard the explanation that Jason
has
um I'm certainly available to answer
questions
um
I'm not sure quite how to handle that in
summary the docket is the list it's not
actually the completed projects it's
just the list of items that we're
working on this year because we can only
amend the comprehensive plan once so
state law says we have to make a list in
the beginning of the year and then we
have to hold to that list
for the year and we can't add anything
new in the middle of the year so that
everyone in the community understands
what we're working on this year and so
the docket is the list that we're going
to work on this year so why don't we do
it this way let's um
let Jason sit down and have Mr Sullivan
come up and and talk a little bit about
Arch and then give Ray a little time to
go over it and then we will vote on on
sending it off to the council okay okay
does that seem okay and then you can can
I just ask a question real quick uh
point of order
um since we have a quorum here and I may
have to leave a little bit earlier to
get to an eight o'clock meeting and we
still need to approve meeting minutes
from prior
should we just get this done and
okay
the suggestion um
I mean let's let Ray ask questions or if
Jason wants to go just flip back through
the slides real quick whatever Ray needs
to do to get up to speed I just think we
should do it while we've got people here
um well let's let's do the uh do the
minutes
or minutes from the last meeting
do I have a motion to approve the minute
so moved by the second
all those in favor all right minutes are
approved so we will continue on with the
um with the arch presentation so Mr
Sullivan if you'd like to come up
good evening so a little context for the
conversation here tonight with you
um is we're going to be working with
your staff and the commission to the
update to the housing element and under
state law and you're going to see a
little bit more in this a second part of
that is doing a housing needs analysis
which you received in your packet
um Issaquah is a member of a partnership
through an interlocal agreement with the
other cities in East King County so art
is that partnership we act as your staff
and staff to other cities what we're
doing tonight is hopefully providing you
some background context all of this
information is in the materials you
receive but Mike Stanger from our office
is going to sort of lead you through a
conversation about what are some of the
issues and needs and housing supply
issues this is all meant to try to help
set up the conversation when we come
back with staff in a few months to talk
about policies and your comprehensive
plan in the housing element specifically
so this is meant to give you some flavor
in context of demographics housing
Supply AI things you've maybe done in
the past and and we really mean to open
this up for you and for this interrupt
at any point meant to be sort of a
conversation to let you start talking
about what you see as housing issues
responding to any information we have if
something feels like you'd like to see
if there is other information but this
is hopefully to get you thinking about
housing issues more explicitly but also
give us a little bit of direction on
things that are of interest to you so
with that if you don't have any
introductory comments Mike's here to
sort of help you walk through a variety
of kind of information and again as we
said please feel free to jump in with
questions at any point I'm going to sit
up right up front here too and we're
here to be a resource to you to sort of
explain and give you context
art
aren't those folks to come up to the I
know you're not used to being on TV but
you guys will look fabulous on TV and it
might be easier for you to discuss and
ask questions when you're not sort of in
the cheap seats in the back where
there's no microphones and no one would
be able to hear your comments or
questions
it's really it's really a happy place up
here truly actually while you're getting
settled I'm going to ask if Rey is ready
to vote on the comp plan
so I need a motion to approve the comp
plan as presented tonight and November
21st I think we talked about it to send
it on to council for review so I need a
motion for that so moved do I have a
second a second all those in favor
aye aye okay
welcome to the uh to the planning policy
Human Services Commission meeting and
because you don't have name tags I'm
going to see if I get it bill is that
right and and um Leo it's gonna and I've
forgotten your name Jennifer okay super
and you guys have your name tags up oh
good good thank you
okay okay
thanks and this is Mike
my name is Mike I'm happy to be here I'm
a planner with Arch and uh let me
uh Arthur gave the the best intro to the
purpose for us being here but I'd like
to step back and address what was in
your packet for just a moment this East
King County Housing analysis is a
project that we undertook at the request
of all our cities to do a
an East Side wide or a market-wide look
at
housing conditions and needs for all of
our cities and then through the course
of when when each city was ready to
start their comp plan then we would do a
specialized section and look at the
needs and conditions of your community
so there's going to be an an additional
section that you'll receive after we
have the the benefit of this discussion
tonight that will look a little bit more
closely at not only data as it pertains
to Issaquah but also neighborhood
conditions strategies that you've
undertaken and so forth
so I do have a lot of information
prepared a lot of it's data oriented
Arthur is going to make sure that I
don't get too geeky with you about it
and as he said the most important part
of it is that we tried to get a
conversation going so because you are
the the residents you're the
Commissioners you have those
perspectives not just as public
officials but also as people who use
housing and
and we want to know what those
perspectives are we hope that the data
that that I present helps kind of
stimulate your thinking a little bit but
please again interrupt with questions or
comments as we go along
oops I forgot to take out the transition
things so here's how we've set up the
presentation tonight I'll talk a little
bit as Jason did up since he covered
some of it already I'll I'll Rush run
through the context based on the growth
management Act and why we're going
through this process but then we'll look
at the the data that we're calling the
housing analysis both from a demand
standpoint and a supply standpoint and
some interaction between those things
and then we'll talk about the various
strategies that Issaquah can and has in
many cases
adopted
the reason that we're undertaking this
process as Jason said was that all
cities are required who are required to
plan are required to update Those comp
plans within the next year and a half
and the goals pertain to housing are
that hopefully the planning will help
make housing affordable in every
Community to all economic segments that
it will stimulate in support a variety
of different housing types and densities
and help preserve the existing housing
stock not just for
historical sake but because
existing housing is often more
affordable
comp plans are required by the growth
management act to have a housing element
and they have to include these things
that are listed here we have to do the
housing analysis which you know this
document fulfills
you have to through this process and the
more specifically in the land use and
the land use map ensure that there's
sufficient land for the housing that's
expected in the future and again that
the the plan makes it possible for the
city to accommodate housing needs of all
economic segments that's a quick
question what's your definition of
affordable housing we will get right to
that shortly I just want to make sure
thank you
um
Jason also mentioned that the
county-wide planning policies which are
which is a guiding framework if you will
for all us the cities in the county
have
um
guidelines for the city's plans and
those were re reshaped in this last go
around 2012.
