By Gwen Davis

The City of Seattle wants teachers, receptionists, therapists — and anyone making in that salary range, and under — the ability to live in Seattle.

It’s nothing new that Seattle is a great place to live, with many large employers, and one of the strongest local economies in the country. Over the next 10 years, city officials expect tens of thousands of new families to relocate to the region. With mild weather, beautiful natural resources and a socially progressive population, officials are buckling down to ensure that everyone can live well, with ample access to housing, transportation and livability resources.

However, officials explicitly do not want Seattle to be made up of people who are primarily white and upper-middle class. Several areas in the city have already become highly gentrified, with affluent Microsoft, Amazon and tech employees moving in, spiking a hike in rents, while displacing native Seattleites, many of whom are non-college educated and are people of color. Scores of residents and families have had no choice but to leave Seattle, and move to Kent, Tacoma and other neighborhoods south of the city. Seatttle has simply become unaffordable to many.

With unaffordable living standards on the rise, and waves of promised new people in the future, the city has put into place several new programs to address these two trends.

One of these programs includes the Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) program, put into place by the city’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA).

On December 7, the city put on an open house, held at Shelby's Bistro and Ice Creamery (and spilling over into Uptown Espresso to get everyone in) to educate residents of West Seattle about the MHA. City employees answered questions, and maps were set up which detailed the areas that would be rezoned to service more housing. Dozens of people attended the open house.

"MHA is a new program that would require all multifamily and commercial development to contribute to affordable housing,” said HALA’s Emily Alvarado at the open house. “They can do that in two ways: [developers] can build units as part of the building, or they can pay funds to the Office of Housing, and we would use those funds to create affordable housing in the community.”

Alvarado explained who qualifies for “affordable” housing.

“People who are at 60 percent of area median income, which is roughly $54,000 for a family of four,” she said.

"The goal of this program is modeled to create over 6,300 units for low income families. The way we activate this program is make zoning changes throughout the city.”

In West Seattle, there will be four types of zoning changes. These will be made primarily to urban villages, which are residential neighborhoods with lots of access to transportation, schools, stores and other living necessities.

By the end of the program, MHA is designed to create 20,000 new affordable homes throughout Seattle.

“We know we have an affordable housing crisis right now,” Alvarado said. “This is part of the plan to address that crisis.”

In most zones, a typical change would allow one additional story of development. In order to increase housing choices in urban villages, some proposed zoning changes could allow development beyond the typical one-story increase.

“Affordable family housing is of primary importance,” Alvarado said.

The city will continue to engage Seattleites in dialogue around ways to address the housing shortage and be cognizant of current residents’ needs.