Countywide Cooperative Seeks Alternate Affordable Policy in Snohomish County

The following is a report from Edmonds City Council member Diane Buckshnis. Planning Division manager Rob Chave is also involved in the affordable housing project.

For the past 19 months, I have sat on the Snohomish County Tomorrow (SCT) steering committee, and one of our countywide policies has been working on affordable housing.

SCT is a cooperative and collaborative public interjurisdictional forum consisting of representatives from the county and each of the cities, as well as the Tulalip Tribes. SCT's mission is to adopt a publicly shared vision, including goals and policies, to guide effective growth management and to preserve Snohomish County's unique quality of life. 

SCT’s traditional work on affordable housing has been to draft the countywide policies giving direction on how county and city comprehensive plans should address affordable housing needs, location and how to plan for it. In the past, SCT committees have also worked on a formula for measuring each city’s and county’s need for such housing, the degree to which it is being supplied and the subsequent future need for affordable housing. SCT’s monitoring of available land for development (Buildable Lands Report) has been loosely related to this policy and formula-making work.
 
During this last update of the Countywide Planning Policies which I was a part of, the planning directors suggested that we look at an alternative way of achieving affordable housing. Their main point being that government agencies in Washington don’t actually locate and construct affordable housing and, therefore, the adopted housing policies and formula seemed ineffective to many PAC (political action committee) members.

As a result, several steering committee members and some PAC members formed a loose group of planning directors and public officials to explore alternative ways of making affordable housing happen. After about 18 months of meetings, the committee came forth with a structure for an ARCH-type (A Regional Coalition for Housing) nonprofit organization which would be a resource to cities and the county (for example, have examples of ordinances, help write ordinances and eventually even have a pool of funds for purchasing land and/or developing housing).

ARCH has been very successful in helping east King County cities such as Bellevue, Woodinville and Mercer Island in finding ways to enable affordable housing in their communities in ways that are consistent with their values. ARCH has been a resource in the creation of approximately 1,500 affordable housing units in the last decade.
 
The effort to create a similar organization has the support of SCT, and a presentation to Edmonds City Council was made last year by Shane Hope (a SCT representative) at my request. The council unanimously agreed to continue with the process.

This spring, we came forward with a memorandum of understanding supporting this ARCH program, which the Edmonds Council passed 6-1. Currently, the committee is working towards a formal interlocal agreement that would define an organizational structure, work program and budget. As of September 2011, 12 cities were participating. Additionally, the Housing Authority of Snohomish County is providing office space and support staff. 

It was generally agreed that moving forward to develop an interlocal agreement and exploring the Housing Authority’s offer of initial staff assistance could be an interim step to accomplishing some progress toward a tangible cooperative program and potentially an opportunity to begin work on some desired work program activities already identified by the committee as valuable efforts towards the mission and goals.

Simultaneously, grant and/or other funding sources will be explored over the coming months for the purpose of obtaining seed money to supplement future contributions from participating members. as all cities agree that 2012 and 2013 may be tough months to fund programs such as these.

However, that is why a consortium is a cost-effective venue as it is estimated that Edmonds share will be less than $10,000 and more like $6,000. Considering what ARCH has done this last decade, that is an investment worth investigation.

To find out more about ARCH, visit its website.