Council approves Housing Affordability Task Force recommendations

Part two of two

The Leavenworth City Council accepted the recommendations of the Housing Affordability Task Force, at the Aug. 8 city council meeting. Mayor Cheri Kelley Farivar formed the ad hoc Housing Affordability Committee in April of 2016. The committee was tasked with evaluating program and initiatives to produce affordable units and preserve existing ones. 

In part one of this story, we chronicled the discussion at the Aug. 8 study session regarding the recommendations of the task force and the results of a study by BERK Consulting. 

Development Services Manager Nathan Pate continued the discussion of Zoning and Code Changes recommendations. He said common wall construction is an idea that has gained a lot of traction. Mayor Cheri Kelley Farivar said in the real estate industry, this is called zero lot lines. 

“That means two single family homes have an adjoining wall, garage wall or house wall. They are right up to their common lot line. That allows for bigger yard area because you don’t have sidewall setbacks,” Farivar said. “It’s not a condominium. In Wenatchee, there are several developments. One is called Maple Townhomes. It is very high end, beautiful single family homes. They are all zero lot line.”

“There are builders that really want to try this. It surprises me this has happened in Wenatchee and East Wenatchee and never in Leavenworth. It’s time,” Farivar said. 

Task Force Member Kaylin Bettinger said they were split up into different groups realizing a number of different things needed to happen to make affordable housing in Leavenworth. She served on the group exploring Financing/Funding Sources. 

“We recognize with all the design and zoning regulations, those are some ways we can increase options for folks, but there’s always going to be a need for your traditional affordable housing, whether or not that is within the government set, median income or not,” Bettinger said. “Those two things are going to need to work together. We’re going to need both if town is going to continue to grow and become more and more expensive.”

The goal of the funding and finance was about creating funding and finance options which will allow for the creation and management of affordable homes into the future, Bettinger said. 

Some of the ideas are wild, some are more reasonable. 

“We thought the more ideas we had on the table to more chance we might get funds for some of this stuff,” Bettinger said. 

One idea is to consider a revenue generating funding source, such a a tax or fee. Bettinger said they don’t want to do anything to hurt local businesses, but at the same time, she hears from many businesses that affordable housing is a big issue for employees. She felt an exploration of this issue would be well received. 

“In tourist communities, there’s usually one or two big industries in town that can put forth funding that creates affordable housing. Here in Leavenworth, we don’t have a large employer or industry. Trying to set up that funding stream to begin to allow that is a question. Looking at this, but how does it work?,” said City Administrator Joel Walinski. 

Another idea would charge a fee for service or property tax on seasonal, recreational or occasional use properties. The Leavenworth Housing Assessment Study found that 36 percent of homes in the Cascade School District are seasonal, recreational or occasional use. 

Walinski said currently in Washington state that is illegal. Other states have allowed for a different property tax on second homes, he said. 

It was also talked about creating a program that requires the construction of new hotels or commercial property to provide for the construction of affordable workforce units or fee in lieu option. 

“Can they construct affordable unit on site or off site or pay a fee in lieu of that to support units of workforce housing that their employees would probably use? That’s been something done in many other communities,” Bettinger said. “For housing developments, the city should consider that a portion of the homes be built to meet affordability standards. If you built 100 homes, 10 percent would have to be affordable homes. This is pretty common in other areas.”

Bettinger said another idea is to investigate the RCW that makes it possible for counties to increase the sales tax 1 percent to fund affordable housing. If the county passes, then cities can put it to their voters.

“The problem with this funding is it is only allowed to be used on very low income people, so the focus is on shelters,” Bettinger said. “This would be something, if we decided to pursue this, we would want to get together with other tourist communities and do some lobbying to use those funds for whatever we think is affordable housing. It’s something that could really be a long term support for affordable housing in this town, funding primarily by the tourists.”

Farivar said this law was for the city of Seattle, which lobbied the legislature because of their huge homeless program. 

“They needed shelters. That is the focus of it. As their need is taken care of, perhaps we can lobby for expansion of the potential uses,” Farivar said. 

The city could consider investing in a small, pilot project to address multiple needs. Farivar said this is something the city could do, with say two lots. Another idea suggested a tax on alcohol sales to support affordable housing, which was one of the off-the-wall ideas. 

“The whole task force thought that was an awesome idea,” Farivar said. 

There are also ways to use tax increment or tax abatement, Walinski said. 

“If you have a piece of property that is worth $100,000. You’re paying tax on that $100,000. Tax abatement would allow you to put a structure in place and improve the value of the property. However, for a 10-years, you would only pay property tax on the original $100,000,” Walinski said. “The city could use that tax money, but at the same time, this would be considered for the public good. That would be the incentive that you would provide to a developer to create rental lots or affordable homes. It would be a program the city could get into.”

A lot of government programs out there are for the very poor, Walinski said. While that is not a bad thing, the study has shown the need in Leavenworth is for lower middle income and upper moderate income. 

“Area median income is the government set number. Right now, area median income for a household is $62,800. A family of four needs to earn in the high 40s or less to fall into that government funded affordable housing,” Bettinger said. “What we’ve seen and what the study shows, there is somewhere in the range of 60 percent or 120 percent of area median income. These are people who are not able to purchase or rent a home inside city limits.”

Thirty percent of the people living in town are cost burdened, Walinski said, whether that is for rental or home ownership. 

“When we start looking at a definition of what a program would look like, housing affordability. That’s what we need to define,” Walinski said. 

That’s when families have to live together in a single home because they can’t afford separate homes, Farivar said. 

Now that the council has accepted the findings, Farivar said the administration can go forward, hand this off to the planning commission, maybe looking into other things. She suggested putting together another ad hoc committee to work on funding, for example. 

Ian Dunn can be reached at 548-5286 or editor@leavenworthecho.com.