SEATTLE, WA – As Seattle continues to grapple with a deep housing affordability crisis, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson today announced a new executive order aimed at accelerating affordable and market-rate housing production by speeding up permits. The order establishes an Affordable Housing Ombudsperson and an Interdepartmental Team to coordinate permit review across city agencies, alongside creating a new Housing Production Task Force.
Streamlined, efficient, and predictable permitting is critical to turning proposed affordable housing projects into real homes for low-income individuals and families. Affordable housing developers must assemble funding from multiple public and private sources and lock in a budget before construction begins. When permits stall, costs rise, and developers can be forced to return to public funders for gap financing.
HDC members have been documenting permitting issues for years, through our Removing Barriers to Affordable Housing Workgroup. When we surveyed developers and contractors working on affordable housing projects in Seattle, they reported recurring problems: delays well beyond statutory timelines, duplicative rounds of review, a lack of coordination across departments, and inspectors requiring changes to approved, code-compliant plans during construction. This led us to propose a single point of contact to provide accountability across departments, and we carried the same case to Olympia in support of HB 2418, sponsored by Rep. Davina Duerr, which now requires Washington cities to designate a permit-responsible official.
Today’s announcement builds on real progress at the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, which has waived design review for affordable housing, worked to prioritize affordable housing permits, and improved service and responsiveness. HDC members have seen these improvements, yet still encounter difficulties coordinating with the many other entities involved in permitting and entitlement process, including the Seattle Department of Transportation, Seattle City Light, Seattle Public Utilities, and the Seattle Fire Department. The Ombudsperson extends a pro-housing, streamlined approach to the city departments and public utilities not under SDCI’s control.
“Every month a permit sits in review is a month a family waits for an affordable home,” said Patience Malaba, Executive Director of HDC. “Our members told us plainly what they needed: one accountable person who can get departments in the same room and keep them there. We are grateful to Mayor Wilson for listening, and to SDCI for partnering with us to this stage.”
“A typical project runs through reviews at a multitude of agencies and departments, and each one can potentially introduce changes. Those changes create risk–delays, design changes and cost increases—which are very problematic for affordable housing projects with limited resources” said Becky Bicknell of Walsh Construction. ” An ombudsperson who can create more predictability will save real time and money as we aim to bring as many affordable homes to the market as quickly and cost-effectively as possible.”
HDC also welcomed the Housing Production Taskforce created by the Executive Order, which will bring together communities most affected by City housing policy to develop recommendations on increasing production, supporting community-based and nonprofit developers, and preventing displacement.