and um most noteworthy they point out
that local governments do have a role
responsibility in housing we recognize
we don't produce housing but we have a
very definite impact on it
that cities and their plans should
account for the county-wide needs for
very low low and moderate income
households and housing that's affordable
to them and take proactive measures
towards a fair share or proportionate
share of that need
um
also recognizing that each city has
unique conditions
and that certain strategies that may
work in one type of community won't work
in another type of community so it's not
intended to force cities to adopt a
one-size-fits-all approach
and then to ensure that there's this
feedback loop if you will and that
there's a four-step process to follow up
on the planning to monitor what the
results are and then look back at the
policies and strategies and see that
they're reshaped as necessary to gain
the desired results
so here we talk about what affordable
housing means
and what specifically what is very low
what's low and what's moderate income
housing affordable housing in general it
you know kind of begs the question about
affordable for who
and so when we work in our work with
cities we work with this kind of
framework based on what is the median or
middle income of the community of the
county
at a given point in time and this shows
based on the 2013 median income of
eighty six thousand seven hundred that
applies to a family of four
and
eighty percent of that
a median income we call moderate income
and then low at 50 percent and 30
percent is what we call very low income
this table shows the um
the income as it's scaled down for each
case different size households are
adjusted accordingly and then what the
maximum housing costs are are affordable
housing units in each case does this
help answer your question
so the countywide planning policy said
that each Community should try to
address a proportionate share of the
county-wide need what it what is that
need how is how many households are we
talking about
what this chart shows is that when the
the numbers that were examined to base
the county right planning policies
um showed that 12 and a half percent of
households were in that very low income
category and eleven percent in the 30 to
50 category low income
16 percent of the households from 50 to
80 percent are moderate income and then
upward in the scale
so this is not the the income distrib
this is the income distribution of the
whole County
and Issaquah as well as every other city
is responsible
for planning for in some way to provide
housing for that scale it may not all be
end up in Issaquah but every Community
has a part to play in it
Excuse me yes sorry real quick if you go
back to that slide that so that's the
current makeup well this was in 2009
okay and
affordable housing need I'm just trying
to understand is this a like a projected
demand figure or is this the current
situation it can be thought of as a
demand figure but it we speak we use the
word need
um these are the people that exist in
our County and
um
and need affordable housing
okay
it does have enough restoration
um
they can't hear you so if you I'm trying
to give you does that one reach
wow look at that
so that's a pretty good indication of
history and anything we've actually seen
a slight increase
I can't hear you the mic's not on there
we go okay now you need to jump on one
foot
I'm kidding
um that that split when you add to 12
and a half and 11.1 percent together
that's
23.6 that number if anything has gone up
slightly
um we were probably a couple percent but
that split that you see there has shown
to be pretty historically State you know
that basic mix so I guess the the reason
for my question is if that's the current
makeup well my first question is where
do they live currently in that housing
stock and then second if you add more
affordable housing do you
do you effectively increase the number
of people and affect this distribution
and how do you account for that I'm
specifically thinking I mean there might
be people living outside the county now
that would live here if the affordable
housing was available
so what is that how do you project the
influx or immigration from other
counties if the housing becomes
available
uh that's all there's a lot in that
instead of questions it's a great
question yeah indulge some patients
because there's more to the story than
just okay yes okay great we may
right if we try to address it by the end
of the evening
so I have one question there what I'm
not understanding the uh the colors on
the graph renter owner of those numbers
like the first one seventy one thousand
one hundred and twenty six nine I don't
know how that's what those numbers mean
so
um at this in this snapshot 71 100
household renter households made less
than 30 percent of the median income
that's number of households yes
and at 26 900 is those were owner
households under that homeowners okay
thank you
so do what people of all these incomes
live in Issaquah
uh now well probably but um we want to
think about this first in terms of
employment we know that people of those
incomes work in Issaquah because they
have occupations such as these
who we depend on every day for various
kinds of
employment
that was generally in the 15 range these
are in the 20 range on an annual basis
twenty dollars makes forty two thousand
a year and for a family of four that's
that falls into what we would call low
income
this is a kind of a
Fuller picture to show a range of
jobs mostly in the
in the low and moderate income groupings
it's it's the detail is in your book in
this appendix
table if you want to go back and look it
up but of the the five major categories
I think it is that uh wage private
sector jobs this was wages tend to run
lower than the county-wide average
fire stands for finance insurance and
real estate
wtu stands for wholesale transportation
and utilities
the other two that aren't here are
Services which includes a lot of tech
jobs and
um
what am I forgetting I'll think of the
other one later
I I
would mention that the retail
Construction
and fires
if you add that to the to the government
and education
which are are not shown here but also
tend to be
um
you know moderate types of incomes those
make up 30 over 30 percent of your
daytime population
so um
should supply and demand take care of
that in the housing market well the
problem is that is the balance between
the jobs in the community and the
housing in the community often don't
match up
we calculate what what we call a jobs
housing balance and it's meant to show
the demand for housing from the jobs
that are in your community
assuming that each household has 1.4
workers on average
and
back if we look first at the East King
County part of it on the far left
you see that East King County as a whole
stopped being
bedroom suburbs
in the 1990s or late 80s perhaps because
the demand for housing
from jobs was higher than the amount of
housing that was there that's why that
yellow or gold bar is up above one one
means that there would be a balance
between the demand and the supply
in issaquah's case
let me see I think the next one
in this squad's case it actually started
before that
this guy hasn't been a bedroom town so
to speak since the 70s
um
but issaquah's number
ratio is
as of 2006 was 1.5
meaning that there's more demand than
Supply
and
the 2031 Target
represents the number of jobs and
housing units that are
prescribed in your existing plans you
know part of the the employment and
housing targets that are allocated
throughout the county
and so uh just that segment the change
between 2006 and 2031 would represent a
jobs housing balance or imbalance if you
will 2.5 so it has the effect of pulling
up your existing
ratio
and making it worse if you will
or exasperating that that imbalance
between demand and supply
is that clear can I answer any questions
about that
just to be clear looks like um according
to that Issaquah has the the largest
out of balance projected for the future
by far of anyone else well there's some
other cities are looking the same way
yeah I don't I don't have the others all
committed to memory but
um it's certainly one of the highest
so just the rear Mike said earlier if
you look on each of these slides you'll
see a reference to wherein the document
you received has more detail than they
will show each City and Redmond's up
there too so there are a couple other
cities I think yours shows the biggest
increase but Redmond's starting higher
than you are right now and it actually
got a little bit better but
um so you're you're not alone but you're
pretty far up there yeah on that ratio
yes sir I'm just curious I mean I is
2006 the most recent set of data that
you can get because I'm curious A lot's
happening this across since 2006 as
housing and jobs and the whole thing I
mean is there a way to get updated data
as to how we stand currently
really yeah Okay the reason we use 2006
is because under state law you're also
doing a thing called buildable land
report
and that is the measuring stick we know
how much has been built since 2006 and
you've actually probably been going
you're getting closer to your 2031
Target for housing you're getting there
pretty fast but the reason we use 2006
is that's a benchmark that all the
cities used for doing an analysis of
land capacity and then that's also when
you start your target time period it's
2006 or 2031. so we're just matching
that point in time we do have other data
that shows and if anything it's showing
issaquah's even going faster to their
their housing but also their employment
so
um so this is the brown bars are based
on your planning targets that are in
your comp plan okay that's why we use
two thousand so are we still around that
1.5 or are we
you have we'd have to look more
carefully to see today where you are
