"Council Passes 'Grand Bargain' Legislation to Require* Affordable Housing in New Apartment Buildings"

*unless developers buy their way out by paying a fee that's far too low to ever allow the city to do anything that really matters

Can the city choose to stop doing business with developers who ALWAYS choose to pay the fee instead of including some affordable units?

I agree with @nospin - $9-14 per square foot doesn't seem like the fees will generate enough for the city to pay for more affordable units.

Does the law require affordable units to be built near major transit intersections? If not, I hope they add and consider that.

We make things expensive for most to provide token subsidies for a few, wrap a bow around it, and call it affordable. Pats on many backs.

Meanwhile, 60 percent of our developable land shall remain unaffordable in perpetuity.

Or why not put all the greedy developers in chains and force them to build affordable housing with their bare hands?

You cant make bargains with the Devil when you've already sold your soul to him year-after-year-after year. You may recognize some of the political faces in these pictures. I cant tell if they're democrats of just republicans in democrats clothing-
2013 - http://www.seattlepi.com/realestate/arti…
And this
2014 - http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2014/0…
2015 - https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/seattle…
And this
2015 - http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news…
And this
2015 - https://nextcity.org/features/view/seatt…
And this
2016 - http://www.seattletimes.com/business/cit…
And this....
2017 -
And this
2018.........

In order for Murray's prediction to come true, this MIZ program would have to be 2-10 times more effective than any existing MIZ program. What have they done differently than San Francisco, Boston, New York, Chicago, Denver, and all the other cities where such policies have been a drop in the bucket?

http://cityobservatory.org/inclusionary-…

It's fun to say "let's punish those greedy developers and make pay for it" but there's no particularly good reason to think this is going to work.

So requiring developers to set aside so many units per building, for low income housing, would be very similar to what Cuba has now. In Cuba, a garbage collector, lives in an apartment, right next door to a brain surgeon.

I see that the low end of percentage of affordable units that would have to be affordable has dropped to a new low of 3%. This is a grand bargain for developers and corporate landlords intent on making a killing building and owning on luxury apartments, but a boondoggle for people struggling to pay rent and buy food. I predict that 95% of the time developers will choose to pay a fee in lieu so their shiny new buildings can be 100% luxury units. It will take years to acquire property, design, permit and construct cheaper housing offsite for the "poors" on noisy arterials and/or in the far north and south ends of the city, where median incomes are much lower. The fact that Seattle makes absolutely no effort whatsoever to track loss and gain of affordable housing, or guarantee that people displaced when old buildings are knocked down have first dibs on the off site housing. All of this exposes HALA for the shell game it is, but nothing can make Ed Murray and his corporate sponsors blush.

Can someone explain why the developers, most of which are privately owned companies, are responsible to provide the subsidized housing? And why everyone is so upset at the "greedy" developers? Maybe I'm wrong, but wouldn't this be like asking a restaurant to offer a menu with cheaper prices to low income patrons? Or a hotel cheaper rooms? Or a clothing store reduced prices? The list goes on. Why not spread it out over all private business?

Fixed amount of land + basic need + unsustainable growth = very different from the restaurant scenario.

Some simple math that the City Council needs to adopt for this problem. For example, a new 10 story building with 10 units per floor. There are a mix of different type of units. Studios, One bedroom, 2 bedroom, 3 bedroom for a wide range of different family types. This building needs 20 % affordable housing. That is a simple 2 units per floor taking from the whole range of types.
If a developer wants to build a building then that building needs some affordable housing units. There is an organization here in Seattle to help with Affordable Housing, Seattle Housing Alliance. You put them in charge of the units in these buildings that are designated Affordable housing. The Affordable housing organization works with the landlord to manage these units.

#11 It will only work when there is a 30% surplus in housing. If people aren't earning enough to live here, they need to live where they can afford to. Having the government take land away from property owners and telling them what to do with it, isn't going to work.