Innovative ideas to solve housing crisis from Seattle

{Excerpted from The Slog, a Seattle-area website}

The housing crisis is primarily due to a supply shortage, which has resulted in skyrocketing prices.

Until that supply shortage is resolved, no amount of taxing and spending will get us affordable housing for the middle class (who are already $11K/year underwater), much less the poor.

We believe that there are a number of ultimately revenue-positive policy changes the city could make that can have dramatic effects on improving the housing supply in Seattle, long term and short term:

1. Upzone. Most of Seattle is zoned for single family homes, creating a massive shortage of land to develop on even as developers are lined up to build more housing. We need to stop straight-up outlawing the housing development needed to meet demand.

2. Permit. Permit delays are unacceptable; by law they should be 90 days or less, but developer after developer has told us normal permitting times are 12-18 months. Nobody wins from this. It's just a year wasted on redeveloping valuable property that could be bringing down prices and freeing up resources for more development. The city needs to do its job and issue permits in a timely manner.

3. Reduce regulatory overhead. We're fine with making sure that nobody is falling through their floor because some contractor cut corners, but we don't need to add $200,000 in regulatory overhead for every single unit of housing. We have smart people. Figure out how to not waste tons more money than every other city—because we assure you, that wasted money gets passed on to buyers and renters. Examples include lowering parking requirements. This would have the added benefit of encouraging more people to move close to transit.

4. Take a market-based approach to development instead of a democratic socialist approach. Market urbanism rocks and avoids getting into the sorts of development ditches that we have gotten into with 1-3. Let bad ideas fail and good ideas thrive. It works everywhere else.