between 1.5 and 2.5 I think the point
we're trying to make here is that based
on your plans
goals
it's presumably you could put even more
pressure on your system
got it
so we also have some
real world confirmation if you will and
you may may be familiar with this report
iscoa business Community survey
surveyed employers who ranked housing
affordability as the top issue regarding
retaining an
um recruiting employees and asked if
they would help recruit and retain
employees 62 percent said that more
affordable housing would be helpful
firms also linked attrition and
recruitment difficulties to the commute
time so even if they even if they can
make it to work
they have trouble making it there
was also a strengths weaknesses
opportunity threat type of analysis done
by the economic Vitality committee last
year
which said that there are some large
influences in our community that could
negatively affect our future if they
were to leave or not support the city's
Future Vision and the key players that
they named
are there
um that report went on to say that if
employees cannot afford to live in
communities in which they work or
there's not an adequate supply of
housing then they're forced to endure
long commutes which are harmful to the
environment limit time spent with family
and pursuing other interests have access
to affordable housing is an issue some
decide to leave the area impacting
employers who are unable to hire and
retain the workers they need to sustain
and grow their businesses
so to kind of sum up this employment
piece of the analysis this jobs housing
imbalance creates an excess demand for
housing relative to a local Supply
your local Workforce includes a number
of modern lower paying jobs and those
have their own demand or needs for
certain types of housing that perhaps
different uh
Market qualities and prices but also
those
May contribute to the type of commutes
that people experience
it's noted here that if you look at now
this this is a little bit dated but
we're trying to get something more
current but if you look at the
in East King County as a whole
geographically about the same size as
Seattle
in Seattle
75 percent of the workers who were
people who work in Seattle live in
Seattle
but on the east side only 50 percent of
the workers live on the east side
now it's not
geographically comparable but it's
interesting that um only 10 percent of
the people who work in this squad live
in as well
when you say East King County do you
mean East King County inside the urban
growth boundary or all of East King
County no inside the urban our cities is
basically our 15 cities and
unincorporated King County in the urban
growth boundary inside the urban growth
so if only 50 or 10 percent live in
Issaquah where do the other ones live
where how far away what is the area that
and are is there what's the relationship
of affordable housing in those areas
that allow people to live there and
commute
there's a lot of data to answer that
perfectly great question I don't have a
bad answer for it
so what was the last part of your quest
I missed the second part of the question
I just went in
um where do they live what uh
what is the the amount of of work for
Force housing in the neighboring areas
so that allows people to live there
instead of Issaquah and commute so so
you've raised a really important general
question and one of the things that was
behind why Arch was created in the first
place and why when we did this housing
needs analysis
one of the reasons for deciding to do a
joint one is because it's a market Area
Housing markets aren't defined by City
boundaries and when Arch was first
created 20 some odd years ago we defined
the area that we wanted membership to
consist of based on what we thought a
market area was or there was enough
comparability of issues that cities
could learn from one another
so your question is so when we why we
often show you the East King counties
because you're kind of part of a
marketer so understanding Beyond what's
on your body we give you all the data
for your city too so you can look at
gesture City
now if your city had the jobs housing
balance that we showed you and all the
surrounding towns had a lower ratio then
maybe there's no issue at all and that's
sort of what you're getting at
the point is when you look at that
graphic and if you can go back
um to back a couple one more
is if you were to look in your chart
what you would see we have a comparable
chart like this that's on page page 111
of the report is you would see a pattern
like that for almost every city in East
King County
so that's and that's why you see when
you see all these King County and that
is including the unincorporated the bars
are going up but almost every city
you're seeing that Bargo Higher and
Higher and Higher and most of them have
gone above one okay so
what that means is that's one reason we
almost don't even talk about the 10
living work in Issa clock if it's such a
small area that it's when you start
realizing there isn't a place right next
door for that those workers to go
because they're putting similar pressure
on the system we also include Seattle in
there because what we're showing you is
with Seattle that was the historic area
you know that was the job center and we
were the bedroom community for them it's
not like Seattle's gone down so we now
have created two
centers of two of our three centers of
our region that are generating more
demand for housing where you should just
be one part of the region King Seattle
now it's East King County and Seattle
so in terms of Workforce housing you
know is there places where for some of
the workers you're going to see
that you're going to see that the the
affordability profile is not a whole lot
different in the rest of East King
County than it is in Issaquah
so that's part of the reason why maybe
we have traffic issues or you're going
to see some other demographic
information talks about cost burden so
you've asked the perfect question and
one reason we're showing you this is
we're saying
your story isn't a lot different than
anyone else in East King County so
cumulatively we have a lot of pressure
on our system in terms of affordability
for a lot of our Workforce
actually I knew the answer to the
question but I thought I had it right
okay no that's great
so okay
okay we'll move to demographics
and we'll kind of start here with the
summary and then work backwards into the
detail
one thing that we found across East King
County
arth has already alluded to is that the
communities are becoming more mature and
what we mean by that is that the city
demograph the city's demographically
um are becoming more like King County as
a whole
we also find that in terms of household
types and population ages and so forth
that they're not you know we're not all
just young families in our communities
anymore that that we have diversities of
Ages and household types and so forth
with respect to issua
well I was you know like Arthur said
I've only been here three years I was
floored by the growth in Issaquah
how much
bigger it was than other Eastside
communities but what what's happened
demographically in the community is that
Issaquah was
distinct in a number of ways and now
it's much more like the rest of the
county especially in terms of as I said
population age household types and
homeownership is much higher than it was
in the past these are all the all
details that you can find in the report
um there still are a couple of
distinguishing features one is that the
median income in the city is lower from
others in the uh in East King County but
there's also a lower a rate of poverty
at the same time there's a higher
incident of housing cost burden I'll
Define that for you later
but your median income is still higher
than county-wide averages we're just
saying within East King County yeah
so household types
we look at five different types if you
will of households and
um
what has happened in Issaquah is that
this Married With Children
piece of the pie has grown dramatically
um
and that in combination with the others
looks very similar to East King County
there's a county pie in in there that
you can compare that to
another notable thing though is the
combination of living alone and married
without kids one and two which accounts
for most of the one and two person
households is um well it's it's 56 here
but if you look at actually all the one
and two-person households it's over 60
percent
in Issaquah so
um that kind of raises a question about
what kind of housing those people
um
uh really desire and would is there a
latent need out there for other types of
smaller units like accessory dwelling
units or Cottages or you know some some
other types of Innovative housing if you
will
so what do you draw go ahead I was just
going to say so if that's the well
somewhat current snapshot of Issaquah do
you have a similar snapshot for what you
think the demand would be for affordable
housing meaning
the the folks that fall into the
affordable housing categories are they
going to be matching that or is it more
families with children or do you have
any we we do have some information on
that
um
thank you
yeah
we'll bring some of that out and see if
you still have questions about okay
no I I have one you talked about the
different different kinds of
units have you looked is it is there any
inclination to look at the pods that are
being built in Seattle to move anything
like that for affordable housing out
here we haven't uh we haven't
heard of any in Issaquah per se but yes
in Redmond there are two projects
already
and in Kirkland there are two on the
drawing board I think more are you
looking at that type of construction for
affordable housing is that something
that that works and is part of what you
think it should be
so so I'd like to make two comments one
is a general
what you're asking now is perfect
