[0:08] Now that the recording is in progress, welcome to the City of Everett Parks and Built Environment

[0:13] Council Committee meeting of August 13, 2025. We're here in the Everett City Council Chambers.

[0:21] We only have one item on our agenda and I bet it will be awesome because it's about housing.

[0:27] So I will tell you what that is. And it is the Housing Strategy Briefing from staff.

[0:33] And it looks like we have some awesome staff without name placards, so I'm going to allow you to introduce yourself, so I don't get it wrong.

[0:42] Take it away.

[0:45] Good afternoon. I am Julie Willie. I'm the Community Development Director and Frank Hong. Our housing project manager is here with us today and he's going to get most of the airtime.

[0:56] And so, you will have the pleasure of learning from Frank and the work that he has done over

[1:02] the course of the last, what, year and a half to really look at what we've done around

[1:07] housing in the last several years regarding rethinking housing in regards to housing

[1:12] directives and housing for all, certainly in regards to our 2044 comprehensive plan

[1:17] and our consolidated plan to address the individuals in need.

[1:21] And every one of those reports, obviously, has pointed to the direction of housing.

[1:26] So Frank, alongside of that work, has been really trying to understand what other opportunities exist within the city of Everett and within our region, our state, and our federal environment, as well as building partnerships and relationships and strategizing.

[1:42] And so tonight we've asked Frank to share his vision for our 10-point strategy, a framework by which we will bucket all of our future housing work into.

[1:52] And then next, probably at a council full, in the full briefing, kind of talk a little bit more specifically about the initiatives that he also or we also have been working to move forward.

[2:04] So I think it'll be an opportunity for you to learn and to ask questions and to kind of co-create.

[2:11] And then hopefully we can quickly move into action for 2026.

[2:15] With that, Frank Hong.

[2:21] Thank you, Julie.

[2:24] Oh, sorry.

[2:26] I forgot one more thing.

[2:28] Another thing that we're doing kind of internally as a staff team is

[2:31] working to kind of better align our community planning and

[2:36] economic development efforts.

[2:38] So we've kind of moved some of Frank's work a little bit closer to

[2:40] community development because he's already really aligned with planning and has a great

[2:44] relationship with the planning department. But we wanted to also remember the funding

[2:48] and the affordability and our other residents that we're also working to ensure shelter

[2:52] and housing options for all. So that's been a really cool opportunity as well as thinking

[2:57] about it from economic development level. So Frank kind of like floats through all three

[3:02] of our divisions to really bring housing as a united force. So that's just also

[3:07] something we wanted you to note. Now I now I've remembered everything. Thank you very much Julie.

[3:14] One second.

[3:21] Okay well good afternoon everyone get to see you all again.

[3:26] Here today we're just going to provide you with a sort of very high level introduction to the next

[3:32] five-year housing strategy that we're working on as a department. It's still in a very drab phase

[3:38] and hopefully through the next few months we'll get something prepared at the end of this

[3:42] year to take it into 2026.

[3:45] The strategy

[3:48] comprises two main components, a long-term housing strategic – a strategic

[3:56] housing framework that will govern our sort of roadmap for housing for – there's really

[4:03] no timeline to that.

[4:04] And in addition to that, there's more targeted action items that we'll come back again

[4:08] as Julie mentioned in September to discuss further.

[4:12] So I wanted to ground you.

[4:13] I'll go into details of each of these pillars later on, but I just wanted to help everybody

[4:18] anchor what we're talking about today, and this is the strategic framework that I mentioned,

[4:22] consists of 10 pillars that's pretty comprehensive and cohesive, and there are 10 pillars that

[4:27] are in many ways interrelated to support a thriving and sustainable housing environment

[4:33] forever.

[4:34] Before we get into those, each individual pillar, I also just wanted to take a step

[4:38] back and help you understand how we sort of came to this place.

[4:41] As you all know, housing is a foundation for so many other issues from public safety,

[4:48] public health, education, community and social cohesion, economic mobility and infrastructure

[4:53] transportation.

[4:54] And each one of these, again, vitally important.

[4:57] You need housing to have safe place to stay, housing so that when you have a safe place

[5:03] to stay, you can pursue your educational goals, et cetera.

[5:06] So understanding that housing is so critical in so many ways, I think, is a good reminder for us as we move forward, because oftentimes we get caught up in maybe just the numbers, thinking housing is just a supply, but it's just so much more.

[5:20] And I'm sure speaking to the choir here, all you folks know that.

[5:26] Also, with this strategy, what's coming into it from a comprehensive perspective, but it's also grounded on data.

[5:33] And I could present a lot of different types of data, but I'm sure you've heard a lot from Chris Collier and many other folks that have come before you.

[5:39] But some of the key data points that, again, sort of express that urgency that we're approaching is that Everett is expected to grow to 179,000 approximately population-wise,

[5:54] one of this was based on our 2024.

[5:57] At the same time, that population needs housing.

[5:59] And so we have a big challenge ahead of us

[6:02] in producing nearly 3,600 units of additional housing

[6:06] in addition to 2,400 beds.

[6:08] And these are generally like the temporary beds

[6:10] for emergency shelter, et cetera.

[6:13] We also have not just limited to Everett,

[6:16] but region-wide there's a growing housing

[6:18] on a portability issue in 2023.

