County eyes new policies for island development

Published 1:30 am Thursday, March 2, 2023

As part of the creation of its new 2024 Comprehensive Plan, King County is proposing the repeal of the current Vashon Special District Overlay (SDO), and proposing new policies governing density allowances and bonuses for affordable and market-rate residential development in the Vashon town core.

Contrasted with the current policy, SO-270, the county’s new Voluntary Inclusionary Housing Incentive Program could allow for the development of up to 200% of the base in Vashon’s town core and adjacent areas within the island’s commercial business corridor.

The current density base is eight units per acre, and the full allowance would take that to 16. Height and setback allowances would also be affected.

A handful of parcels in the town core would be affected by that particular change. Whether current sewer and water infrastructure would be able to support any additional level of density is a related, but unaddressed question in the particular policy.

In addition to the Voluntary Inclusionary Housing program, the county is also considering policies and regulations to encourage more affordable “middle housing” types, including new regulations intended to streamline permitting by making adjustments to design standards such as landscape requirements, parking standards, and recreational space requirements.

Morgan Brown, chair of the Vashon-Maury Community Council Affordable Housing Subcommittee and a local developer, has done extensive reading and analysis of the proposal and believes it does have promise for incentivizing development.

“The affordable housing and conditions required to gain the density bonuses are very similar in both the existing and proposed programs,” he said of the changes. However, he noted that there is “arguably one notable exception: a new fee-in-lieu of construction option.”

A fee-in-lieu option allows developers to pay a fee rather than include non-market rate, or income-qualified as “affordable” units in building projects. It is not currently an option for developers under SO-270, but would be under the new regulations.

Opting for the fee-in-lieu of payment would give access to incentives like maximum density increases and additional flexibility on height and parking requirements to developers who did not include affordable units.

The repeal of SO-270 and additional proposals are part of a 17-page proposal circulated by the county this month.

Much of the substance of the Vashon-specific changes in that piece of the proposal originated in the 476-page Ordinance 19555, adopted by the King County Council in 2022 to address housing and other issues in the North Highline and Skyway areas. These include affordability mandates in addition to voluntary opt-ins for developers.

Jason Johnson, executive director of Vashon HouseHold, also weighed in regarding the proposed changes.

“We discussed this proposal and are generally in agreement with it,” Johnson said in a statement to The Beachcomber. “We understand there are pros and cons to the fee-in-lieu option. We would prefer [that] affordable housing be built, but if a fee is paid instead, we feel strongly that it be used on the island.”

The policy does state that fees collected would be retained for and used on Vashon. In an email to The Beachcomber, the county was also clear that the fee-in-lieu option would not create blanket allowances; individual projects would apply for the incentives, and the county would, at its discretion, decide whether the request was appropriate.

During a recent town-hall meeting, county officials also said that developers would be able to show an occupancy preference in affordable units for current residents of Vashon, up to 100%. However, those comments are not currently codified in the proposal — as written, it would allow for only 40% “local” preference.

Of the fee-in-lieu option, Brown said, “Personally, I would support making it mandatory to include a reasonable percentage of affordable housing in any projects in Vashon Town and not allowing “fee-in-lieu” of construction. But I strongly suspect that would be politically difficult or impossible at this time.”

Brown and other proponents of affordable and workforce-targeted housing development on Vashon are actively debating whether these proposed changes would, in fact, result in an increase in the development of units affordable to the workforce, which they identify as an urgent need on the island.

“The need for affordable housing on Vashon-Maury Island has been a major issue for years and has only gotten more pronounced as house prices have rapidly outstripped most people’s ability to buy or rent,” said Diane Emerson, another longtime community activist, and proponent of workforce-affordable housing on Vashon.

Emerson spoke on the subject independently from her role as Chair of the Vashon Maury Community Council, which passed an emergency resolution at their Feb. 16 meeting regarding the police.

The resolution stated that the Council was withholding support for the county’s proposal “until we have further studied the affordable housing issue through our Vashon Town Plan Committee.”

Emerson echoed Johnson’s sentiment preferring the construction of affordable housing itself rather than realizing it as a by-product of market-rate development, saying that the code changes fall short of the mark to incentivize affordable development.

“The numbers don’t work,” she said. “If a developer voluntarily includes even a rate of 25% of their units as affordable [in order to] take advantage of zoning perks, we would need to add 300 market-rate units to get 100 affordable housing units … The only way to get affordable housing is to focus on building affordable housing.”

David Vogel, another long-engaged community activist on Vashon, is also proposing the county reevaluate the policy and in particular, the development process. In an online town hall held by King County on Feb. 9, Vogel urged representatives from the county to allow the community time to create a Vashon Town Plan committee, which would evaluate and create more locally-driven solutions.

Vogel co-chaired the 1992-1994 Vashon Town Plan committee that produced a comprehensive and long-influential policy and believes a similar process could be successful again.

“When the county does it on [its] own, they impose it on us. When we do it, which we have done successfully in the past, it’s our plan,” Vogel said. “Which is probably better for the island — we want to see that we’re involved in the process rather than giving our comments on the process.”

Whether the process and policy might still be eligible for review at this point is unclear; the county has publicized that Feb. 24 was the cutoff for community input.

Additional Vashon-specific changes in the proposal include the inclusion of food stores in Rural Area (RA) zones, which would allow the former Grange Hall on the north end to be developed into a market.

The Comprehensive Plan update process began in 2022 and will continue through adoption by the King County Council at the end of 2024.