Comments on Council Adopts Tax Breaks for $1,300 Apartments

Those affordability metrics are crazy. I'm loaded and can still see that they're too high for most people.

I think $1300 for a one-bedroom isn't that out of scale with what I was finding when I was apartment hunting 6 months ago.

I'm not saying that's affordable, just that rents like that are becoming more common, especially in the more popular hoods.

Those high-end luxury places you mention go for more then 1300 now (for one bedroom).

Sigh.

Still too pricey for all but the subsidized rent artist friends of the ultra-rich.

Jube: how loaded are we talking?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

BTW - the rest of us lowly taxpayers underwrite this exemption through incremental increases in our tax burden.

What is it going to take to break the stranglehold developers have on (what was) our city?

This is the problem when you have a culture that believes that our affordable housing can and should be provided within new development. New development is expensive - higher rents need to be charged no matter who the housing is intended for. It's ass-backwards to build NEW affordable housing. Instead, the city need to encourage the creation of as much market rate housing as possible. Only then will those that can afford new construction move into the nicer building - freeing up the older, more affordable units for those who can afford no better.

But that just won't happen in Seattle, for one major reason. We are cursed with a massive affordable housing industry. These affordable housing developers (yes, they are developers, just like the for-profit kind) employ several hundred people in our city - and rely upon city, state and federal subsidies to keep their jobs. They are the most inefficient waste of taxpayer money, but since the general public thinks that they are "doing good" they get a pass. It's about time that our council start demanding accountability from these groups that suck off the taxpayer teat year after year.

Oh yeah, and I asked CM Harrell about this at a Chamber of Commerce meeting yesterday, and he talked about how this was going to provide housing for the "working poor".

What effing planet does he live on?

@7,

Nice theory, but in practice the City is actually encouraging developers to tear down that older affordable housing - and when it's gone, it's gone forever, no matter how many $1300/month apartments you subsidize.

Has anyone ever heard of the City Council actually reviewing how effective their incentive plans are after the fact? Who exactly checks that these units are created and priced as promised? Is there an example of this working previously in Seattle?

How out of touch can you be to not know that $1,090/month for a studio is far too much? To say that a grocery clerk or CNA will be able or willing to pay that rate is to admit that you don't know how much (or little) most people in the labor force make.

That would amount to almost 2/3 of their net monthly pay on rent.

Is the council just rich and out of touch or i s something else going on here?

Light rail construction is well under way. Soon there will be roomy and frequent service to the airport. These high rents mean more transit will serve us well, so the measure in the fall needs your "yes" vote. Ride the wave.

I got super lucky with a MIL apartment in Ravenna for $800.00 a month two years ago. (and I dread the day my landlord sells the house) But when I was looking there was nothing in a one bedroom for under $1000.00 that I would let my worse enemy rent. $1300.00? That is fucking outragous to claim that is affordable! And I make around $55K a year!

These matrices ignore some basic assumptions: anyone under 45 has to save like crazy to have anything for retirement, it does not take into account the current cost of fuel or food from just the last year!

I got super lucky with a MIL apartment in Ravenna for $800.00 a month two years ago. (and I dread the day my landlord sells the house) But when I was looking there was nothing in a one bedroom for under $1000.00 that I would let my worse enemy rent. $1300.00? That is fucking outragous to claim that is affordable! And I make around $55K a year!

These matrices ignore some basic assumptions: anyone under 45 has to save like crazy to have anything for retirement, it does not take into account the current cost of fuel or food from just the last year!

I got super lucky with a MIL apartment in Ravenna for $800.00 a month two years ago. (and I dread the day my landlord sells the house) But when I was looking there was nothing in a one bedroom for under $1000.00 that I would let my worse enemy rent. $1300.00? That is fucking outragous to claim that is affordable! And I make around $55K a year!

These matrices ignore some basic assumptions: anyone under 45 has to save like crazy to have anything for retirement, it does not take into account the current cost of fuel or food from just the last year!