[6:21] our last census number is a 58% of Everett's residents in the rental market suffered from cost burden.

[6:29] So again, there are big challenges ahead of us.

[6:31] And so looking at this strategy, I'm looking at it much more than just numbers,

[6:37] but in so many other different contexts.

[6:39] And as Julie mentioned, again, there's been several prior efforts up leading up to this.

[6:45] Most recently, many of you are familiar with the 2021 We Think Housing Action Plan.

[6:50] That was just a few years ago, led to a lot of great things for the city and more recently an adoption of the 2044 comprehensive plan.

[6:59] If you have any further questions, York's here to provide some guidance on that.

[7:03] In addition, this strategy also incorporates recent work that Julie's Community Development Division did with the consolidated plan as well as with the fair housing assessment.

[7:13] A new piece that hasn't really been discussed before is this 2025 affordable housing solutions plan. That was a recent effort where the city got funded through a grant from commerce to prepare a study which I call the Everett affordable housing solutions plan.

[7:28] It's focused mainly at the 0 to 50% AMI range.

[7:31] And so this also strategy moving forward will bring in some of those elements, and we will also come back before council later on to talk more about the AHSP and some of the findings from that as well.

[7:43] And it's not just all reports. Again, there was a lot of stakeholder and community engagement processes throughout the consolidated plan throughout the AFH Fair Housing Assessment exercise as well as through the AHSP.

[7:55] We worked with the housing consortium who also worked with many partners in the community to understand, again, the community-driven needs.

[8:02] And then lastly, a lot of just research and observations over the past year and a half with abundance of folks both locally as well as regionally and nationally to build this, again, very comprehensive strategy.

[8:15] I just also want to pose that rethink housing since this is really going to be that next

[8:20] five-year process to provide you with a status update on rethink housing.

[8:24] There are 18 action items at the end of that.

[8:28] We can confidently say that we achieved 14 of those and these extra four, the S4 stands

[8:34] for short-term initiatives and the L was for the long-term.

[8:37] These four that generally touch on tenant protections, monitoring, sort of land banking

[8:43] program.

[8:43] I will continue and likely incorporate that into, again, the next five-year strategy plan

[8:49] moving forward.

[8:50] So, really, that's sort of that transition from rethink housing and moving on to this

[8:55] next five-year strategy plan.

[8:58] And so, also...

[9:00] I just couldn't say any questions before he moves on to us.

[9:03] Oh, on rethink housing.

[9:04] If there are any other questions that you would like to add up here.

[9:13] Would you...

[9:13] so far so good.

[9:14] Would you consider S4 Institute Tenant Protections

[9:19] and targeted assistance to be partially complete

[9:24] because of the recent state legislation?

[9:30] Yeah, and that's the sort of where

[9:31] the state has been doing a lot on that.

[9:34] I mean, there's definitely things that localities

[9:36] that could do more.

[9:37] I mean, we're seeing some of the cities around us

[9:39] like Bellingham, et cetera, pushing forward

[9:41] with some of these other additional tent protections.

[9:44] I don't recall there being specific metrics to that one.

[9:47] That's why we sort of left it as an ongoing.

[9:50] I think the state has made great efforts.

[9:52] I mean, the R-cell rent stabilization ordinance

[9:53] really helped out.

[9:55] But at the same time, again, that growing

[9:57] unaffordability challenge is still out there

[9:59] and there can always be more done in that area.

[10:04] I look forward to more being done.

[10:06] Thank you.

[10:09] I was looking at the growth numbers that roughly 20 year growth numbers, sorry.

[10:15] I was looking at the 20 year growth numbers here and I want to make sure I understand this.

[10:20] Also that there's kind of another look at predictions because I know 20 year predictions.

[10:25] It's always, it's hard to make predictions, especially about the future as they say.

[10:30] It looks like, and I think I'd asked Yorick this question before about, do we really see the kinds

[10:36] of numbers we look at? Because when I first look at this, you see 57%, you see 79%, 57% in population,

[10:43] almost 80% in housing. That looks to me though, since it's 20 years and compounded,

[10:49] that's something like 3% per year for the housing targets and only two and a quarter percent or

[10:57] so for the population.

[10:59] So is that in line with what we've experienced

[11:03] in the past 20 years or so?

[11:05] So these numbers came from the Snomish County H05 report.

[11:09] And so there was several models that were done

[11:12] to figure out which numbers to use

[11:14] as to whether we're on track to have reached these numbers.

[11:18] York and I have had quite a few discussions on that.

[11:22] It's built on the 2020 for the population.

[11:24] it's built on the 2020 census projection at roughly 2% a year. And when we recently look at the Office

[11:31] of Financial Management and other numbers, I mean, we're under 2% by quite a bit. I think we're at

[11:37] like 0.7% right now growth rate. So, you know, I mean, these first five years into this 20 year

[11:44] projection slower, but maybe it catches up, maybe we do things. But those were the numbers

[11:50] that we're working off of. Do you want to add anything to that?

[11:56] You're Stephen Swadge to planning director. I think part of the question was about the

[12:01] difference why we're growing more housing than population. There are some dynamics in there

[12:05] with household size. Household size has in generally been decreasing over time, which would

[12:10] indicate more housing is being built than population. On the other hand, we've also had

[12:19] With the housing shortage, you've had more people staying as roommates longer, so I think

[12:24] some of that decline in housing household size has gone the opposite direction.

