The city closed the books on the 2009 Seattle Housing Levy on Thursday, announcing $47 million in funding for six new affordable housing developments, including Capitol Hill Housing's Site B-North transit-oriented development.
“As rents are rising dramatically, many of our neighbors are being priced out, are overly cost-burdened, are threatened or are actually experiencing homelessness,” said Seattle Office of Housing director Steve Walker during Thursday’s announcement, which took place where CHH will be constructing its 110-unit affordable housing development at 10th Avenue and East John Street.
The Office of Housing put out a notice of funding availability earlier this year for $34 million, later increasing the investment by $13 million through an increase in revenue through the Incentive Zoning program, which allows developers to construct larger buildings in exchange for affordable housing or funding for affordable housing.
Capitol Hill Housing is receiving $8.7 million for Site B-North, which includes 91 units at 60 percent of the average median income, 10 at 50 percent and eight at 30 percent. One unit will be served for the property manager.
“What we’re doing here is we’re creating an affordable neighborhood,” said Mayor Ed Murray of the CHH project. “This is a neighborhood next to light rail, next to buses, next to streetcars, next to parks and other open space, with grocery stores right down the block, with a school a few blocks away. So, by building affordable housing in a neighborhood like this, we not just create housing that’s affordable, but we create affordability all the way around.”
With a 2016 housing levy approved by voters that doubles the 2009 levy at $290 million, as well as forthcoming changes under the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) and nonprofit partnerships, Murray said Seattle is leading the West Coast in dealing with its housing crisis.
Capitol Hill Housing CEO Chris Persons addressed the affordability issue facing Seattle during Thursday’s announcement, saying communities are stronger when people have a stake in prosperity, opportunity and in the ground.
“But today people’s backs are against the wall,” he said. “Families are getting pushed to the margins both financially and in the real physical sense that lower-income renters have almost zero options in the city.”
Persons said people are being pushed to southern suburbs, that there are “winners and losers” in the economic boon Seattle is experiencing, adding it must simply be the result of the economic structure. But it does not create the types of strong communities where individuals and families can succeed, he said.
“Stable housing, like the apartments that Capitol Hill Housing will build here, gives people a stake, gives people the breathing room to step forward to opportunity.”
Capitol Hill Housing has spent 40 years developing affordable housing in the city, Persons said, and the past 10 years working with Sound Transit to secure a stake in developing such a place at the new light rail station.
“Our work has just begun,” he said. “The cold air on my face this morning reminds me how lucky we are to be outside for just a little while; others aren’t so lucky.”
The $47 million in 2009 Housing Levy funding supports the development of six new affordable housing developments and preservation of three existing apartment buildings.
