By Gwen Davis

On Wednesday evening, the Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) and the Department of Neighborhoods hosted the Westwood Highland Park Urban Village Community Design Workshop at Chief Sealth High School.

The workshop informed participants about the city’s proposals to expand affordable housing in the area, within the city’s signature Housing Affordability and Living Agenda (HALA).

Seattle City Councilmember Lisa Herbold was in attendance to observe the workshop.

“How do we grow as a city, create more affordable housing, and while we’re doing that maintain the essential quality of neighborhoods where new housing will be developed,” said John Howell with OPCD at the beginning of the workshop, addressing a crowd of about 15.

The forecasters are saying that over the next 10 years, 50,000 new people will move to Seattle, Howell said.

The question isn’t whether our neighborhoods will change, he stated. It’s a question of how do we want them to change.

“The purpose of the meeting is to hear from you,” he said. “Most of the evening we want one or more small-group conversations about the zoning proposals for the Westwood Highland Park Urban Village.

“We’re not trying to gain agreement in these small-group conversations,” he cautioned. Rather, the goal was to hear everyone’s thoughts. “What we’re trying to do is create affordable housing in every corner of the city.”

“We’ll prepare a summary of what we hear tonight, and your comments will be given to OPCD and the Seattle City Council,” he said.

The zoning changes will be decided upon in spring of 2017.

Brennon Staley with the OPCD introduced the plan:

“The people in our city are committed to investing in our communities,” Staley said. “One of the major challenges is housing affordability. Seattle is growing very quickly, people are flocking here, and as a lot of people are competing for housing, affordability issues are becoming worse and worse.”

A staggering total of 2,942 people are living without shelter in Seattle, Staley noted on his PowerPoint.

It’s the city’s goal to create 30,000 new market-rate housing unites, and 20,000 affordable housing units.

“We need a wide range of options to make that possible.”

The city is trying to invest in housing for those who need it the most, prevent displacement, promote efficient development, and continue to create new affordable housing as Seattle grows.

However, the city will now implement a bundle of new policies, called the Mandatory Housing Affordability program (MHA) which will overall mandate that all new multifamily and commercial development must either build or pay into a fund for affordable housing. There will be two sets of MHA; one for commercial development and one for residential. Right now, the specifics of the MHA have not been finalized. Only when the city is done receiving input from community members, will the MHA details become policy. The MHA will apply to the entire city.

Stately continued that affordable housing will be focused primarily on urban villages, which are areas that offer amenities, resources and easy access to public transportation.

“We want new development to be in those urban villages,” he said.

Stately introduced the MHA implementation principles, which include: the program will result in at least 6,000 affordable new homes in the next 10 years, it will create affordable housing opportunities throughout the city, and it will advance the social justice goals of the city.

The success of the MHA will be viewed with a racial equity lens, specifically targeting displacement and access to opportunity.

All new housing needs to last 75 years. The city has resources to enforce the MHA.

“Our conversations tonight will revolve around maps regarding different zoning potential,” Stately said.

Stately told participants how to read the large maps, which were displayed on tables in the small-group sessions, in order to provide useful feedback to the city.

He stated that residents are also more than welcome to email the city their suggestions, and attend other community meetings.

Several participants asked questions, which Stately answered.

The group then broke out into two sessions.

These workshops will be held in communities all over Seattle over the following two months.