because what we're making connections
between this and housing issues is what
we're trying to get your thoughts and
inputs on so this is the perfect line of
questioning and commenting that we're
looking for so keep it up that's good
stuff on the on the pods everyone know
what the pods are
okay no actually no so we'll pods are
very small efficiency units you may only
have a microwave as a cooking and you
might have a small down the hallway
kitchen that people share and your unit
will be
200 square feet maybe 300 square feet
very very small efficient they usually
do come with a complete bath but the
sink may be your kitchen sink too very
very small units
um their rent from a development point
of view they're an interesting mix per
square foot they get the highest rent
per square foot of anything in Redmond
but per unit they're most they're the
most affordable units the ones in
Redmond there's a digipen everyone here
the Japan there's they're a tech college
or I don't know post high school college
program and they know a lot of people
from that program are living there but
other people live there as well so the
answer is the person who built the first
one in Redmond is the same person who
built the second one in Redmond
so that's telling you there's a market
response and he's the same person trying
to build them in Kirkland and my guess
is he'll be in your town within four or
five years proposing something in your
town too
so it does seem to have a market
response so
and does it answer all of them no but
for some needs it's a way that the
market can be I know they're popping up
and up and down exactly
here we're looking at changes in
population age
um
again this is all of East King County
but issaquah's is very similar and if
I think it's interesting that this
change here from 90 to 2000
in in this age group moved up to this
exact thing
change here in the next 10 years and we
probably expect to see
65 to 75 increase in essential patterns
there was some increase
uh
in those already in the 55 and up group
and actually issquad has a little bit
higher
probably because of existing
elderly housing senior housing
so we know that we can expect a
proportion of seniors
to grow as well as the number in fact
that the figure that I keep hearing over
and over is that the number of seniors
is going to double in 30 years so we
expect them to increase proportion as a
percentage also
um
but seniors who rent
are relatively cost burdened meaning
they spend more than they can afford on
housing
some seniors especially the most elderly
have specialized housing needs as you
probably know and
um
what you may also know is that senior
specialty housing or housing options are
fairly plentiful on a proportionate
basis in Issaquah already so you know a
question to think about especially when
we get into the policy discussions is to
what extent do you want to continue to
address are you uh
or give priority to senior housing um I
guess it's always good to take into
account
um the more popular notion of Aging in
place too so not out building
the care facilities
because there's quite
as somewhat of a shift and I'd say
probably more significant shift toward
Aging in place
in the future
great thank you so that's a again we
just had a conversation in another city
and so and trying to get policy
direction from them one of the items was
there are different kinds of senior
needs and therefore instead of just
having one policy for seniors and the
two themes seem to be specialized forms
of housing that may be done by seniors
but the other is ability to age in place
and and encouraging that as well so two
very different approaches and what I
would point out is in the age data
that's in the report one thing that
we've noticed in the last 25 years is
that the proportion of seniors who are
over age 75 has gone up significantly so
where it used to be one-third were over
age 75 and two-thirds between 65 and 75
it's now an even split and those who are
over 75 may find themselves needing more
specialized forms of housing short term
or long term and so that's one Trend
that we have seen that may have some
level of impact on senior needs is that
balance of you know the 65 to 75 may
have a little bit different mixture of
needs between those two kinds versus
those 75 and over
speaking of demographic shifts have you
seen any as Baby Boomers start to retire
in massive numbers now generally
downsizing has that had any impact at
all on housing stock need or changes are
they now consuming more of the smaller
housing stock that normally we would say
would go to a starter family or a lower
income family
I haven't posed the question I don't
know yeah I haven't seen any you know
statistic based conclusions on that
um
just you know experientially or
anecdotally it seems to be both just
like the question of you know whether
people want to age in place or find a
senior service supported communities or
things like that it's
you know it depends on the person
looking for is one floor units whether
they're single-family homes or
elevator accessible are you talking
about boomers are seniors both Boomers
when they become seniors yeah both so
yeah that's what I'm finding in my
business so so it's more of a I want a
single level because I want to stay here
I don't want to move and and I don't
like Steps so so there's a lot of
answers to your question and that which
is essentially building on what
commissioner Aaron was saying that
um a lot of seniors
they want to stay in their homes or
whatever and or they want to stay in
their neighborhoods and so there's a
certain amount who want to age in place
I was developing senior housing in the
80s and we made the mistake the
development Community made the mistake
of saying I came up with a model for
putting seniors in housing with services
and they look at the wealth they had and
everything and they assumed okay we're
going to be able to get 25 30 percent of
all seniors to go into these kind of
housing
and because they said they got the money
they got this so why wouldn't they do it
and the mistake we all made back then
was because that home equity they had
was their nest egg to take care of
emergencies not to pay for their
day-to-day living and so in the end
maybe only 15 instead of the assumed 30
percent went to that different kind of
housing but the Market's out there
watching really carefully and you are
you your community has the number of
communities targeted for seniors and so
there is a whole industry out there who
is trying to tailor the needs and so
again this is sort of now one of the
implications for housing questions is
the comment I would make is it's hard to
say exactly as a city what that demand
is going to be now but there are a group
of people out there who make a living
out of responding to Market and changing
markets and that's your development
community and so one of the questions
that we raise in general with
commissions and thinking about how you
deal with it instead of always saying
we're going to plan precisely about what
we think each need is instead it's maybe
thinking about it is do we leave enough
flexibility to allow the market to
respond to changing needs and make it so
that we don't become too big of a burden
to the market responding to what is
working out in the market and so what
can we do to get the market to be the
you know this country relies primarily
on the market to create its housing yet
we have challenges it might be a demo
you know are they building to the right
needs or are they building the right
affordability
but one of the first steps I always say
for city is
try to have the market be able to take
as much care of the needs in your in
your community as absolutely possible so
for example accessory dwelling units
doesn't cost public money to do it it
creates very affordable forms of housing
it may allow someone to age in place
because they have someone on their
property with them and so it can be a
way to allow very flexibly but still
done in a way that fits into the
community so I think that's one of the
messages we like for people to think
about is it isn't always about
regulating to success it might be giving
enough flexibility to have a good
Community but allowing that market to do
some shifting around as changes as needs
change
let's take a quick look at race
ethnicity and so forth because although
it's not really clear
always what impact this will have on
housing as Arthur just said that we try
and take the approach that cities should
be
sensitive to and accommodating
when Market needs to shift and
ethnicity may have an impact on that so
you know as well as I do from the
numbers that the ethnic profile has
changed in Issaquah just as it has
throughout the county
and this illustrates that in a couple of
ways including the the percentage of
people who are born outside the U.S
so is becoming more diverse and Human
Services programs and housing you know
being related to that
we want to try and be sensitive and
responsive to those things especially if
those uh characteristics that I just
showed you have some impact on the
English language proficiency of the
people involved and what kind of needs
may
you know appear because of that
um and what and then there's the kind of
open question about whether or not uh
different we'll see demands for
different types of housing
okay I mentioned housing cost burden a
couple of times let me Define that more
explicitly so
long-standing definition of housing cost
burden is any household but particularly
lower income households is they pay more
than 30 percent of their gross income
and housing costs including utilities
and the reason why I say particularly
lower paying because
there's a belief that if you're making
less than middle income say that
more your uh
the more of your housing costs that go
to housing or more of your income that
goes to housing