I agree that we need transit built, well, yesterday. But taking roomy and frequent trips to the airport isn't going to help anyone save money commuting to work, unless they work at the airport. Neither is it a solution for the topic at hand, you thread-hijaking turd.

And... "Ride the wave"? Really? That is some corny-ass marketing.

lmao, they had to have used a random number generator for that price.
most subsidies are bad in their own right but this one just doesn't make sense in the frame of the stated goal and means to achieve it.

This really makes me consider moving back to Vegas where considerin they just increased my rent to $1100 a month for a 475sf studio in a 1920's building on the hill. In vegas I could spend half that on a nicer larger place and have an exter 600 bucks to spend of booze, hookers, and poker. Vegas here I come. Vegas baby Vegassssss

First, thanks for reporting on this.

Second, this is bullshit. It makes sense, though. Accelerate gentrification in the name of affordable housing. Total cooptation of movement language to further a developer agenda. Seattle nice gone terribly wrong.

Only then will those that can afford new construction move into the nicer building - freeing up the older, more affordable units for those who can afford no better.

What? Most new apartments, with the exception of luxury apartments, are garbage. The cost-cutting is obvious and none of those apartments are half as nice as most older apartments I've seen.

$1,000 studio apt is nearly San Francisco prices.

Seattle is going to look like Vancouver in 5 years, minus the parks funding and ability for its residents to easily move about the city.

I'm single and making noticeably more than the median, and $1300 is near the top of what I'd consider paying in rent. I wouldn't mind having more choices, but no one needs to subsidize me.

More choices under $1000 sounds good, though.

Dear Seattle:

Why do you keep voting for these fucking people?

Here's a hint: People who work in Seattle are driving in from places like Everett and Covington and Federal Way. What are the rents in those places?

If your definition of "affordable" is greater than that answer, you lose. Thanks for playing, the failboat leaves at 6.

I wonder if the City Council realizes we have literally lost MULTIPLES as many inexpensive rental apartments to condofication as they "save".

Sounds like a reason to build 40 to 100 story residential rental apartment buildings that have mandated 20-20-20-20-20 splits of income levels (with at least 3 income levels on a floor) for the lower, lower middle, middle, upper middle, and rich.

There are these things called zoning codes and tax and development exemptions that could be used.

Heck, just one 100-story such building would create more low-income rental apartments than the entire "saved" units they talk about subsidizing.

Sorry Erica, but nurse's aides and medical assistants != nurses.

@26: Are there any studies to support this idea or examples of 100-story buildings working? I have a really hard time imagining this working.

@27: Right. Nurse's aides and medical assistants don't need affordable housing and can just go live somewhere else. Nurses, though, they deserve to stay.

#25

Housing costs are a problem for the entire Puget Sound region. For example:

http://seattle.craigslist.org/search/apa?query=everett&minAsk=min&maxAsk=max&bedrooms=

Everett. There are more 3+ bedroom units available. The prices are marginally more feasible, but are still inflated compared to other small cities or suburbs of metropolitan centers:

http://portland.craigslist.org/search/apa?query=sherwood&minAsk=min&maxAsk=max&bedrooms=

So, don't be surprised when $1300.00/mo is median--because what you gonna do about it? Move to Everett and pay $1250.00?

There are multiple buildings being built right now in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver BC that are more than 40 stories, some of which meet these standards. Examples start in the 14 story level and go up from there where they do income mixing by floor and unit type in a building, in return for developmental and property tax reductions, as well as height increase limits being altered.

Maybe you should go to Tokyo some time and see how they live - and then get back to me.

(fuckin n00b)

So basically aside from the densest city in the world they're just a pipe dream? I don't think you can generalize from a 14-story building to a 100-story one but maybe that's just me.

Also: Most people I've known who lived in Tokyo didn't find it to be that pleasant.

(fuckin douche)

Without production of new units the housing crunch will just get worse. The US dollar has tanked vs foreign currencies and driven a commodity bubble that has in turn driven construction prices through the rough. Add to that lovely programs like the "Green factor" and the absurdly stringent Seattle version of the State energy code and its no wonder that costs are rising far faster than median income. Absent an exemption program, only luxury units can be built presently. this program make development of market rate units more feasible - units that 10-20 yers from now will become the more affordable

@33,

Brand new market rate one-bedroom apartments in the U-District go for $1250 a month. Those of us who pay $600-900 in rent right now can't wait 10-20 years for overpriced new units (that we saps will subsidize with out tax dollars) to finally become "affordable."

As they say, if you want more of something subsidize it - I just don't happen to think we need to subsidize market-rate apartments that are already being produced en masse citywide.

Oops - "our tax dollars"...

@32 - continue deluding yourself that LIH will do anything about the continued push of lower-income residents of Seattle out to the less efficient suburbs if you will, but it won't change the reality.

I'll still be laughing at you from my 100 mpg plug-in hybrid while you go broke paying for tolls on the bridges.

@36: did you mean @33? I live within city limits, work from home, and generally take the bus. I just think 100 story buildings are kind of ludicrous. We have earthquakes. Rich people don't want to live with poor people. We don't get enough sun as it is.

Has anyone followed the money on this?

Erica, what do you say to the fact that no developers in recent history were willing to seek the tax exemption under the previous code? It was a nice tool that broke. All the nice tools in the world for affordable housing (or even just housing production) don't matter if they don't work.

All that has happened is that we have turned a broken tool that subsidized the creation of affordable housing into a functional tool that subsidizes the creation of more housing.

Erica, when you're good, you're great. But the last thing this discussion needs is a dose of your style of advocacy. I say that as an affordable housing developer and advocate! Please leave this stuff to Dom and Jonah.

I forgot to mention that I'm totally willing to concede that the new code isn't much about creating truly "affordable" housing.

I just want to say that the previous version was broke. The new version is something different. (And I'm OK with that.) There are better tools for the production of affordable housing. (See upzones coupled with inclusionary zoning. And, FYI, everyone in this town, from for-profits to non-profits to City Council, considers inclusionary zoning a given. It's going to happen no matter how much Vulcan bitches. The real fight is going to be over the details contained within the inclusionary zoning code. One might even consider this MFTE expansion a bone the Council threw to the for-profits for more support on the coming inclusionary zoning.

RE: Will in Seattle and his 40+ story affordable housing towers:

I've already commented why this is unrealistic on an old Dearborn post. Here it is in case you missed it (edited for context):

"Why can't (fill in the blank) be taller?"

It's largely a problem of economics for the building materials and structure.

Wood-frame construction over concrete gets you up to 8 stories max (hence the desire [at Dearborn] for a rezone to 85').

Once you get over 8 stories, you have to go concrete and/or steel frame, and that sets the base cost of the frame much higher.

Now that you have a higher base cost for the concrete/steel frame, might as well build extra floors and units to offset the cost, right? Well, to a point... as you go higher, you have to give up more and more floor space to structural components. (As the building gets higher, more of the built space goes toward holding the building up!)

12-18 story residential buildings are tough because you need to determine the optimal balance between the additional revenue from the additional units and the additional cost from the need for additional structural support and the loss of floor space...

...unless you decide to go all out with 25-40 floors of ultra-luxury condos, where the units are priced so high that you don't care about the additional structural costs and the diminishing floorspace. (And that's where 40-story, high-priced condo towers come from.)

p.s. Sorry, this isn't my best writing.

@41: This it what all my research seems to say too. After a certain height you begin to lose more and more space to additional express elevator banks and then over a certain height the building needs to taper to allow light into the "public green spaces" below.

Why do people always cite nursing as an example of a low income profession? Nursing jobs START at $50,000 a year at local hospitals. That's with a two year degree. Many make $80,000 and up. Nurses aides are a different story-but nurse's aides aren't nurses.