[12:30] The HO5 report and the methodology to try to turn these into housing targets tries to

[12:34] account for both the household size changes as well as curing the housing shortfall.

[12:41] So that includes planning for the amount of housing that it would take to house everyone

[12:46] who is currently unsheltered, as well as take care of that Latin demand of folks who are

[12:52] in a room situation that they would rather not be in, maybe living with someone and they'd rather

[12:56] be on their own. So that's why you see more housing than population because we are short on it now.

[13:02] I guess from the standpoint of just trying to make good decisions when we have limited

[13:08] disability into the future, I think it sounds like in the past those projections had generally

[13:14] been in the right vicinity and I'm not uncomfortable with them recently being a little low because

[13:21] we have so much built-in need.

[13:25] Even if we over forecast on this, we're still in a supply-demand problem right now that

[13:31] this should, if this goes this way, would relieve a little bit.

[13:34] I just wanted to get a general sense of that because before we dive into some of

[13:37] the details, I want to see if the magnitude is right and if we've proven it in the

[13:42] past we've done these things that they worked sort of the way we intended at

[13:45] least not enough well enough so that we don't do the wrong things. Yeah I mean

[13:50] then again I could have put it so many more details but I didn't want to

[13:53] technical data you folks all with after information that Chris has provided

[13:58] you in the past but yeah I mean we're in such a huge supply shortage right now

[14:03] that any housing definitely helps and it will reach that our target needs.

[14:09] Thanks.

[14:10] Thanks.

[14:11] Is there any further questions on the rethink housing closeout portion?

[14:16] Then the next, again, what we heard from community members through three of these outreach efforts

[14:21] from the consolidated plan, the fair housing, as well as the affordable housing solutions

[14:27] plan exercise, you know, affordability is the top concern of many of the residents.

[14:31] I'm sorry, I'm taking one step back.

[14:33] So the public outreach, it was mainly to target it to housing related audiences from some of the

[14:40] affordable housing surveys to, again, service providers and other folks who deal in the housing

[14:45] space. So that's sort of that realm of who's responding to these. But the top concerns

[14:50] that we heard were that, again, affordability is the top concern, more housing is needed,

[14:54] larger unit sizes, support services, tenant protection.

[15:00] And, again, more place-based reinvestment. So we're taking, again, a lot of just different

[15:05] inputs from data to stakeholder input, et cetera, into creating a very comprehensive strategy

[15:12] moving forward. And so what we end up is partially what we heard when we were doing also a comp

[15:19] plan is that oftentimes a lot of the, I would just say, city documents are overly complicated.

[15:25] And so one of the goals that I was trying to make or achieve is to create something simplistic. It's easy to understand.

[15:32] So some of these concepts and themes were a continuation that's been taken out of the comprehensive plan as well as again some of these other variables that went into making or putting together a strategy that will help create a thriving and vibrant housing market for Everett.

[15:50] So if we just sort of go clockwise starting from the top,

[15:55] one of the 10 pillars is leadership.

[15:57] And that leadership theme goes both internally.

[16:00] What we can do is a city.

[16:02] And I sort of see it upon that the city's hiring of me

[16:05] trying to push housing.

[16:06] That's one great step in leadership.

[16:08] It can also mean other aspects of leadership,

[16:11] like taking a leadership approach in, for example,

[16:13] the manufactured housing realm or other areas.

[16:16] And so I think that's a key pillar of strategy

[16:21] Would you prefer we go by each pillar, or would you like me to go all over and then we can come back and talk into detail of any questions?

[16:33] I'll make a decision.

[16:35] Just speak.

[16:36] Okay.

[16:37] And then we'll be like, but what did you say about collaboration and partnerships?

[16:42] And so, yeah, I mean, leadership I think it's pretty self-explanatory, supply, again, that's really focused on new construction, preservation, anything that really deals with that housing supply realm.

[16:54] And these are, again, very broad themes.

[16:56] And then when we come back in September, we will have more targeted specific strategic initiatives that we're working under each of these.

[17:03] But, again, I think we talked a lot internally, as well as spoken a lot with folks.

[17:09] what we need in terms of producing, again, a thriving and sustainable housing market here in Everett.

[17:16] So supply. The third one is, again, focusing on innovation and industrialized production, not settling with status quo.

[17:22] Again, as you mentioned, Councilmember Zerlingo, we understand we have a huge housing shortage.

[17:28] And, you know, I think about doing this 20-plus years ago in other cities, it's always this catch-up process of the mind that we just cannot.

[17:35] It's not, I'm not saying that our current building methods are wrong, but at the same time it's not keeping, you know, it's not meeting our quota of what we need.

[17:45] And so we need to think outside of the box. And in many ways we're looking at innovation, whether that's housing finance innovation or just taking that position of thinking broader as well as looking at other types of building methods to see how we can.

[17:57] making the pace of housing production.

[18:00] The fourth pillar, healthy and resilient communities.

[18:02] This one focuses more on both the public health

[18:04] and the environmental health aspects of housing.

[18:07] So oftentimes, we understand, going back

[18:10] to what I mentioned earlier with housing

[18:11] as the foundation for so many other things,

[18:14] from the way you design housing

[18:15] and the way you focus on whether it should be

[18:18] more lower density or higher density.

