Expanding Mandatory Housing Affordability
By: Patience Malaba, Seattle Group Executive Committee
As our city struggles with the inequitable growing pains of our region’s unprecedented rapid economic development, it is important to work together on solutions. Sierra Club is encouraged that the Seattle City Council is moving the Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) citywide program forward, after a green light from Seattle’s Hearing Examiner in November.
MHA would require all new development, no matter where it is built in Seattle, to contribute to affordable housing by either including rent-restricted homes affordable to low-and moderate-income families or make a contribution to build affordable housing in our city.
The Seattle Group supports passing an expansion of the MHA program that is already in place in South Lake Union, Downtown, the University District, Uptown, the Chinatown-International District and the Central District nodes . By passing this legislation, we can work to increase housing options throughout the city.
We support land use policies that reduce urban sprawl and ensure sustainable urban environments. This program centers on our core values of ensuring climate action, equity, and reducing loss of forests and farmland.
The link between affordable housing and the environment is clear. Dense, compact cities save energy and reduce our carbon footprint, while the sprawling growth of the suburbs have a tremendous environmental impact. Suburban homes are often in areas that used to be farmland or forests, where public transit is inadequate and driving is the norm. But when we encourage more housing to be built, that will lead to lower rents and home prices, allowing more people to live close to their jobs, their communities, and in neighborhoods where they can walk, bike, and take transit.
An important goal of MHA is to create affordable homes in neighborhoods where growth is happening. When implemented citywide, MHA will apply to all urban centers and urban villages in Seattle—and these are the areas best served by infrastructure, amenities, and services to make it possible for more people to live near job opportunities and near services that can meet their everyday needs. By creating affordable housing opportunities throughout the city, MHA will increase access to jobs, transit, services, walkable neighborhoods, open spaces and other amenities. This will encourage people to get out of their cars and thus reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to combating climate change.
The next three months (January to March) are a critical opportunity for the city to move this legislation forward. The Select Committee on Citywide MHA has held three committee meetings this year and Council is scheduled to vote on the legislation on March 18th. As they consider proposing amendments to the final legislation and preparing a companion resolution that will entail other statements of intent by the city, we encourage our members to lend their voice in support of this innovative and sustainable policy.
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Photo by Luca Micheli on Unsplash