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Contact: Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties | pr@mbaks.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2025
NEW REPORTS SHOW LOCAL POLICIES UNDERMINE HOUSING GOALS
SEATTLE, Wash., August 27, 2025 – The Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties (MBAKS) released two new reports showing how certain local policies are falling short as an effective affordable housing strategy. The reports provide technical information for local policymakers to support successful implementation of state laws aimed at lowering barriers for construction of more homes of all types.
The first report – Mandatory Affordable Housing Fees Carry Unintended Consequences – finds that such fees disproportionately raise barriers to middle housing projects, often making them financially infeasible and preventing them from being built. It also critiques a report relied upon by many Eastside cities to update and adopt mandatory affordable housing fees.
The second report – How Nexus Studies Misunderstand the Affordable Housing Challenge – highlights a core flaw in the logic underpinning many nexus studies local jurisdictions rely upon to justify imposing mandatory affordable housing fees. This report refutes the assumption that new market-rate housing is the primary driver of the need for affordable housing, in part because this framework ignores the broader supply shortage. It also shows that if newer homes cannot be built, higher-income owners and renters remain in what would historically be lower-cost homes accessible to more people, including first time buyers.
“The reports provide information for policymakers supporting how well-intentioned mandatory affordable housing programs can be counterproductive to achieving more affordable housing,” said Jerry Hall, executive director of MBAKS. “They also illustrate how these programs limit progress on our shared work to ensure everyone has a place to call home. The reports show that we do not address the need for affordable housing by making housing more expensive.”
MBAKS commissioned ECOnorthwest, an independent public policy research firm, to prepare the reports to better inform local dialogue on affordable housing strategies. They are part of a series of reports from MBAKS demonstrating flaws in mandatory affordable housing policies.
MBAKS has also prepared a Legal Memorandum describing the implications of mandatory affordable housing fees under recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding “unconstitutional conditions.” It explains how mandatory programs raise constitutional issues under the rulings requiring a showing of a “nexus” and “rough proportionality.”
The memo asserts that the ECOnorthwest reports demonstrate how mandating programs can undermine the implementation of key legislative efforts, like middle housing. It encourages cities to adopt voluntary, incentive-based strategies to facilitate more housing choices.
Today’s release follows another recent MBAKS report detailing how Seattle’s Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) fees have adversely reduced construction of townhomes. This report finds permit intake for new townhomes fell by approximately 87% from before MHA adoption to 2024. This is significant because townhomes are an important middle housing choice, providing a lower-cost, family-sized homeownership option.
ABOUT MBAKS
The Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties (MBAKS) is the nation’s oldest and largest local homebuilders association, helping to make home happen since 1909.
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