[18:20] These have a lot of implications

[18:21] to a person's health and welfare,

[18:24] as well as when we look on the environmental side,

[18:27] There's so many other aspects that we can – that we should seek to address to make

[18:32] sure that we're using our resources efficiently, we're using energy efficiently, all these

[18:36] other things that as populations grow, they become harder and harder to address.

[18:41] So, you know, I think we should risk manage early to look at these issues early on and

[18:45] build in these policies and practices so that we can address that.

[18:49] The next pillar is funding, which is –

[18:50] I'm going to just pause you just for one second because what you'll learn as

[18:53] we go through this in the future, too, that some of the initiatives will touch

[18:56] multiple kind of strategic framework. And so some of our work with ensuring

[19:02] sheltering and things for our, you know, kind of vulnerable populations might

[19:07] fall under healthy and resilient communities. So I just kind of wanted to

[19:10] put that placeholder in there, too, that it is being addressed and you'll

[19:15] hopefully show up in multiple places as we move forward.

[19:18] Key is, again, housing. It's such an

[19:21] interrelated topic to so many other things but these we feel are the 10 big

[19:25] buckets that hitting all of these again will really help support a strong

[19:29] housing market forever. The fifth pillar funding again pretty self-explanatory a

[19:34] real critical issue that goes both from how the city can participate in

[19:38] finding more resources or to also the city like myself I actively go out

[19:45] hunt for resources to support our partners in developing housing but

[19:49] funding is a critical piece. The next piece, workforce development, also a huge piece that often gets overlooked. I mean, there's such a huge shortfall in labor, both on the traditional side, but even more so on any kind of innovative housing from the manufacturer side.

[20:05] So, you know, this is working with our partners to make sure that the programs are in place, identifying the need, finding support, funding, etc.

[20:13] But that's one critical component that I think the city should take a more active approach and supporting education.

[20:22] This often again, you've heard it on countless times from Chris where what folks think of maybe, for example, affordable housing, what it is.

[20:31] There's, I think, a lot of times a misnomer of what housing is.

[20:34] And so, education-wise, from the types of resources we put out on our website to working

[20:41] with partners in many ways, it's education's a critical component and something that we

[20:46] will put a heavy emphasis on, yes.

[20:50] I can hear you just fine, but I ask that just, yeah, because I'm not sure how you're

[20:56] getting through to YouTube.

[20:58] Thank you for that reminder.

[21:01] Yeah, the eighth pillar, access and stability.

[21:05] This one focuses more on social services, operations, those other indirect to housing, but equally as important in making sure that it all just works out.

[21:16] I mean, oftentimes we've tried this sort of housing first.

[21:19] Sometimes it doesn't work out right away.

[21:21] And so we need to have all those other amenities

[21:24] to make sure that a person that needs those services

[21:28] have access to that.

[21:30] And would you like to touch on that any further?

[21:33] OK.

[21:35] Ninth pillar, collaboration partnerships.

[21:37] Again, this is huge.

[21:38] I mean, housing, it's beyond the region.

[21:41] It's national.

[21:42] We can't do it alone.

[21:43] I'm a big believer that some of these biggest challenges,

[21:46] we need to leverage our partnerships.

[21:48] And so working with local, regional, national partners of all kinds, and I've been trying

[21:55] to develop those relationships across all the different industries to make sure that

[21:59] we have a robust support mechanism for developing as well as preserving a housing as well as

[22:05] also to support some of those services and operations that are in place, so I mean collaboration.

[22:09] Again, big, big piece.

[22:11] And the 10th pillar, often what cities do, focusing on the permits and the regulatory

[22:17] So that, again, is making sure that we have policies and regulations in place that both support and facilitate housing but also protect the quality of life and, you know, all these other city characteristics, living characters that we want to achieve.

[22:36] And so all these are very high level, and then within each of these, there are a lot more specific strategic action initiatives that we are currently reviewing to put forth in the next five-year housing strategy.

[22:50] But that, again, is really summarizing this long-term strategic housing framework, and we're all open if there are other areas that we've missed that we should include.

[23:00] I could put a 11th pillar in if needed.

[23:02] So I don't think you need to add a pillar. I just wanted to bring up I'm constantly talking about low income housing and affordability and this and that and the other thing and it's terribly important and we don't have enough.

[23:17] However, in the, now I may get the words wrong,

[23:22] but Growth Management Act or something,

[23:26] tell me, that might not be right.

[23:29] The city of Everett is required by others

[23:33] to create more high-end housing,

[23:37] like all of our different jurisdictions

[23:39] have been given like you need to have this percentage

[23:43] of affordable housing at 30 AMI 50 AMI 80 AMI whatever it is and we're actually

[23:51] more we've been given the thou shall make some more high-end housing can you

[24:00] speak to how can you speak to that considering the 10 pillars and the

[24:08] importance of housing it I don't know all price points even though we're

[24:12] constantly talking about there's so many of us that absolutely cannot afford

[24:18] housing and yet here we are in Everett needing to supply more high-end. Yeah

[24:23] and again it sort of goes back to that 38,600 number it's a little I would say

[24:29] misleading in some sense because the HL5 report says we need roughly about

[24:33] 10-11,000 between the zero to a 30% AMI and then there are the 20,000 above

[24:40] But at the same time, we know because of this housing shortage, a lot of people who have means they're occupying housing at lower income spectrum.