the more the harder it is for you to
afford other Ascension
Necessities like food and clothing and
so forth
it's not such a threat at 30 percent of
income if you're already making
more than middle income
we found that a large portion of the
people who are cost burned are or sorry
other way around large portions of lower
and uh
very low income people our house are
cost burdened
but looking at the profile of cost
burden households they tend to be
younger you know people are just
starting out
or older and in particular renters
and then
more concerning thing of is what's known
as severe cost burden that's when people
are actually paying more than half of
their incomes on housing
um
half of the cost burden renters and a
third of cost burdened homeowners
pay more than half of their incomes
on housing
this chart is meant to illustrate that
the the relationship between income and
cost burden so it's it's pretty dramatic
to show that when your income's really
low on the left hand side there's a
great likelihood that your cost burdened
and when your income is much higher
there's a much lower likelihood
and here going back to the comment about
renters we see that uh
renters tend to be
more likely to be cost burned although
there was through the recession a real
uptick in cost burden among homeowners
Issaquah residents
on the whole
are have a higher percentage of cost
burden compared to the rest of East King
County
I believe it's it's similar to the
county average but it's a little more
common in issquad than other cities
around you and going back to the
homeowner comment it went up quite a bit
I think third something like 13 to 21
percent
of the homeowners became cost burden
the thing about the 50 that's the fear
that cost burden
that's when they say that you're right
on the edge of becoming homeless so we
also
um
want to be
aware and attentive to homelessness
which is um
common in East King County as it is
throughout the county
this has some statistics that have kind
of held up over time
throughout the county in the various
one-night counts and so forth again this
year more than 8 000 people were counted
as homeless and
um actually 3 100 people just last month
were counted outdoors in King County on
the east side the number went down a
little bit but it's still higher than it
was
in the past
also we have in the report data on
homeless children as reported by school
districts and um
so you can see in there specifically
about the Issaquah school district
fortunately that number went down last
year but um
at 124 counted throughout the year
it's still noteworthy
and then the um
East King County has a homelessness plan
that is part of the bigger County
homelessness plan and this
plan included the needs projected
back in 2005 and this shows what's been
added since then so
um
there's been a lot of progress but still
um
short of what the
estimated needless in all three of these
categories and I just like to jump in
with a quick comment on the homeless on
two quick comments on the homeless data
you know I've been in some meetings
earlier today with groups who work on
homelessness in East King County and
going back one slide is that the one
night count was just done where they go
out during the evening and count people
who are
in no form of shelter they're either in
a car or camping out and things and we
know we're not getting Complete because
we can't go up on Tiger Mountain and get
all the folks there but there were
several hundred people counted in East
King County on during that count who are
in East King County who were Without
Shelter we also have a number several
shelters for families and and singles
and young and young adults as well so
when we're talking about homelessness
and it's a county-wide issue it isn't
because we don't have homelessness in
East King County and similarly we don't
have a slide on it but there is slides
about households who are in supplemental
security income and so there is another
percentage of our community that have
special needs or other things that make
it difficult for them to live day to day
without some kind of support services
and again we have that in East King
County just as we do and you know in
other parts of the county so that
information is in the part that Mike was
referencing some more detail and
information on that so and I think
you're probably missing uh some huge
data too on people that are homeless
that are Couchsurfing
right because there's quite a bit of
those people now especially in the last
two months of unemployment being cut off
there's yeah and and some numbers that
might be getting picked up on with the
um School data because the school data
definition of homeless sometimes
includes that but you're right it's you
know when we're doing the one night
count those are the people who've gotten
all the way to the circumstance where
they're not in a heated space during the
night on a cold night in January and
there's still other people who are
finding other ways to skimp by that
really isn't a housing unit for family
but sharing or other shelters or things
along those lines so good thank you
so we have a few observations about on
the supply side of things
and to No Surprise
rents in East King County are relatively
High average rents tend to be in line
with moderate incomes but and rents also
often follow the pattern of
um
changes in income and you'll see there
are some charts in the report that
illustrate that nicely but
um
in East King County just in the last
couple of years rents have gone up quite
a bit more than income and that probably
reflects the catching up that the
multifamily industry has been trying to
do
this chart is meant to show the
the differences in different areas of
the county Seashore means Seattle and
Shoreline East is the East Side South
County and then also showing some Rural
and unincorporated areas but um
this is showing that East King County
has a low proportion of rental housing
affordable and very low
and ownership sorry rail housing and
ownership
at lower income so the the dot or the
line shows the percentage of units
rental units that are affordable
and the bar shows
the um the actual number of units
when you um
you put together the
the
when you're looking at the the rising
cost of rents do you take into
consideration
um you know it's going up because the
higher end is going up do you separate
how much the lower end is actually going
up a lot of you know the higher end
uh
homes or rentals are based for people
who can afford them and there's a lot of
rents going on now because housing
inventory is so low they have to rent
do you separate the two or do you find
that that Medium number based on
everything put together
the median when we show median numbers
it's everything put together but the
median being the middle kind of helps
control for
um you know the extreme highs as well as
the extreme lows whereas if we took an
average that would be that would be more
distorted I I just like to know if you
know the lower rents are going up higher
than the higher so there is
there right so
um
this is taking your lower end and
showing you proportionately in East King
County how much of our housing is
affordable rental housing's affordable
at 50 that's not giving you the time
change but it is showing you
proportionally have a pretty low
percentage of ours to your question the
closest in terms of the data is not
again A Time snapshot but we do at a
point in time snapshot figure out how
much of the rental housing is Affordable
at each income level and how much
housing is affordable rent ownership
housing is Affordable at different
income levels and so we will be tracking
that because that's now become one of
the key measures we will keep tracking
that over time
so while the graph that he was
describing doesn't distinguish lower and
higher we have another table that shows
how much of our housing is Affordable at
each income level which I think is a
different way that gets similar to that
your question yeah
but
can I ask you a quick question one I
apologize I have to leave in a second
but I just I wanted to ask a probably a
very oversimplified question is this
whole topic purely just a a supply and
demand issue in East King County
in the market
I mean is that really at the root of
what we're talking about because I'm I'm
looking at this thinking there's this
huge demand and all this need for
affordable housing how come the market
you know adding a thousand units of
market rate apartment living in every
city in East King County wouldn't that
bring Supply up with demand and
effectively bringing rates down I'm just
wondering what's missing in the market
that isn't causing that to happen
yeah a lot of good questions
sorry about that no that's
um I'd say it's partially yes
but I wouldn't say it's completely yes
you would find that probably even in
areas where you have more balance you're
still going to have caught like
the proportion of cost burden households
doesn't go way down in other parts of
the county
because the housing supply has a general
in this region for whatever reason
doesn't seem to do well and the lower
end is often cost burdened in almost any
Market
so this and that's the imperfection of
the market so some of its imperfection
in the market the other question that
could still be a gap even if you
increase Supply is is it matching
um what the demand is necessarily so
what the market and that's why I say
flexibility Market the market if it over
builds something it will some people get
smart about it and correct so the pods
somebody figured out in the marketplace
there's a demand there and they were
smart enough to say it hasn't been built
before but I'm going to do it and hope
it works the building industry in
general
for a lot of good reasons
it's hard to do
the risk to take on the future need
because they're generally looking at
what happened four years ago or two
