By Noah Haglund, The Everett Herald

Everett, Wash.—A united Snohomish County Council passed a budget Monday that staves off most public safety cuts with help from a modest property tax increase.

The spending plan for 2017 followed the contours that council Chairman Terry Ryan had recommended a week earlier. Ryan's budget, in turn, hewed closely to a $238 million plan that Executive Dave Somers unveiled in September, though the council softened cuts to key sheriff's office programs.

Washington, DC—(RealEstateRama)—Juli Bacon, owner of JB Consulting Systems LLC and Bacon Maintenance Services LLC in Woodinville, Wash., was recently sworn in as the 2017 chair of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Professional Women in Building (PWB) Council.

“Ensuring that women understand they have a place at the table and helping them find a way to get to that place at the table in construction is really important to me,” said Bacon. “We have a lot of young women wanting to know how to get there and my goal as the PWB chair is to help them in the most efficient way possible.”

Reports Highlight Flaws in Mandatory Affordable Housing Fees

by MBAKS Government Affairs

Two new reports from ECOnorthwest shed light on key shortcomings in inclusionary zoning policies and the nexus studies often used to justify mandatory affordable housing requirements on new market-rate development.

MBAKS commissioned ECOnorthwest, an independent third-party public policy research firm, to prepare these reports in support of more informed local dialogue around affordable housing strategies.

The first report, Mandatory Affordable Housing Fees Carry Unintended Consequences, examines the real-world impacts of imposing affordable housing fees without corresponding incentives. It finds that mandatory affordable housing fees, though well-intentioned, disproportionately affect middle housing projects, often tipping them from risky to infeasible and preventing them from being built altogether. 

The second, How Nexus Studies Misunderstand the Affordable Housing Challenge, highlights a core flaw in the logic underpinning many nexus studies: the assumption that new market-rate housing is the primary driver of demand for affordable housing. The report describes several issues with this assumption, arguing that the framework used to justify mandatory inclusionary requirements misrepresents the true dynamics of housing markets. It does so by ignoring the broader supply shortage and the filtering process through which new housing helps ease pressure on lower-cost homes. By attributing the affordability crisis to new development rather than to structural undersupply, nexus studies risk reinforcing policies that further constrain housing production—ultimately exacerbating the very problem they aim to solve.

The ECOnorthwest reports reinforce the need to continue advancing solutions that increase supply at all levels. MBAKS is committed to being a collaborative partner in addressing the region’s housing shortage so our communities can be more affordable and inclusive for all.