[24:51] So we should still be aiming for housing within that, you know, 50 to 80% range.

[24:57] I think, again, there's such a short shortage of housing that it's restricting in many sense.

[25:01] But I mean, where you are looking at various strategies to encourage what was called market rate, the 80% and above.

[25:10] You know, oftentimes we have our main tool right now is our multi-family tax exemption from a rental standpoint.

[25:16] We are looking at tweaking that the state recently also updated for the 25-year home ownership portion of that to make it more usable.

[25:24] So, you know, there are strategies and we are planning to look at and addressing that.

[25:34] Yeah, I mean, again, this whole body of work, there's so many things that we can talk about,

[25:39] but the details and more of that will be coming in September.

[25:44] Thank you. Yes.

[25:48] Well, there were a couple of things that come up. I mean, this is a regional problem,

[25:51] as Council Member Vogli had said, and we are the one city in the county,

[25:58] I think, that has majority rentals rather than majority homeowners.

[26:01] So that probably speaks to why if you look at the biggest missing trunk we have.

[26:07] Sorry.

[26:08] There, sorry.

[26:10] I was not switched on.

[26:12] So just was commenting, this is a regional problem and we're the city in the county with the majority renters rather than homeowners as most of the others, which is probably leads to why we have a missing area of the higher levels of AMI.

[26:27] I guess I'm, and as I understand it, the state and regional mandates have, they don't mandate that we do these things.

[26:37] They mandate that we allow for them, that our planning allows for them.

[26:41] We don't, you know, we can't compel it.

[26:43] Have I got that straight?

[26:46] Well, you could speak on more of the actual regulatory behind it, but...

[26:51] That's generally true.

[26:53] Like, we don't have to build the market rate housing.

[26:56] We have to zone for it.

[26:59] We might look at funding that's available for the zero to 30 or the other types of more subsidized housing, like funding tools that we exercised all of them, like the multifamily tax exemption or like our home funds.

[27:14] And how are we using those tools?

[27:18] And then beyond just zoning, how does the other parts of our code or do they make it?

[27:24] they sort of facilitate that growth.

[27:27] But to date, we're not in trouble if doesn't happen.

[27:33] Well, yeah, I mean, kind of last week

[27:36] I went to several different neighborhoods

[27:38] at National Night Out and housing and house prices

[27:41] and affordability and the chance for our kids

[27:45] to buy here or to own here, those things all came up.

[27:50] So those raised questions about some of it can be fairness or equity here is our other cities.

[27:57] And one question I guess I can raise in that is, the numbers we were talking about, about growth a few minutes ago,

[28:03] is that similar to what's expected in other communities around us, our adjacent communities?

[28:09] Well, first I want to, on your last point, one clarity in terms of more renters than owners.

[28:15] I think I'm in the last numbers I've looked at recently when we were preparing the Complan.

[28:19] It used to be renters over ownership and now it's evened out again roughly 50-50.

[28:24] So there's that to the point of encouraging versus mandating, I guess you can say.

[28:32] Yeah, I mean, I know oftentimes people talk about what is the responsibility of a city.

[28:39] Oftentimes it's just providing that service, doing the policies and especially in the housing front,

[28:44] planning for that capacity and letting the private sector do it. But at the same time,

[28:49] again, thinking back 30 years now and doing this in other cities as well, that approach does not

[28:56] seem effective in many places. We've done that. We've planned for it in the market. So I prefer

[29:03] more of an encouragement working with the private sector, figuring out what we can do to make

[29:10] I think our regulatory process and all these other pieces here, more supportive of a stronger housing market.

[29:18] So we're not just, you know, I often say, and this may be a bad phrase, but it's just a hope if we're just expecting things to happen without actively approaching it

[29:27] and intentionally planning and doing things behind it.

[29:30] And so, again, I think the city should take a more active approach.

[29:35] And this is a sort of a thought process where this is where you're getting that concept of

[29:40] social housing coming into play because a lot of European counterparts have done it,

[29:43] taken on the more affordable side.

[29:45] So, again, really sort of goes back to, sorry, I know I've gone now to the weeds.

[29:49] My gosh, well, only because like the innovation and the forward thinking that we have in

[29:55] our housing program manager is exceptional and we're really lucky for that.

[30:00] And he also is the biggest advocate for housing and for us prioritizing housing, and we also need that.

[30:05] Unfortunately, we have a lot of other priorities that you all have to make decisions on,

[30:09] but you're always going to have Frank as our biggest advocate and a wealth of knowledge

[30:13] to help us as we navigate these things. So, and also super cool ideas, even from other countries.

[30:20] So definitely, you know, I don't want to stop you and you can ask him to continue,

[30:24] but I did want to just kind of set the guardrails.

[30:27] There were just a couple of related things and one of them you mentioned the multifamily

[30:31] tax exemption and I'm thinking about I'm not sure how or whether that's structured in

[30:36] other communities as well.

[30:38] That was one question.

[30:39] The other one is kind of general growth rates of those communities.

[30:43] Are they similar to ours?

[30:45] And then the other one is I think we should reflect that our budgets that we've approved

[30:49] have approved higher levels of staffing in permitting to make it easier for people

[30:55] to build.

