Housing advocates have reiterated again and again that one way to make a major dent in Vancouver’s housing crisis is to increase the supply of affordable housing.
But, how do you do that? The city’s Affordable Housing Task Force came up with a set of 15 policy changes to increase housing inventory that were considered by the Vancouver City Council during a workshop Monday evening.
For six months, the 21-member task force mulled over the ideas, which include changing zoning, starting new programs and creating an affordable-housing fund. A recently released report details the recommendations.
“Where possible, strategies should allow developers to both increase their profit margin and help address Vancouver’s affordable housing needs,” the report said.
Rents have gone up as vacancy rates have dipped below 2 percent in Vancouver, leaving many people at the bottom of the financial rung struggling to maintain their housing. Vancouver has the second-highest rents in Washington behind the Puget Sound area, said Peggy Sheehan, the city’s program manager for Community and Economic Development.
Five ideas submitted to the council were ranked as high priority:
• Amend zoning and development regulations to encourage affordable housing. To encourage housing diversity and affordability while maintaining neighborhood character, the council could consider changes to the zoning and development codes that would allow and promote alternative housing, such as cottage or cluster housing, corner-lot duplexes, micro-housing and single-room occupancy housing.
This would increase the overall supply of housing, but wouldn’t guarantee that these houses remain affordable in the long run, the report said. However, alternative housing is a way that low-income households could, perhaps, become homeowners and get out of the rental market.
It would take at least a year for staff to develop this idea and present it to the city council.
• Strengthen the existing multi-family tax exemption program. The city already gives eight- or 12-year property tax exemptions on newly constructed or rehabbed multi-family units in the downtown core and areas along Fourth Plain Boulevard. Projects that designate at least some of the units as affordable to households earning up to 115 percent of the area’s median income get the 12-year break. The task force recommends using a tiered approach to, perhaps, expand the program citywide.
Changes could include targeting lower incomes and increasing the percentage of affordable units required to get the exemption.
This suggestion wouldn’t take long to put together and would moderately impact the city’s general fund, the report said. One thing for the city council to consider is the balance between incentives and mandates for developers.
• Create an affordable housing fund. Property or sales taxes and development fees are potential sources for the fund, which would go toward constructing or rehabilitating permanent low-income housing units. The task force said this idea has a high potential to increase affordable units. However, it would take time to come to fruition; residents would have to vote on the idea of a tax hike and then it would take time to collect enough taxes to build housing.
• Enact inclusionary zoning. This means requiring developments to include affordable units in all new multi-family developments within certain zoning districts in exchange for increased development capacity. Developers could opt-out for a fee, which would go to nonprofit housing projects. It would take two years or longer for staff to be able to suss out the details of the idea in a way that creates “a win-win for both developers and the city,” the report said.
• Create a housing advisory commission. Like the task force, the housing advisory commission would be made up of housing experts who give the city council policy recommendations. This is a low-cost option that would take about 30 days to flesh out and present to the city council, the report said.
Next steps
City staff will need to further research and develop the ideas. City manager Eric Holmes said during Monday’s workshop that he would put together information on the resources needed to address the top five recommendations.
Denny Scott, a member of Saint Andrew Lutheran Church who was on the task force, said he doesn’t want the councilors to ignore low-priority items.
“There was no unanimity on what ought to be high, what ought to be low and what ought to be medium,” Scott said. Saint Andrew was particularly interested in returning vacant homes to the housing supply and developing a fund that would help people relocate — both of which he said would be difficult to do.
“Being hard to do should not deter us from taking the first steps to solving these problems,” Scott said. “But if we look at an eight- to 10-year horizon, I think we have a real opportunity to increase the supply of affordable housing.”
Councilor Alishia Topper, who was part of the task force, said any items requiring a ballot measure, such as creating an affordable housing fund, would need to be tackled sooner rather than later. And a campaign educating voters would need to be fast-tracked, added Councilor Ty Stober.
“This is the year to do it because it’s a presidential election,” when more voters turn out, Councilor Jack Burkman said.
Stober stressed that Vancouver is gentrifying and pushing out low-income people in the process. So, the affordable housing projects tackled by the city should aim to create an integrated city and get families out of intergenerational poverty — not just place them in public projects, he said.
Councilor Bill Turlay urged the council to be cognizant of the budget when reviewing the recommendations and to get more feedback from the public through forums.
The city council will re-address the policy recommendations at a future workshop.
Under construction
Discussions around affordable housing have centered on cost-burdened, low-income households, typically defined as those earning 60 percent or less of the area median income and that spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said the area median income for a one-person household in Vancouver is $51,500. Sixty-percent of that would be an income of $30,900, making the maximum affordable rent for one person $773. For a four-person household earning $44,100, the maximum affordable rent would be $1,103.
Some affordable housing projects are coming online in Vancouver, including the 120-unit 15 West Apartments opening downtown next month; Lincoln Place, which will house 30 of the city’s most vulnerable homeless people starting next month; the 49-unit Isabella Court in central Vancouver for low-income seniors that will be finished in November; and The Meadows, a 30-unit complex coming in 2017.
Columbia Nonprofit Housing also is working on a project that would provide 30 housing units for homeless people with mental health challenges.
