February 25, 2019
Seattle City Council
P.O. Box 34025
Seattle, WA 98124-4749
Dear members of the Select Committee on Citywide Mandatory Housing Affordability,
Puget Sound Sage improves the lives of all families by creating shared prosperity in our regional
economy. We bring together labor, faith, and environmental leaders to advance a common
agenda for racial and social equity, a stronger democracy, better jobs, a clean environment and
thriving communities. We believe that housing is a human right, that low-income communities
and communities of color have a right to self-determination, that development without
displacement is possible through community stewardship of land, and hope you share in our
values.
Puget Sound Sage and many of our partners in South Communities Organizing for Racial and
Regional Equity (South CORE) have been fighting and pushing for a strong inclusionary zoning
policy in the City of Seattle since 2008. We believe that strong inclusionary zoning policies are
needed to share in the benefit of increased land value created through public investment and
increases in zoning capacity. For the most part, the City of Seattle has already rezoned
downtown, South Lake Union, and many urban villages without getting much in return. But a
strong IZ policy for the rest of the city could leverage the next wave of development to ensure
our communities can prosper in place.
We support staying aligned with the preferred alternative to the EIS, which provides a modest
increased in building capacity across the city through rezones and urban village expansions in
return for mandatory provision of affordable housing, in neighborhoods with high opportunity
where we desperately need more housing choices and in neighborhoods with higher
displacement risk where we need more affordable units. If we keep pulling back we will never
meet the stated goal to create 6,000 new units of affordable housing through MHA.
Additionally, we support the bill set forth by Lisa Herbold to adequately mitigate the impact of
new development that will demolish housing affordable to households earning 80% of AMI and
below by requiring those developers to replace the units demolished in addition to complying
with MHA requirements. We think this amendment could be strengthened by increasing
affordability to match MHA requirements at 60% AMI and expand to neighborhoods with both

 high displacement risk and high access to opportunity where we are losing the most market
provided affordable units. We believe this policy should be adopted alongside MHA.
In our previous letters to you we have voiced our concern that MHA alone will not solve for
displacement, which is why we still request a companion resolution that sets a comprehensive
anti-displacement agenda. MHA does little to address displacement in specific neighborhoods
which are most at risk. MHA will help reduce the impacts of the affordable housing crisis for
the future residents of Seattle, but the policy does nothing to prevent impending displacement
and eventual houselessness of currently housed low-income communities and communities of
color. So, alongside implementation of MHA through the citywide rezone, we need the City to
create and adopt a comprehensive anti-displacement work plan. Our previous letter can be found
here: http://www.pugetsoundsage.org/why-we-need-comprehensive-strategy-to-stopdisplacement-alongside-mha/

Sincerely,

Nicole Vallestero Keenan-Lai
Executive Director, Puget Sound Sage
Signatories:
HomeSight
Puentes: Advocacy, Counseling & Education
InterIm Community Development Association
St. Michael’s Ethiopian Orthodox Church
Rainier Beach Action Coalition

Cc:
Councilmember Rob Johnson
Councilmember Lorena González
Councilmember Lisa Herbold
Councilmember Bruce Harrell
Councilmember Kshama Sawant
Councilmember Debora Juarez
Councilmember Mike O'Brien
Councilmember Sally Bagshaw
Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda