Roundtable Highlights Opportunities Created by New Middle Housing Law

Roundtable discussion at MBAKS Bellevue on Wednesday, May 15.

On Wednesday, May 15, the Coalition for More Housing Choices presented a roundtable conversation on middle housing, hosted by Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties (MBAKS). The roundtable was one of the many opportunities for connection and learning during Affordable Housing Week (May 13-17) put on by Coalition partner, Housing Development Consortium of Seattle-King County (HDC).

The roundtable featured a panel discussion led by Ryan Donohue, Chief Advocacy Officer at Habitat for Humanity—King & Kittitas Counties. Panelists included Randy Bannecker, Founding Partner at Bannecker Public Affairs; Anna G. Boone, Senior Manager, Government Relations and Public Affairs at Zillow; and Jesse Simpson, Government Relations and Policy Manager at HDC.

The discussion focused on the new middle housing state law, HB 1110, and the role it will play in helping to address our region’s housing shortage. The new law promises to deliver more affordable choices—ranging from duplexes and triplexes to townhouses and courtyard apartments—closer to transit and urban amenities.  

Middle Housing Opportunities

Speaking about the benefits of allowing middle housing, Randy noted the new law should help efforts to boost much-needed housing supply and increase opportunities for first-time homebuyers, enabling them to build equity. It should also help employers who have found it hard to hire workers given the high cost of living near job centers.

Anna agreed our region is experiencing a supply and demand problem, with not enough housing units to meet demand. To help quantify this, she said Zillow data shows the number of families that were likely in need of their own homes exceeded available homes by roughly 109,000 units in our region as of 2021.

Anna added that low to moderate income buyers and first homebuyers have been especially hard hit by the housing shortage. According to Zillow data, a buyer in the Seattle area now needs an annual household income of nearly $231,000 a year, or twice the city’s median household income, to afford a home at the area median price of nearly $750,000. For comparison, in 2020, the Seattle-area median-priced home required an income of $120,000, or around 25% above the 2020 median household income, according to Zillow.

Jesse noted the new middle housing law will open residential neighborhoods across the region and Washington to people who are unable to afford single family homes. Adding duplexes, triplexes, and other middle housing types is primarily a solution for middle income households, he said.  Jesse added, lower income households will still need subsidies and other support to be served, and other housing strategies must be implemented alongside middle housing to meet the full range of needs.

The Work Ahead

Panelists at the roundtable.

Panelists also addressed how communities can more fully realize the benefits of middle housing.

Randy said to ensure it goes right, we need to pay close attention to the regulatory environment to remove any unnecessary barriers and keep it simple. He suggested convening cities and builders to better understand how to seamlessly incorporate HB 1110’s requirements into local codes, and he pointed to MBAKS’ Middle Housing Implementation Plan as a resource in this work.

Jesse spoke to the importance of engaged advocates paying attention to the details, and pointing out to cities where certain changes can make a meaningful difference in expanding housing choices.

Anna pointed out that zoning reform is a first step to opening neighborhoods to middle housing. To be successful with middle housing implementation, policymakers also need to address barriers to building such as permit delays and anything that adds to the cost of development such as impact fees.

Ryan encouraged cities to treat HB 1110 requirements as a floor, not a ceiling, and stressed partnerships as a key component to ensuring successful local implementation of middle housing.

Meeting Affordable Housing Needs

When it comes to providing more affordable housing for lower income households—such as service workers in our communities—Jesse suggested a variety of approaches that could support this work. For starters, cities could go beyond the baseline HB 1110 has set for the affordable housing bonus and consider a “calibration in capacity” that encourages affordable housing. Cities should think about ways they can better incentivize private market developers to build affordable housing in residential neighborhoods, he said. Examples include going up to four stories, doubling the allowed floor area ratio, and pulling away regulations that add cost and complexity to a project.

Randy connected the middle housing implementation work to other efforts underway related to housing, including comprehensive plan updates and House Bill 1220, requiring local jurisdictions to plan for housing for a range of household incomes. He said local elected leadership is required to help get our arms around the many pieces of this work, what resources are available, and how they work in concert to support each city’s housing goals.

Increasing Black Homeownership

Also discussed at the roundtable was the opportunity for middle housing to support the goal of Black Home Initiative in increasing the number of Black homeowners in our region. The Black Home Initiative (BHI) is a network of nonprofits, private companies, philanthropy, governments and associations making up our region’s ecosystem focused on increasing Black homeownership.

Anna, who serves on the BHI core team, pointed out that many in the room are BHI partners. She said, we are united in our shared priority of creating opportunity for 1,500 new low- and moderate-income Black households to own a home in South Seattle, South King County, and North Pierce County by 2027.

Key to this effort, Anna said, is increasing the pool of homes available for purchase, and especially those affordable to low- to moderate-income households, and middle housing options are critical here.

This work is so important because housing accounts for nearly 40% of the $3 trillion wealth gap between Black and white households in the U.S.  Additionally, Anna noted in Washington, the Black homeownership rate is just 36%, compared to 67.7% for white households.

Beyond the need for additional supply, including middle housing, are additional resources and targeted efforts to address barriers, Anna added, such as expanded access to credit and down payment and closing cost assistance. The Covenant Homeownership Program, authorized by the Washington State Legislature in 2023, will address this significant barrier to homeownership by providing downpayment and closing cost assistance for first-time homebuyers excluded from homeownership by racially restrictive covenants.

What’s Missing

Panelists identified other legislative opportunities to help move the needle on increasing housing supply and affordability.

Ideas raised for additional housing measures include: lot splitting (creating a mechanism to unlock more affordable housing options); parking reform (expanding reduced parking requirements around transit); a transit-oriented development bill (to get the scale of housing needed to meet the need); setting accountability for meeting the requirements of housing bills; removing barriers to constructing new permanent supportive housing and emergency shelter in cities; and condo reform, among others.

The Most Important Thing

When asked to share what is the most important thing that they would like policymakers to know about middle housing implementation, here is what panelists had to say:

·  Randy: Match local development regulations to the vision in your comprehensive plan. Let’s make sure we can build it, and where there are barriers outside of a city’s local control, go to legislators at the state level to work on solutions.

· Anna: Homeowners and renters alike support housing density. Surveys show there is an overwhelming amount of support for diverse housing types in neighborhoods. There is wide support for middle housing options.

·  Jesse: Make your rules simple and straightforward, and flexible enough to allow for middle housing development. Work with city staff and council members and builders to make it happen. Also, communicate the benefits to the general public, and make sure they know housing is not a cost to communities but a vital benefit.

· Ryan: We need more housing, of more types, for more income levels, across every jurisdiction in this state. Healthy communities are diverse in all ways, and those are the kind of cities where people want to live.

On behalf of the Coalition for More Housing Choices, MBAKS Executive Director Jerry Hall thanked everyone for coming to hear this important conversation and the panel for sharing their valuable insights.