Regional Housing Action Plan offers 52 ideas to ease Thurston’s housing crisis
Requiring affordable housing in new subdivisions, launching a new sales or property tax levy for affordable housing, and reducing parking requirements are among 52 possible actions identified by the cities of Lacey, Tumwater, and Olympia to address the county’s housing crisis.
Those suggestions and others are contained in the regional housing action plan, released in January in conjunction with the Thurston Regional Planning Council, and the third step in an ongoing process that has produced a housing needs assessment and a survey of landlords.
Now, because the work is funded by a state grant created by HB 1923, each city has a hard June deadline to pass an individualized plan for making housing more plentiful and accessible.
The potential actions fall into several clusters: reducing regulations, creating incentives for developers, creating mandates for developers, enacting renter protection policies, preserve existing affordable housing, and granting money to existing efforts such as Habitat for Humanity and Thurston Housing Land Trust.
Here are some of the ideas:
Regulatory reforms
These focus on simplifying the process and lowering fees to make it easier for developers to build all types of housing
- Reducing parking requirements, reducing minimum lot sizes, and expanding incentives such as density bonuses and the Multi-Family Tax Credit.
- Waiving impact fees, project review fees, and utility connection fees for specific desired projects.
Renter protections
These are policies to help renters get into housing and keep them housed.
- Limiting application fees or deposits.
- ‘Just cause’ eviction ordinances.
- Tenant Opportunity to Purchase ordinances.
Supporting development of low-income housing
Low-income housing is defined as housing for those who make less than 80% of Area Median Income.
- Inclusionary zoning for subdivisions, which would require developers to include some affordable housing when creating new housing tracts in low-density zones, such as Planned Unit Developments (PUDs)
- Preserving mobile/manufactured home parks through rezoning, grants for maintenance, and a Tenant Opportunity to Purchase in the case of closure or redevelopment
- Lease municipally owned land to low-income housing developers or the housing authority.
Residents can weigh in on the cities’ Housing Action Plan (and what’s missing from it) at a virtual open house at 5 p.m. Wednesday. Register ahead of time using this link.
This story was originally published April 6, 2021 at 1:53 PM.
.jpg)