[30:55] because in a lot of ways, I mean in this country especially, the resources to build this housing

[30:59] are commonly coming from the private sector. That's where the money and investment is.

[31:05] You know, we don't even have a state income tax here in this state, and we don't have the

[31:09] levels of taxation of the European countries. So they can be inspirations to us, but we can't

[31:15] duplicate many of those things. We don't have anywhere near the same structures,

[31:19] legal or tax wise. So I guess one of the then a couple of questions that come to me,

[31:24] And again, we can address these things in September.

[31:26] I'm just coming up to speed on these aspects of this now,

[31:29] but things like the multifamily tax exemptions,

[31:31] what are other communities doing,

[31:33] and also things like what kind of growth are they facing

[31:37] or planning for, what kind have they had recently

[31:39] so we understand the load we're picking up.

[31:42] I think he'd be willing to come back, you know,

[31:45] to provide you with other snapshot set data, I'm sure.

[31:49] I mean, that would speak for you,

[31:50] but I think that would be special.

[31:52] Well, especially when we're approving things like staffing, extra, you know, money spent

[31:57] on staffing to improve the permitting process and when we're spending, when we're adjusting

[32:03] taxes like the multifamily tax exemption, it would be nice to know how that interacts

[32:08] because I just yesterday had a meeting with Stomach County tomorrow and a big chunk,

[32:12] well, the subcommittee, but that whole group is in part a biggest chunk of what they

[32:18] do has to do with how we're doing growth across the county.

[32:21] And that's what I mean getting back all the way to my earlier comment about this is a regional problem

[32:25] And I want to make sure that we are looking at this and taking actions from a reasonable

[32:30] Regional standpoint and sometimes that includes people like me at other meetings of my counterparts, you know leaning on them to

[32:37] to be a little more accommodating to be a little more

[32:40] Understanding of the level they should pick up to

[32:45] Council member Ryan. Thank you

[32:47] This is more of I guess a food for thought type of comment

[32:51] So, Steve, of course, Collier, I had had a brain worm, or not, so that's not the right one.

[32:59] I have a thought a little, anyways, I had been thinking previously about, you know, we talk a lot about home ownership opportunities in Everett and majority renters and whatnot.

[33:10] So, I got to wondering about how many true home ownership opportunities are there in the city of Everett.

[33:17] So if a household or a person owns multiple houses or multiple condo units with the intent

[33:27] of those extra ownership properties being only intended for rentals, it's taking those

[33:37] could-be home ownership opportunities off the table and out of circulation.

[33:42] So I asked Chris Collier if he had any way of kind of looking into how many true home ownership opportunities or unit ownership opportunities are there in Everett.

[33:53] And he ran some napkin data, so I don't want to hold him to it because he was just kind of went through it pretty quickly.

[34:00] But he, you know, did an inquiry of how many parcels that there are in Everett, and there

[34:08] were 23,072 ownership units.

[34:11] And then he parceled that data down and took out some LLCs and some lease incorporations

[34:19] and duplications and some other things.

[34:22] And anyways, his number ended with, he wrote, this leaves 17,000 parcels remaining for ownership

[34:31] and owned by the sole property of the current owner.

[34:35] So this would mean that 23% of Everett's available ownership units are held by an entity

[34:40] that is not the owner of a single parcel but many.

[34:43] So I thought that was helpful information to know that there are that many properties

[34:50] unavailable for ownership opportunities because they're owned by somebody with the intent of renting them only.

[34:56] And for that person to then become wealthier to purchase more properties to then take off the table for as an ownership opportunity for another person.

[35:04] So there's not, if you want to comment on it, I would love to hear your thoughts on it.

[35:08] Or I guess I don't have a question there, but it was just more of like a food for thought of like as we move forward with talking about a goal of ownership opportunities.

[35:17] There's some people who are hoarding that opportunity and it's unfair for the market as a whole.

[35:24] It's unfair for first-time home buyers.

[35:25] It's unfair for people who want to expand their personal wealth with the promise that if they can get into home ownership opportunities,

[35:35] then they'll be able to make it.

[35:37] But there's a barrier there by people who are taking advantage of the system because of their own personal wealth.

[35:45] That's my soapbox for a minute, but if you have any thoughts or anything, I'd love to hear it.

[35:51] Sure. I'll just comment really quickly. That has been a problem, especially when the rise of Airbnb

[35:56] and some of these other things throughout these years, and it sort of goes in these ebbs and flows

[36:01] where certain markets right now with housing tip and over, investors are selling in other stronger markets,

[36:07] investors are buying up properties left and right, so it really depends on that market.

[36:10] and I mean that is a large issue to also try to tackle how do we actually ensure that again the

[36:17] four products or four home ownership products are available. I mean yeah that's something

[36:22] to look at and delve more into and we've looked at it in the past and looked at protection

[36:29] measures of that but never really sort of came about to what exactly we needed to do but

[36:33] definitely it is a concern. One isn't some of the work you've been doing with Casino Road

[36:38] and with the concept of community land trust and things like that and the kind of future of what

[36:45] does it look like to condominium my smaller projects and things like that. I don't know if

[36:49] that's a word but you did you shook your head like you knew what I was talking about. So I think

[36:53] those are some of the things that you'll see in the future document of initiatives that we might

[36:57] want to pursue. So to be creative about how there might be more home ownership opportunities

[37:03] that might not be traditional single family homes yet, but so.

