The Puget Sound area faces a housing emergency that threatens our state’s high quality of life, well being and financial competitiveness. Annually over the previous decade, affordability has declined, commutes have lengthened and our area’s capability to draw and retain expertise has been put at higher danger. For some, the influence is much more critical. Ongoing homelessness places lives in danger. First responders, academics and firefighters can’t afford to reside within the communities the place they work.
As leaders at Amazon and Microsoft, we’ve helped advance unprecedented community-focused investments to deal with the scarcity of reasonably priced housing in our residence state. Collectively, our two firms have dedicated $1.6 billion to protect and construct greater than 26,000 reasonably priced houses, benefiting the communities we reside, serve and function in. Not for our staff, however the complete group.
We are proud of the progress we’ve made and the partnerships we’ve helped forge. However greater than something, we’ve realized how far more our complete group must do to make housing extra reasonably priced in the Puget Sound area.
The dearth of reasonably priced housing is a fancy downside. However its roots are simple. We merely don’t have sufficient housing at this time, and we have to construct extra houses of all types. It is a supply-side downside at its core. The very best estimates predict the state will want 1 million further housing items over the subsequent 20 years, or 50,000 per 12 months. Whereas our firms’ collective efforts helped spur extra funding, final 12 months’s allow purposes in Puget Sound counsel that the tempo of building is slowing down. In different phrases, the outlet we’re in as a area is liable to getting deeper.
We want governments and the non-public sector to construct our approach out of this gap. And as we’ve realized from our collective expertise, this may require a broad method.
The work is advanced. Lengthy-standing limitations — restricted out there land, overly cumbersome rules and rising building prices — maintain us again. Our area has created an surroundings the place it’s too troublesome, too costly and too dangerous for housing builders, each nonprofits and for-profits, to construct. Going ahead, legislators should decide to a easy take a look at: If a coverage makes housing extra pricey or takes longer to construct, don’t cross it. Contemplate another. Enact insurance policies that pencil in at this time’s market, not aspirational measures that may work down the road.
Different states are shifting sooner to cut back limitations and appeal to builders. Capital is fluid. Banks, traders and lenders are going the place they will make predictable returns. We have to act as a area and state with urgency to show this example round.
This 12 months, state leaders and policymakers are proposing good concepts that may assist:
● Prioritizing Housing Funding: We applaud Gov. Bob Ferguson’s $225 million funding proposal for the Housing Belief Fund.
● Unlocking land for growth: On the request of Gov. Ferguson, state Sens. Emily Alvarado and Jessica Bateman are sponsoring SB 6026, which might enable residential building in zones the place industrial use is allowed. Sen. Marcus Riccelli and Rep. Osman Salahuddin are additionally sponsoring laws to extend land out there for housing provide, which must be thought of.
● Flexibility for builders: Reps. Davina Duerr and Janice Zahn are working to shift the timing of influence payment cost to cut back mission financing prices and create a dependable course of for influence payment assortment.
● Environmental evaluate close to transit: Sen. Marko Liias is advancing work to provoke environmental evaluate underneath the State Environmental Coverage Act of zoning modifications in Transit Oriented Improvement station areas. It will guarantee constant and streamlined environmental evaluate to speed up transit-oriented growth.
● Encouraging Innovation: Sen. Jessica Bateman, together with Reps. Deb Manjarrez and Strom Peterson, are championing efforts to speed up modern housing options — streamlining approval for residence designs and easing requirements for modular building.
Our firms will proceed to make investments capital and experience in Washington’s housing future. We’re dedicated to working alongside legislators, nonprofit and for-profit builders, and communities to show these proposals into lasting options.
This will require coordinated motion and measurable outcomes. Think about a area the place everybody who works right here can afford to reside right here, and the place public-private partnerships drive lasting change.
The time to behave isn’t sometime. It’s now.