years ago that's what you get financing
for it's hard to get financing for where
the world's going to
so you so what we sometimes do with
communities is you take all this
information that we're doing and what
you do is you could create a grid of
different household types and different
income levels and ideally what you would
do in the end is you have a housing
stock that completely matched type of
households and income levels
that's hard to do so what we found like
when you look we're about to get to a
slide on creating of affordable units
and you're going to see Bellevue created
a fair number
of moderately priced units through the
market
they're all small rentals
or the vast majority are yet in that
income profile this goes to the earlier
question well is that the need it's like
no the need is pretty much similar to
the demographic profiles we've been
showing you there are families there are
people who want to rent there are people
who want to own so while it's still good
that through the market we created that
it wouldn't necessarily if you just
increased everything naturally be a fit
okay
so it's more complicated but it is a
starting point to the conversation no
doubt about it but it doesn't get you to
the end to just say increase the number
yeah no I understood and I knew I was
oversimplifying it when I asked the
question it was just the thought of my
head I'd be curious to ask a bunch of
developers or apartment building
builders and just say why not so so for
example I was talking to an apartment
Builder who's looking at some property
and a little more of an outlying area
and his unit mix he is again these are
the smart developers he goes we're
putting in more three bedrooms in this
development much more than we normally
do because we think in this community
that's where there will be interest and
demand for it okay
um one of the big issues that cities
faced 10 years ago this is my point
about flexibility to allow the market to
sort of pick up on this stuff is a lot
of cities forever use density for
defining how much you could build 20
years of the acre 30 is the acre and in
our centers the builders could say no
give us far area ratio
because if you're based on density the
market forces doesn't allow them to
build small units you've got to build
bigger units because you're paying per
land cost by not a square foot number
but a unit number so if you build
smaller units which get less Revenue
you're hurting it's harder to make the
economics work so they have to sit
around and not maybe build as much
because the landowner says I want this
much per unit where if you go by per
square foot
the Builder can say I can do bigger I
can do smaller okay so that was a big
push in almost all jurisdictions do that
now outside you know in this in the
communities we work with in parts of
their Community that's an example of how
you use your city controls to still
leave flexibility and we and it took the
builders telling communities that
before they started to get it and now we
all do or most of them do and so now you
are seeing the product but now they all
went really small so now our summer
saying well we can't all go really small
we have to figure out some balance to
that right so okay the challenge of the
market well as I departed I thought I'd
leave you with a very complex question
thank you very much so you you're not
going to get
a thousand units of affordable housing
right without them making a profit
they're not going to build anything that
they're going to lose money on right and
what the cities have to do is work with
the builders in order to somehow get
impact fees eliminate or something in
order to get that and so that's where
you're going to get the cost I mean
Builders will build them but they have
to make money I mean right that's the
way and your city has so right so again
this is where the policy conversation
comes in is it may be and my guess is
and you guys have a pretty good comp
plan right now I mean what we're finding
is and looking at policies is you first
wrote this in the early 90s and there's
certain issues out there that aren't
really addressed much because people
weren't talking about it much one is
homelessness
um some might be around senior and maybe
just had a generic statement and not
something that's a little more refined
another is sustainability
right
um principles and Concepts weren't
around and
um and so and the other is mixed juice
centers which most plants so but you but
having policies that say things just
like what you were just saying is what
can the city do to help incent and make
the economics work better for a builder
so that maybe they can have some
affordability and if they do give those
things then we want something in
exchange so just like you're doing in
your central Issaquah plan that plan
says here's your base Zone you want to
go higher great but we want some of that
extra height
to be for affordability in other words
we don't want all the expert development
capacity to go to the landowner as value
increase land values we want some back
in public benefits so in central
Issaquah you ask for some open space
benefits and some affordability benefits
but hopefully it doesn't necessarily
hurt their economics because it's it's
it's sensitive to economics because
you're absolutely right they can't just
build it because we ask them to
okay I'll uh I'll try and pick it up
here
but the the question the discussion's
excellent
um so the good news is that Issaquah and
um all East Side cities have kept pace
with the housing targets the general
housing targets and uh have uh appear to
be plenty of capacity for to meet the
goals through 2031.
one of the things that we try and look
closely at though is the
how much of that residential growth
capacity is in mixed use type of zoning
and in issaquah's case there's a lot of
it that's the green portion at the
bottom of each of the bars and so on the
left access the the vertical axis
shows the housing Target
and this shows that
um including what some of the housing
that's already built the city has
capacity for 150 percent of its Target
and then there's still mixed use
capacity for almost 100 percent of the
target so lots of capacity there and
mixed use capacity
is good
because it often creates opportunities
for other goals that the city wants to
meet
related to sustainability
and affordability and so forth could you
go back yes slide real quick
this is also the reason we put this out
here and we highlight this is again it's
sort of the very first story I say it's
not just you by yourself
but when you look at East King County
and many of the jurisdictions are taking
a very very similar approach to how to
accommodate growth which is in mixed-use
centers
and there is no guarantee in a mixed use
Center what you're going to get they can
do office commercial or housing and so
the reason we bring that up is and in
fact Trisha's comment at the very
beginning of the meeting
about measuring every year how much
housing is being created in the
centralistical area
part of that is because you're assuming
you're going to get a certain amount of
housing in that Central area and if that
doesn't happen
remember that jobs housing balance we
were showing what does it do if some of
those areas intended for housing don't
go housing
okay and the other issue that comes up
here often and look at how many cities
are at 50 percent or higher Bellevue
Redmond where it's over 70 percent of
their capacity for growth is in these
mixed use centers this I'm not saying
it's a bad thing but we have set
ourselves up as a region to really rely
on this to meet a lot of our housing
growth so one is it really going to
happen and do we watch it and some
cities have taken the step of ensuring
it will happen in other words they've
layered on some extra rules Issaquah
made a decision with Central Issaquah
not to do that at this point but rather
monitor let's see how well the market
does it but the reason for monitoring is
if they don't then maybe you have to do
like Redmond did in overlay and they
created a neighborhood where far for
commercial development and one part of
it is very low but far if you have
housing is a lot higher in other words
we're saying you can stay how you are
but if you redevelop in this small
quarter we want housing and they didn't
want to take the risk of that not
happening because a lot of these mixed
use centers don't have a lot of housing
today so it is a shift you know Bellevue
didn't have it when I first got here in
downtown Redmond didn't have it 10 years
ago so it can't happen but we're really
relying on that the other part of that
is if we're really relying on this
also we're also relying on this meeting
a lot of needs different kinds of needs
and not just the single person
necessarily so are these going to be
communities that are vibrant long term
from a market point of view because they
can meet a variety of different needs so
we've been emphasizing this for about
five years with cities the first when
the 2006 report came out and we just saw
this data and again not a bad story but
it's one to really be conscious of
because all the other cities are using a
similar approach
so remember at the beginning when we
looked at the chart with the blue
and red stacked bars and how the um the
needs were distributed by different
household incomes
and we said that countywide planning
policy calls for every city to try to
address a proportionate share of those
needs
well East Side cities overall
have are on a pace for
66 percent of the moderate income part
of that goal
and Issaquah in particular has hit 62
percent of that modern income segment
on the low income side that is below uh
50 percent
of median income the achievements are
lower so we're only on track there for
about a quarter across the east side and
16 percent in Issaquah
almost all of those low-income units
