2017 REALTOR® Advocacy – It’s all about housing
Annual report on legislative successes now available
Seattle King County REALTORS® earned some very important local legislative successes this year to increase housing supply. In working with small suburban cities, the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) and the City of Seattle, REALTORS® promoted steps to give consumers more affordable housing options in the future.
Earlier this year, the PSRC attempted to force small suburban cities in King County to reduce affordable housing opportunities by claiming the cities were exceeding their minimum housing growth targets. With the help of REALTORS® and others in the housing industry, the cities reached an agreement with the PSRC that minimum housing targets should not be viewed as a cap on future housing growth. As a result, the cities were able to craft housing plans more responsive to the current market and not be concerned with the potential withholding of future transportation funding by the PSRC.
This successful effort to work with cities and prevent the PSRC from stunting small city growth will allow for more affordable housing for working families. The revised housing targets allow Covington and other small cities to supply much-needed inventory, grow at an appropriate rate within their own borders, and be competitive in the future.
PSRC’s disagreement with small cities over housing caps magnifies an already obvious issue: housing inventory is extremely low, particularly in Seattle.
Also this year, Seattle King County REALTORS® advocated in support of Seattle’s HALA Grand Bargain. The Seattle City Council took important steps in Seattle’s HALA Grand Bargain by passing the University District, Downtown/South Lake Union, Central Area and Uptown Upzones. The successful Upzones position the city to deliver on HALA’s goal of producing 20,000 affordable homes and 30,000 market rate homes over the next ten years.
The government affairs program at Seattle King County REALTORS® operates under four basic principles to assist your business. Those principles are:
- Keep government from cleaning out your pockets
- Keep government from killing, delaying, or jeopardizing your transactions
- Encourage policies to create more transactions
- Prevent (and where possible, repeal) excessive regulations
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