[37:08] Sure.

[37:09] Yeah, I think my concern would be, you know, when we often we talk about affordable housing,

[37:13] if there is a condominium unit that's available at a lower price point, a person, how do we protect that as a first-time home buyer opportunity?

[37:23] And I'm not sure if that's through a lending institution or if that's something that the city can mandate in any way,

[37:29] but making sure that people do have a true opportunity to be that first foot in the door instead of the highest going to the highest bidder.

[37:37] And especially for protecting communities like Casino Road from displacement and economic displacement from their homes.

[37:43] So, and then which thanks for mentioning the short term rentals.

[37:48] I'm trying to remember who this had or my county hat, but I had looked into it might have been the county hat with York when we were working at the county together.

[37:55] we had looked into short-term rentals and if there's a way for the city to or the county to

[38:06] just have more oversight into it or any way that like our lodging tax could be

[38:12] benefited from it or something to help the community and to protect against any sort of

[38:19] like negative repercussions of you know either too many units off the market because it's a

[38:24] short-term rental or just disruptions in neighborhoods because of short-term

[38:27] rentals. I think they can often be, you know, party houses on a Tuesday when the

[38:32] rest of the neighborhood's not necessarily up for that. So I'd be

[38:35] curious if there are ways that the city could look into that or I think it

[38:40] had to do with like a business license of some type and whatnot. But anyways,

[38:46] that's another. And I know we're not talking specifics here but I think a

[38:51] a lot of what you hit on is also making sure

[38:53] that we have that data available.

[38:55] And while we're still reviewing it,

[38:59] that's something we are looking at

[39:00] and bringing back in September back to again,

[39:03] one of the rethink housing that monitoring program

[39:05] where I know Julie has talked to us a lot about data,

[39:09] providing that data greater transparency.

[39:11] And so we're looking at creating ideally

[39:13] a very robust monitoring system.

[39:16] I know you've probably followed this

[39:18] more closely than I have,

[39:19] but nationwide, one of the trends has been

[39:21] for the huge private equity companies like BlackRock to be buying up in single-family

[39:27] homes and taking them off the market.

[39:30] And I don't know if that trend has hit ever or not yet, but it certainly will.

[39:38] One other thing I guess I'd throw out there that I was trying to learn about a little

[39:41] more recently are unit lot subdivisions.

[39:44] And that sounds like that's another option in terms of the way things can be configured.

[39:49] Although I need to understand a lot more about what that might do to neighborhoods

[39:53] and development patterns and how that will interact with the recent state laws and I am a little bit more than a little bit mindful cautious about so much happening at once with the state laws with a comprehensive plan and people having to get familiar with what that and what that's going to mean.

[40:09] But some of those things might be especially with maybe some tax kinds of tax and regulatory things might encourage more home ownership or individual ownership rather than corporate ownership.

[40:26] Next slide.

[40:28] Pretty much that includes that.

[40:32] Again, we will come back in September to review this strategic housing framework with

[40:37] the rest of your colleagues as well as getting more details about the actual action items

[40:42] that we plan for the next five years.

[40:45] And again, the goal is to get this process done over the next four months so that we

[40:50] have something to launch in 26.

[40:54] I wasn't looking at my paper copy, so I thought you probably had more slides than

[40:59] just the one.

[41:00] And I'm super happy about this conversation

[41:04] and how it has gone.

[41:05] So yeah, I'm just really excited to introduce you

[41:09] to some of the work then, how we're thinking about it.

[41:11] Cause again, it's such a urgent issue.

[41:14] It's such an important issue

[41:15] that can wanted to share this with you.

[41:19] I imagine you were also looking,

[41:23] okay, I don't even know if I should bring it up,

[41:26] but there's been some, okay.

[41:31] I think it's very beneficial for the city of Everett

[41:35] that we have just completed our comprehensive plan

[41:38] and it was brought to my attention

[41:41] that not every jurisdiction passes the comp plan

[41:47] and puts all of those things into ordinance.

[41:52] And so now there's some legal action

[41:55] against a different jurisdiction, and I think that we'll find, should I say their name out loud,

[42:01] Mercer Island.

[42:04] So maybe you can discuss what I'm talking about, if you know what I'm talking about.

[42:13] Futurewise has done some interesting legal stuff towards Mercer Island,

[42:20] and they didn't, they didn't codify their comprehensive plan. And so I imagine we're

[42:28] looking at what could be possible when somebody digging out of this hole.

[42:36] I would just, I hadn't, I haven't read about Mercer Island. So now you've given me something to

[42:41] some articles to look into. It's great. It's brand new. I, I do know that our,

[42:47] having passed, you guys did both the comp plan and the development regulations

[42:51] at the same time and other cities around us didn't do that.

[42:56] I think it was great because they're both tough decisions,

[42:59] but you did them at the same time, kind of with the same level of awareness of the community.

[43:04] Usually, both of them can be obscure and sometimes kind of hard to dig into,

[43:08] but I think that process that you're a glad facilitated that, you know, outreach and awareness.

[43:15] And you heard from a lot, you didn't hear from everybody.

