Zoning incentives adopted by King County in 2017 to encourage more affordable housing in Vashon Town have flopped, according to a new county report.

After nearly six years, the voluntary incentives haven’t resulted in a single permit application for even one house, condo or apartment, the Department of Local Services (DLS) says in the report.

So, in several documents released last month, the county is proposing that the failed incentives be repealed — and replaced with more generous ones.

For some properties in town, the proposed changes could increase development potential significantly. For instance: Any potential mixed-use projects on properties zoned “Community Business,” which mostly front Vashon Highway, now are limited to 8 residential units per acre.

If the changes are approved, mixed-use projects of up to 36 units per acre could be permitted if all the units are affordable.

Without higher maximum densities, the DLS says, developers won’t have much incentive to build affordable housing on Vashon.

The increased densities, and other proposed changes aimed at promoting affordable housing in Vashon Town, are spelled out in two DLS reports and other documents that are part of the county’s draft 2024 update to its comprehensive plan, which guides growth and development in unincorporated areas.

No significant changes on Vashon are proposed outside what the county has long designated the “Vashon Rural Town,” which straddles Vashon Highway from Gorsuch Road to Cemetery Road.

The updated plan is far from final. The County Council isn’t slated to act on it until sometime next year.

But comments on the draft are due soon, by July 15. A public meeting focusing on the Vashon proposals will be held on Zoom Monday, July 10 at 7 p.m. The link to join the meeting is here, using the passcode VASHON (all caps).

2017 zoning incentives

When county planners came to Vashon in the middle of the last decade seeking input on a new community plan, islanders told them more affordable housing was a top priority.

But the zoning incentives adopted for Vashon Town as part of that plan in 2017 didn’t satisfy anyone.

Some islanders feared the incentives would open the floodgates to off-island developers — triggering the construction of up to 3,000 housing units, clogging roads and ferries, and threatening water supplies.

Others predicted — accurately, it turns out — that the incentives wouldn’t accomplish much at all.

The county applied the incentives to 246 land parcels, in what it called a “Special District Overlay.” Here’s how it was supposed to work:

Developers of residential or mixed-use projects could get “density bonuses,” allowing them to build more units than zoning otherwise permitted, if all the units in their projects were affordable.

Eight units per acre could be built on residential parcels zoned for four. Eighteen units per acre could be built on properties zoned for eight or 12.

To qualify, half the units would have to be affordable for households earning less than 60 percent of the area’s median income, the other half to people earning less than 80 percent (the 2022 median income for a 4-person household in King County is $134,600). Rent and utilities could cost no more than 30 percent of those income levels.

So why didn’t developers bite?

The county Department of Local Services’ (DLS) report suggests the “Special District Overlay” was too limited, too inflexible, and too stringent to appeal to them.

One drawback, according to the report: The requirement that all units in a project, not just some, be affordable.

“This precludes the construction of affordable units in buildings with a mix of market-rate and affordable units from taking advantage of the density bonus, which would most likely exclude any private, market-rate developers,” the report says.

Inclusionary Housing

The incentive program the department proposes to replace the Special District Overlay, dubbed “Inclusionary Housing,” was adopted in 2022 for Skyway and White Center, two urbanized unincorporated areas.

Here’s how it works:

Unlike Vashon’s “Special District Overlay,” developers can get density bonuses for projects in which only some of the units are affordable.

One example: Under “Inclusionary Housing” rules, developers can build twice as many units as zoning ordinarily allows if all of the units are affordable to renters earning less than 60 percent of the area median income.

But they could also build 50 percent more units if just 20 percent of the project’s units are affordable, or 25 percent more units if just 10 percent are affordable.

For Vashon, “allowing a higher density and allowing a mix of market-rate and affordable units to be created together may attract development of affordable units by providing more flexibility (than the current incentives),” the DLS says.

The county also could allow developers to pay a fee in lieu of building some of the affordable units on-site. The money would be used to develop affordable housing elsewhere on Vashon.

Other changes county agencies have proposed that they say would encourage more affordable housing in Vashon Town include:

• Increasing the “base density” for mixed-use housing on some properties — the density of development that’s allowed before any “Inclusive Housing” bonuses are applied. The base density of some parcels would jump from 8 units per acre to 18, others from 4 to 12.
• Changing the maximum height limit from two stories to 35 feet, which could conceivably allow three-story buildings.
• Eliminating some design regulations in the “Town Core,” a small chunk of the “Rural Town” that radiates from Vashon Highway and Bank Road. One specifies the minimum dimensions and locations of doors and windows facing the street. Another requires upstairs decks in mixed-use projects.

Such “prescriptive” requirements discourage innovation and hinder mixed-use development, the DLS says.

The DLS report on the failure of the 2017 “Special District Overlay” re-emphasizes Vashon’s continued need for affordable housing.

Housing costs are high, it says, and rental housing is in short supply: In 2019, 51 percent of all island renters — and 74 percent of all renters with incomes below 30 percent of the area median — spent more than 30 percent of their incomes on housing.

Community Council weighs in

Vashon-Maury Community Council (VMCC) is currently in the process of coordinating a community response to the county’s draft proposals.

The Council has already taken one official stand.

At the VMCC’s June 15 meeting, its members, board, and members of its Affordable Housing committee all voted unanimously to oppose the draft plan’s proposal for developers to pay a “fee in lieu” of building some affordable units on-site in new building projects.

The reason? The change in policy would encourage market-rate development while providing questionable amounts of affordable housing, council members argued.

Also at the June 15 meeting, the council elected a 12-member Town Plan committee to identify issues and guide the Council’s overall response to the draft Comprehensive Plan. Once this committee’s recommendations are approved by the community council’s members, they will be sent to Vashon’s elected official on the King County Council, said VMCC President Diane Emerson.

Get involved

In addition to attending the county’s 7 p.m. July 10 meeting on Zoom (using the all-caps passscode VASHON) islanders can share their thoughts about the Comprehensive Plan via a short survey, or visit the Comprehensive Plan website to learn more.

Questions can be emailed to CompPlan@kingcounty.gov.