To mangle a misattributed quote: “We’ve already established what Washington politicians are. Now we’re just haggling over the price.”
Just about every reasonable person can agree about the problem, which is that housing in Washington is too expensive. (Check out this literal shack on Rainier Ave S for $380,000. Always a good sign when a real estate listing uses the phrase “former glory.”)
But what landowners and everyone else can’t agree on is the solution. Even among those calling for more housing — the answer that makes the most immediate sense — advocates are engaged in frantic tussling over the best strategy to build more homes. Plus, there’s exposure to consider.
And that’s how you wind up with Substitute Senate Bill 5670 Section 2 (8)(a) and (b). The bill’s intent is to open up more neighborhoods to pretty duplexes and courtyarded sixplexes quadriplexes throughout the state … but buried waaaaaay down in all the dense legal language are two little phrases that essentially amount to “lol but not if you’re super rich.”
Here’s the precise wording of the section in question, and please don’t be alarmed if it doesn’t make any sense to you at first glance. I promise this is the only really wonky thing you’ll have to look at in this article.
The requirements of this section do not apply to any real property owned within and subject to the requirements of:
(a) Any association created under or subject to chapter 64.32, 1664.34, or 64.38 RCW; or
(b) Any common interest community created under chapter 64.90 RCW prior to the effective date of this section.
Huh what? Well, if you have the Revised Code of Washington memorized, like any good citizen, you’ll know that those particular sections of the RCW relate to homeowner associations and planned common-interest communities, also known as HOAs and CICs.
“Those are often the most exclusive communities covered by what used to be racially exclusive covenants,” says House Rep Gerry Pollet, “and they can’t enforce the racial exclusions, but now they have covenants saying you all get higher density, we’ve zoned ourselves out of it.”
Among the neighborhoods that wouldn’t have to obey the new housing law if it passed in its current form: Broadmoor, which was created in 1924 to prohibit “any Hebrew … or person of the Ethiopian, Malay, or any Asiatic Race.”
Also: Sand Point Country Club, which announced in 1952, “the community will not have Jews as residents.”
And: Windermere, where the HOA was established to block “any person not of the White race … except a domestic servant actually employed by a White occupant of such building.”
Those provisions are gone today, but the demographics linger. You will be shocked to hear that some of those neighborhoods are among the least diverse in Seattle, according to The Seattle Times (a newspaper that, wouldn’t you know it, promoted racist housing associations decades ago under the leadership of Clarance Brettun Blethen, grandfather of current publisher Frank Blethen).
Racist exclusions were overturned in the middle of the 20th century in word, but they still remain in effect thanks to what was until recently called “single-family housing,” which limits who can live in a neighborhood by forcing developers to construct homes that are lower-density, more expensive, and less accessible to many people of color since they were (and are) disproportionately affected by poverty.
In other words: Racist housing policies remain in effect to this day in Seattle, even if they’re not spelled out in the law. Limiting housing opportunities is one way that rich people preserve those policies, even if they say that’s not their intent.
Now, I’m cautious about parroting Pollet on this housing bill for a couple of reasons. He’s known for pumping the brakes on denser housing; he tried to push his own competing, less popular housing bill in the House this session; and he’s introduced various amendments to the senate bill’s companion that urbanists believe will stop it from being effective.
In other words, Pollet has reasons for wanting to stop — or at least water down — SB 5670, a bill that is, on balance, A Good Thing and should pass.
But what about those HOA and CIC exemptions in the bill? How’d they even get there?
“I don’t have a comment on that,” said Senator Mona Das, who co-sponsored the bill and directed me to Governor Inslee’s office, where the language originated.
“That,” said John Flanagan, Inslee’s senior policy advisor, “is a very tough question to answer.”
Flanagan explained that the governor’s office was concerned that existing HOAs and CICs would find a way to challenge the provisions of the bill. By exempting those kinds of neighborhoods, they’re no longer affected and have no standing to mount a challenge. That said, while pre-existing housing organizations would be exempted, the bill would cover new ones.
Flanagan says the governor’s office is looking for a legally sound way to make existing HOAs and CICs amend their existing rules to allow housing up to quadriplexes, but they just haven’t figured it out yet. And since the 2022 session is so short, we just might have to suck it up and let the rich folks get their way for now, and then come back next year with something better.
“We would love to be able to find a solution this session,” Flanagan says. “Even if we were to enact a middle housing bill that doesn’t have the ideal outcome … I’d like to think we’d be prepared to come back.”
That’s nice. It’s nice to love to be able to find things, and to like to think to be prepared for things. I hope the loves and likes of the governor’s office come true someday.
In the meantime, we may see a rush of I’ve-Got-Miners scrambling to create HOAs so they can qualify for an exemption, too. They’ll probably say they’re doing it to “preserve neighborhood character.” Don’t forget what it is that they’re preserving.