[43:18] we will hear from others when the land use changes actually start to happen. But we did hear from

[43:22] folks throughout the city from all districts, all neighborhoods, probably all neighborhoods are close

[43:27] enough. And it probably also provides like a level of maybe protection kind of to your point

[43:37] that you committed to a vision and then you took steps to implement it via the development

[43:43] regulations and then so maybe that helped. It did. I'm just adding our city on the back right now

[43:50] and I think that uh yep that's what I'm doing. Some of them did it in December. We took longer

[43:59] but we did everything all at once and some of them aren't done with all of the things that

[44:04] they have to do yet or are struggling through it.

[44:11] It is a quarter to six. Do you or you

[44:16] I have more questions or discussions about Everett housing strategy.

[44:24] No. Thank you so

[44:26] much for being here and giving us the preview for September and allowing this conversation.

[45:00] Talk about next meeting agenda topics. There's a whole list here. And I'm being shown something.

[45:09] Would you like to speak, Council Member Ryan?

[45:10] Yes, I would. Thank you very much. It's kind of a walk on for this evening, so I'm just

[45:16] going to give a light overview. A couple of council meetings ago when we did a stadium

[45:20] update, Council Member Fosse had asked for an opportunity for council to weigh in

[45:25] priorities for a new stadium if we move forward with it. And she had drafted up a

[45:34] brief framework resolution in support of the Everett multi-use event center and

[45:39] declaration of priorities as set by the Everett City Council. We've made copies

[45:44] to provide to the Parks and Built Environment Committee here today. It

[45:49] does cover priorities related to the economic development and local

[45:53] investment, environmental and public health standards, cultural and educational values,

[45:58] community benefits and access, transportation and parking infrastructure, labor and workforce

[46:04] standards and ongoing oversight and accountability. So it's a fairly rough draft. I won't go into too

[46:09] many details on it, but the ask is to make sure that this keeps moving forward so that we can

[46:16] make sure that we're ahead of the game for any sort of next ordinances that may come forward

[46:21] with the multi-use stadium. So the ask is for our committee individually to take a look at the draft

[46:31] and provide any edits to ANGI by next Friday. And then at that point it will go to administration

[46:39] and legal for review and then to be put on a future council agenda for full discussion and

[46:45] review by full counsel and for a vote at some point as well.

[46:51] So that was my light high-level overview.

[46:55] I'm so glad you brought that up because I did receive these papers, but I didn't realize

[46:59] they were for right now.

[47:01] Yeah, I think the thought was this month would be better than waiting a whole other

[47:05] month for our next committee meeting, so just to make sure that we keep that ball

[47:08] rolling.

[47:10] Thank you.

[47:11] Do we want any input from anybody sitting over there?

[47:15] We, I just look forward to seeing it as well.

[47:19] And then we'll work with the outdoor event center team and legal to just make sure that the concepts kind of fit into the process and bring it forward in a good and productive way.

[47:34] Well, I'm guessing what this will do is give the council a chance to be explicit about some of its priorities and tradeoffs because as any of these big projects, there will be tradeoffs.

[47:44] There will be choices that have to be made and this will be a chance to kind of get ahead of that with an explicit explanation of those priorities.

[47:57] That's it on that subject. Should we do anything else or should we adjourn?

[48:01] We're next. You don't know about this, so I'll let you know.

[48:05] For next month, I think we're hoping to bring the draft ordinance, speaking of things we didn't actually do when we adopted the comp plan, the manufactured home overlay zone.

[48:15] Ah, yes. Great.

[48:16] And so it's work. It's going to planning commission in September. And so we could staff is open. I think if folks wanted to meet outside of the committee meeting.

[48:26] But this committee meeting next month also fits into the process before we get it to the full council to have you review it.

[48:34] Sounds delightful by delightful. I mean, a good idea.

[48:38] Maybe not like yay.

[48:39] I think it's kind of a little, yeah, yeah, it's great for those folks who came to council

[48:45] with the.

[48:46] Oh yeah, it needs to be done.

[48:49] Credit to the planning department for getting working on that, even before we were done

[48:54] with the comprehensive plan so that we're steps ahead on that now, that can happen

[48:59] pretty rapidly.

[49:00] And with respect, especially to the impacts of large and private equity corporate ownership

[49:06] of some of these parks and the downstream influences of that. I think this is one of the levers, maybe the only one we have to pull in terms of doing the best for our residents in that.

[49:17] So really happy to see that forward. And thanks to Planning for working on that.

[49:20] I just wanted to let you say it's going to Planning Commission in September. I thought it's going next week.

[49:25] Starting next week and September.

[49:27] For those of you who didn't hear, starting next week and September, it's going to Planning Commission.

[49:33] And you can watch that online.

[49:35] Yes, Council Member Ryan.

[49:36] Great.

[49:37] Speaking of other upcoming agenda topics, we have on our pending items for future discussion

[49:43] about park fencing and gates and since it's been about almost, I think we'll be coming

[49:48] up soon on a year since our park rangers had accepted the voluntary separation.

[49:53] I think it would be a great time for an update from our parks team, a report back

[49:58] I guess on how this last year has gone and any I know there's been a lot of

[50:02] concerns from the community as well about not having park rangers so I think

[50:06] it'd be helpful for council and also for the public to hear about how things

[50:13] have been going this last year without our park rangers and the gates and

[50:17] closures and whatnot.

[50:21] Thank you and with that we

[50:30] shall adjourn.

Parks & Built Environment Committee

Agenda

Transcript