Seattle Puts Affordable Housing In The Driver's Seat
Under a plan approved by the City Council, developers who want to build big must contribute to a new city housing fund or set aside more of their new buildings as low and moderate income housing.
"Since the 1980s, downtown developers have been able to go beyond a certain base building size if they agreed to add theaters, street-level shops or other features considered critical to enlivening downtown. Thousands of affordable apartments, meanwhile, disappeared. The legislation approved yesterday eliminates some of the old features (such as movie theaters) that developers have used to get permission to build bigger. Now, developers who wish to get the maximum use of their property will be able to contribute to a housing fund at a rate of $22 for every square foot of development above a certain threshold. Of that, $18.75 would go to housing, and $3.25 would go to child-care projects."
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