require some kind of
financial assistance
we do a lot of tracking of this kind of
stuff as well
and these These are the figures that
um support
the percentages that I was just talking
about this for also in your appendix
but it breaks it down according to how
those units were created or what what
the public sector at least did to create
them direct assistance means some kind
of financial support either
cat in cash form or fee waivers or land
grants things of that nature land use
incentives are could be density bonuses
or other forms and then Market we
actually go and Survey the all the
multi-family units that have been
opened each year and find out what
they've sold at or what rents they're
they're charging
to record any real estate
thing a deed whatever does any of that
money come directly to you
no but it goes to projects that week
that cities are funding
so because we don't build any housing
okay okay so when people come to RH and
get funding it's an agency like imagine
housing or hope link they're getting
money from us the county and the state
often for the capital and then some of
that capital is from that reporting fee
and then they have ongoing services and
there they apply to the county for the
service dollars and a lot of that is
from that recording fee in fact that's
the highest proportion
so what I'm seeing in this is that
there's a huge inequality in incentives
whether that's I'm sorry assistance in
general between low income and moderate
I'm clarified I'm not quite sure I'm
following the comments well when you
look at the numbers and I'm not even
doing any math there's almost a 50
percent difference between
um
providing that incentive or direct
assistance to someone that's in a low
income bracket as opposed to someone
that's in a moderate income right
so that's inequality to me in in regards
to
to not only available stock obviously
there's an inequality there but there's
an inequality in how much uh the two
get assistance or incentives
so are you saying it's too skewed to
lower income
what I'm saying is it's very much
favoring moderate income
okay so you're correct now here's the
thing
let me sort of tell a little story on
these on these in a different little
spin in your right but you'll see with
direct assistance
we are skewing that towards the low
income and for the moderate almost all
the direct assistance units okay
remember low income is zero to fifty
percent of median yeah this is a great
question or comment and so and moderate
income is from 50 all the way to 80
percent of median
the direct assistance in the moderate
are almost all at sixty percent of
median and below and then the direct
assistance are 30 40 50 homeless all
kinds developmentally disabled
what we what we're trying to show here
is that
back to your economics thing
um you can't make money is what we're
trying to say is that
when we allow and that that furthest to
the right column which is the market
the first step as a community is cannot
can we help the market just on its own
create housing that's relatively
affordable
and what we're saying is we've managed
to and most of these are in centers and
they're smaller homes and stuff that
just through our land use regulations
with no helping the private sector has
managed to create
2790 units that are affordable to
moderate okay now when you look at that
price chart that we showed you in the
very beginning to think that the
Market's going to come in now we might
add because of the a pod mint we might
add in the next survey market rate units
under law we might for the first time
you can see we have 43 from Kirkland and
guess what that was Northwest University
um so that was the school so what I was
hinting at is that incentive and we're
going back to the comprehensive plan and
what the policy commission does as well
as our our officials in the city you
know there's a huge inequality right
there to me right but let me finish the
explanation here is this middle column
are the you know so to think that the
market is going to get all the way down
to low ink down to 50 of median with new
these are only new units this is an
overall Supply
um that we're showing history is in East
King County and probably almost anywhere
the market without any kind of
assistance it just doesn't really happen
okay but what we're saying is we can at
least try to get some in the moderate I
mean that's an accomplishment if we
probably hadn't done a lot of the
planning we'd done in the last few years
that number would be even lower
the land use incentives has a similar
story which is that we find it because
of what the rent levels are at the value
of the land use incentives we can offer
make it difficult to ask a private
Builder without cash assistance but just
through density bonuses to get all the
way down to 50 immediate now what we are
having conversations with cities about
is that you're raising a good point is
we're having more conversations with
cities to say okay in the past in the
beginning we would do
a density bonus for every density extra
unit we want one unit at eighty percent
of media okay now in Kirkland right now
what we've done is we've added two
different programs together and we're
saying we'll give you a three to one
bonus and we'll give you another
incentive like fee waivers and we want
you to be at sixty percent of media and
it's a pure economic we are trying to
see if we can use incentives to get to a
more get lower at the moderate range and
stuff so that's part so you raise a good
question is given the economics for a
private Builder and the incentives you
have on the table do you try to get more
at one level or fewer at a more
affordable level and when you do so how
far do you go down is it worthwhile
doing and so we had that conversation in
central Issaquah and I can't remember
off the top of my head but we are below
eight we're at 70 or 60 percent of
median instead of the 80 so you raise a
very valid point and again that could be
a policy question when you're looking at
the comp plan is do you say in your
incentives moderate or say strive to try
to do a balance of income levels when we
do these incentives but you can't forget
the economics you can't just sort of say
we need them at 50. so you do them at 50
and we're not going to give you anything
more so that's a trade-off conversation
cities have to make
and and this is sort of an ad for me
um or for RH we're having a workshop I
think did they get the invitations
yes yes okay so we're doing a workshop
in like three weeks and we're going to
talk about what some cities have done
and we will be illustrating the Kirkland
example
or others will be talking about how
different people have tried to layer in
order to try to accomplish something
more affordable than just at 80 so it's
a very good point but also have to
balance it against those other
considerations
and so what the message we usually say
when we say this is cities
don't forget about your land use and
don't forget about incentives those are
all different tools money alone is not
going to get us there we need to try to
look at a wide range of tools to address
this full range of needs that are in
your community so don't just think it's
money don't think it's just markets and
what we're saying is in East King County
the most expensive Market in the region
we're still finding that these other
tools can still work to meet some of the
affordability things as defined under
GMA
and a lot of people would say oh that's
not even possible but we're saying no
you have a history of doing that
I'll skip the summary there and go on to
housing strategies so we have
um and we've already broached this topic
um before main categories as far as this
presentation goes
um
one set aimed at uh diversifying the
housing stock
another set
for affordable housing and then we also
address special housing needs
let's see how many of these we've
already talked about
we talked about floor area ratios
instead of units Breakers zoning
um
you know we talked about cluster
subdivisions or Cottages so much we did
talk about the mini suites so these are
a couple categories of efforts to
diversify housing types and some
examples of cities where they've already
taken place whoops
in terms of affordability we've talked
about a number of incentives
um
in Kirkland Redmond and Sammamish the
city proactively
increased the development capacity and
settled along with that
you're going to give us some degree of
affordability
in other places Bellevue Mercer Islands
we have sammamished twice
I don't know if that's a mistake or if
it's in both parts
but it's a voluntary it's the choice of
the developer whether to ask for the
increased capacity and offer though of
affordability
accessory dwelling units I could also go
under the
diversification but we consider them
affordable on their face and Mercer
Island in particular has been really
good at
getting
permitted adus
Kirkland and Mercer Island
and also Kenmore
which dropped off has a multi-family
property tax exemption
um
and Arthur mentioned how that that's
coupled in Kirkland in particular with
the um uh with the
increased capacity incentives
impact fee waivers are are getting more
common and have been made easier to
adopt with recent State legislation
oops
and then as far as direct support
we have our Arch Housing Trust Fund
which cities contribute to in a variety
of mean some with General Revenue some
with Community Development block grant
money and
um
the goal as adopted by the executive
board which all the chief Executives of
Our member cities is to have a
geographic balance
and this has produced over 2 800 units
in the last almost 20 years
what did you have two percentages
no right
I forgotten what that is okay the first
number is what the long-term goal was
intended to be or is based on analysis
and lots of different input the second
which is in parentheses is what we've
done and this is resource it's not
number of units it's percentage of
resources
so
um and as you noted the one that we're
most short on is senior and special
needs now seniors we think we're going
to be right about back on par very soon
on some proposals that are in front of
us the
special needs and the homeless are
difficult ones to distinguish from one
another
we often find depending on the time
period that and so I almost add those
two together because they're both forms
of housing where people need help with
day-to-day needs so like friends of
Youth was under special needs but
they're also homeless I mean they're
serving homeless Youth and stuff so
we've been short there but you can see
we've been above on the homeless and
transitional
and so but part of the dilemma with the
special needs is there's only so much
service style all homeless and special
needs need service dollars in order for
them to work we don't have service
dollars so when somebody comes to the
cities and asks for Capital funds for
any of the last two categories we say
how are you going to pay for the
services
and so they're relying on being able to
bring the services component to the
table as well so we don't see large
developments per se we've done a lot of
group homes for development disabled
which I know you're aware of and but
they're done one home at a time by
agencies because that's what they're
able to pull funding together for so we
at least feel a little bit better that
when we take those two together we're
pretty close to the long-term goal
because there's a lot of overlap between
those two categories
do you have any data on the
the future needs
for particularly uh special needs people
with developmental disabilities in adult
family homes on the east side
for example uh DSHS
data shows that in the uh
two zip codes here in Issaquah that
there's about 200 families
that had that are parents of 60 65 or
older and have a developmentally delayed
person living with them right and as you
mentioned earlier the seniors want to
stay in their communities and it really
want to have the people with
developmental disabilities be able to
stay in the communities when either
their parents can't take care of them or
they're gone and if they're on the DSHS
rules in art as you pointed out there
needs to be service dollars there is
service dollars
but you know how are we planning here in
Issaquah
to accommodate this need and there's
Federal
lawsuit about 10 years ago the Olmstead
a lawsuit in and said that people in the
institutions
have the right to live in the
communities and because of that a number
of the States including the state of
Washington are downsizing their
institutions
so there has to be a place for those
people to go in the communities
I don't see it being and I'm not being
critical but just overall Statewide I
don't see that being addressed or looked
at it's a it's a small group but it's a
very very vulnerable group and as you
said you know sometimes they're counted
as the homeless and
it could be in 10 years they're going to
be the homeless just to piggyback on
your comment I think that was great you
know for them to go back and and stay
within their communities and and
shutting some of those institutions down
but the lack of funding that occurred to
be redirected to the communities to you
know follow up and nurture and support
individuals is pretty much none so the
funding for the housing isn't there the
funding for support is there
so the so here's great comment
and one I first want to point out
special needs is not only
developmentally disabled that's right
there's more there's people with AIDS
there's you know that all it was meant
to mean anyone who would need help with
daily living assistance that's why I'm
saying homeless and transitional versus
special needs can sometimes you're sort
of defining similar groups
similarly because it's the assistance
with daily service daily needs in order
to be able to live wherever you're
living and so it's not just developing
disabled so that's one thing to keep in
mind when you're looking at that the
other is you tell a very compelling
story if we went back to the homeless
slide you'll see what our goal was and
you'll see what our numbers are at a
fraction of what the needs are if you
look at the other thing we told you our
Target was
whatever the number was and we're at
less than 25 percent of trying to
achieve those needs
um The Dilemma I've had in my lifetime
of 35 years of working in this industry
is there's so many needs out there that
we're challenged to meet the housing
needs for
um what Mike was describing here is we
could take anyone in fact
we bring together councils once in a
while and the last time we came together
it was right when the homeless plan was
starting and we said you know you could
take any one of these four categories
and say spend every dime that you have
in any one of those four you could spend
all your money there and you still might
not meet the need for that category
and so what do we do we have a choice we
can focus on one particular need or we
can say that we're going to try to
address the range of needs that our
needs analysis are identified
and one of the comments I made to the
councils when I made that comment is if
you go back to the very very first slide
it said under the growth management act
cities are supposed to identify the full
range of needs and then they're supposed
to come up with strategies to try to
help address the full range of needs
so in working for cities I'm saying yeah
if I were a foundation I could say I'm a
foundation who wants to work on senior
housing
okay but your cities who were now
dispensary an hour and a half going
through a wide range of needs do you
take this one resource that we've shown
is the only thing you got to have that
to get to the lower income
do you and say we want to do a variety
of kinds of needs or are we going to
focus on one and because of all the
background a lot of people say in the
agencies when we get all the agencies
around the table and ask them that
question they're all looking at each
other they realize oh okay you're doing
good stuff too so that's our dilemma is
we're trying to address a range of needs
and we've never fully addressed any one
of them
adequately because we're trying to
address a wide range and we're coming up
unfortunately short on all of these
um but we're at least trying to address
them all to some extent as hopefully as
part of documenting for a community that
you're following the growth management
Act kind of thing so that's why when
land use incentives can work with
moderate we skew our money part because
it's a comprehensive approach to the
lower income okay but now we're starting
to learn in the last 10 years maybe
there's ways to even try to get more
lower by using some of those those other
two columns sometimes because we're
coming up so short on the low can we
push some of those other areas to try to
get to that lower need that's our
ongoing dilemma it's choices and
balancing okay and so that's kind of
where we've been at and about every five
years ago so we kind of go back to
councils we have them together and we
say is it is this the right basic
approach a balanced approach so no right
answer but that's kind of where we've
been at
I don't know if there's much need to
um
cover these but uh
because we've already talked about them
but that's our
last couple slides
thank you for this I think it was really
great and as a as a huge uh supporter of
of low very low income affordable
housing I know that I was a pain in the
butt to a lot of my co-commissioners
when we went through the central
Issaquah plan
um that there wasn't enough units on
there uh listed uh for building so
um I I really do thank you I think the
numbers really speak loudly to not only
the east side but Issaquah and I look at
it from from coming from a social
service and a Human Service perspective
but I also look at it from an economic
development and the Vitality of our city
and growing that we cannot grow as a
city if we don't accommodate for that
growth which means we have to have a
variety of housing available and by
growing I mean not only maintaining
those major employers that you listed
but really attracting more major
employers to our region which then
builds our community and and supports
the different levels of people that live
in community
well I want to thank all of you for for
your questions and attention and and
really good discussion I hope that
you'll
this gives you a good reason to go back
and and study the report a little bit
more and and welcome you to
um
to contact us again of course we'll be
back when when it's time it's
appropriate time to talk about what this
means in terms of your comp plan
policies going forward
of housing
and the economic not only the economic
stability for the developers but the
economic stability for the community and
this is something that we really have to
think about and it it all goes together
you can't have a Vibrant Community
without
uh the housing to go with it and the
housing building the housing provides
jobs which allow people to buy houses
that will stimulate the economy which is
what we all want so
um good luck and and thank you so much
for your good luck to you we just do the
background you have to make the hard
choices and figure out what policies
will work for your future well that that
brings up a point and I started with
saying that we have a few uh openings on
our planning policy commission so if
you've heard anything tonight that you'd
like to get interested that interests
you that you'd like to be part of in
planning for the future of the of
Issaquah please fill out that
application it's online and let's see if
we can't get you to help us do this so
if there's nothing else
um I'm going to call the meeting too
close at 8
25 close enough thank you