Affordable housing and fully contained communities

I guess we should have expected it, but it’s disappointing none the less. Since “affordable housing” is a critical issue for all our communities, it is now being used as a cudgel or enticement for what would otherwise be an unacceptable development options.

For Skagit county, the implementation of the Growth Management Act was particularly painful. We were delinquent in implementing the law and were at risk of sanctions from Olympia by the time we actually adopted our Comprehensive Plan. There was also significant tension between the county and municipalities. GMA calls for urbanization to occur within and/or adjacent to the existing municipalities to avoid spot development and sprawl.

For that reason, we did not include Fully Contained Communities (FCC) as an option in Skagit County. FCCs in county areas would draw development away from cities, towns and urban growth areas. It would begin a process of chopping up county lands. Once allowed, FCCs will be given an opportunity to rationalize their existence to profit developers. This is exactly how affordable housing is now being used to rationalize FCCs and overlook the potential damage to rural farm and forest lands. Affordable housing does not need resource lands.

It is important to understand an FCC is an urban development strategy that specifically targets residential/commercial development outside Urban Growth Areas. The Revised Code of Washington that specifies the conditions of an FCC does require that the FCC offer housing to “a broad range of income levels”. However, it does not specify: How broad or what range of income levels?

There is an underlying focus with single family affordable housing with regard to “first cost”. This leads to the addition focus on suppling new low cost housing to low income and first-time buyers. While this has been the strategy for the last 70 plus years, current demand has outstripped the market. Once the first-time buyers sell their home, it is no longer affordable to the target families.

This is a sad distraction from the actual issues of affordable housing. Like any development activity, affordable housing has to grapple with the costs of land, materials, labor and infrastructure development to name a few. An added issue is the escalation of the value of property over time. These are the driving forces of affordability.

Development strategies, even if they include “affordable housing” as an element, are not a primary instrument to attain affordable housing. Jurisdictions have to start developing housing inventories that are only available to target family incomes.

There are some good models for local governments to adapt. The “land trust” model is a good start. Local governments can combine the “land trust” financing model with the development of “surplus lands”. The larger municipalities in Skagit county have significant inventories of “surplus lands”.

These “lands” are properties that have been acquired by the municipality for infrastructure purposes such as parks and public works that are no longer needed for their original purpose. Municipalities are authorized under RCWs to dedicate these lands for affordable housing.

This will begin to create a separate market and inventory of single family housing. Entities like the Skagit Land Trust and Skagit Habitat are currently building these inventories within communities of Skagit County. Local jurisdictions can partner with entities like Skagit Land Trust and Habitat for Humanity to develop their surplus lands and establish affordable housing inventories.

FCCs are not a solution to affordable housing. They do not maintain an inventory or supply of affordable housing. The overwhelming destructive potential of FCCs is not counterbalanced by a small affordable element that disappears after the first sale of a property.