The King County Council is most likely days away from adopting a new, market-based program it hopes will create more affordable housing on Vashon.
It’s called “Inclusionary Housing.” It would allow developers to build more units than zoning ordinarily permits – i.e. give them “density bonuses” – if some of the project’s units are reserved for lower-income residents.
Inclusionary housing has been adopted in cities across the country. The County Council approved it for unincorporated Skyway and White Center in 2022. Now council members including Teresa Mosqueda, whose district includes Vashon, are proposing to extend it to other areas as part of a big update of the county’s Comprehensive Plan, the mammoth guidebook and rulebook governing growth and development in unincorporated areas.
A final vote on the update is scheduled for Dec. 3.
On Vashon, Inclusionary Housing would apply only to a small piece of the island, what the county nearly 30 years ago designated the “Vashon Rural Town.” It straddles Vashon Highway for about 1.5 miles, from roughly Cove Road south to Cemetery Road. At its widest, it’s about 0.7 miles east to west.
The Town is Vashon’s commercial hub, and contains almost all the island’s apartments and condos. It also includes many properties that are vacant, or that could accommodate more development under current zoning.
“Density bonuses” for developers are nothing new to the Vashon Rural Town. The County Council approved them for some properties there in 2017.
But those bonuses were authorized only for projects consisting entirely of affordable units. Developers didn’t bite: In seven years, the program hasn’t produced a single new affordable home.
Continuing to provide density bonuses only for housing that’s 100 percent affordable just doesn’t work, Mosqueda said in an interview: “The practical way to create affordable housing is to make it inclusionary, to incentivize it.”
In theory, Inclusionary Housing would do that by allowing developers to build more “market-rate” units for more affluent buyers or renters in exchange for incorporating housing for lower-income residents in their projects.
Reaction to Inclusionary Housing on Vashon has been mixed. Some agree with Mosqueda that developers need the flexibility it offers if the island is to see much new affordable housing built. Others fear that housing that caters primarily to those with higher incomes, with some affordable units in the mix, will open the door to luxury condos, stress the island’s infrastructure, and accelerate gentrification.
And some, while supportive of the proposal, say it won’t matter much unless other barriers to more housing on Vashon are addressed.
“Zoning is not the biggest hurdle to development. It’s water,” said Kim Goforth, a member of the board of Vashon Household, the island’s non-profit affordable housing developer.
How we got here
King County adopted its first comprehensive plan in 1994. The proposed update now before the County Council consists of an 852-page ordinance with 10 attachments, some of them also hundreds of pages.
Work began on the update nearly two years ago. Affordable housing – or lack thereof – has been a major focus.
County Executive Dow Constantine sent his proposal to the council a year ago. It proposed to expand the Inclusionary Housing program from just White Center and Skyway to all unincorporated areas served by sewers.
For the Vashon Rural Town, Constantine proposed that density bonuses be extended to more properties than in 2017. He also proposed a big bump in the maximum residential density allowed on properties zoned Community Business, or CB, most of which front Vashon Highway.
The limit now is eight units per acre in “mixed-use” buildings, which usually means retail on the ground floor. Constantine’s proposal would have raised the ceiling to 36.
But in contrast to his proposals for the rest of the county, the Executive proposed that density bonuses on Vashon continue to be limited solely to projects consisting entirely of affordable units.
In an explanatory document, county planners said maintaining the 100 percent affordability requirement would “ensure better compatibility with existing development, and … support the most critical housing needs, in response to public input.”
That proposal didn’t go over well with some key Vashon stakeholders. When Mosqueda and other members of the County Council’s Local Services and Land Use Committee held a public meeting on Vashon in April, representatives of the Vashon-Maury Community Council and Chamber of Commerce told them the 100 percent affordability requirement hadn’t worked and should be dropped.
Mosqueda agrees. Constantine’s proposal would be “very unlikely to yield new affordable units,” she said in an online meeting with islanders Nov. 12. “We don’t have another 10 years to wait.”
While Mosqueda has made clear her intention to include mixed-income Inclusionary Housing for Vashon Town in the Comprehensive Plan update, it’s not in the version now before the council. She said wanted more time to get feedback from the island before finalizing her proposal.
Mosqueda plans to offer it as an amendment when the council considers the update on Dec. 3.
The Inclusionary Housing proposal for other parts of the county would use a complicated formula to award density bonuses. Developers would get more if they build affordable units catering to renters in the lowest income tier, for instance, or units with more bedrooms to accommodate families.
There also are limits on maximum density. For Snoqualmie Pass, the other “rural town” in the program, Inclusionary Housing developers could build no more than double the number of units that the property’s zoning ordinarily allows, or 200 percent of the “base” density. If the developer is a non-profit or government agency, or if the project includes on-site daycare, that would go up to 225 percent.
The proposal
Mosqueda has sent signals about what her proposal for Vashon will look like. At the Nov. 12 meeting, she said the top Inclusionary Housing maximum density in Vashon Town would be lower than the 36 units per acre Constantine proposed.
“There’s no sort of drastic increase in density that is being proposed,” Erin House, Mosqueda’s chief of staff, said.
The highest maximum density anywhere in Vashon Town now is 18 units. For comparison, residential densities in some blocks in West Seattle’s Alaska Junction exceed 150 units per acre.
Some islanders responded positively to Mosqueda’s Inclusionary Housing concepts. Tag Gornall, who said he owns a big piece of undeveloped land in the town core, expressed interest in participating in the program.
Landowner Morgan Brown, who recently proposed a “deep green” housing development on 14 vacant acres west of IGA, said he supports Inclusionary Housing for Vashon Town, although he said his project would utilize any bonuses “marginally.”
“I think [Inclusionary Housing] is necessary to get more affordable housing on the island,” said Brown, former chair of the Community Council’s affordable housing task force. “This is something that could move the needle a bit.”
Other islanders, however, warned that granting density bonuses to projects that mostly target more affluent renters or buyers could backfire.
Beka Economopoulos said she’s lived in other communities where Inclusionary Housing has been “disastrous.”
“You’re going to see the density of market-rate units increasing dramatically, which may mean luxury condos and pricey businesses in Town,” she said. “This has been shown to drive up overall housing costs.”
“The Vashon community is not NIMBY (“Not In My Backyard”) and understands that Vashon is very much in need of affordable housing,” Kerry Coughlin said in a written comment. “However, allowing large-scale private market-rate development with a low percentage of affordable housing … does not help the issue, it exacerbates it.”
“We object to any use of Vashon’s legitimate need for ‘affordable housing’ as a Trojan horse for the overdevelopment of housing units that do very little to benefit those with real need for affordability,” John van Amerongen wrote.
It’s far from certain, however, that the Inclusionary Housing bonuses in Vashon Town would actually attract private, market-rate developers to the island. House said on Nov. 12 that experience shows that, to be feasible, Inclusionary Housing needs densities of 30 to 60 units per acre. At most, what Mosqueda plans to propose would be at the low end of that range.
In an interview, Mosqueda said that, ideally, Inclusionary Housing on Vashon would attract not private, for-profit developers, but non-profit affordable housing developers who might leverage the density bonuses to build projects with a mix of low-income housing and “workforce” housing, aimed at teachers, firefighters and others who also find themselves priced out of the market.
“Market-rate developers are not clamoring to build on Vashon Island, but you know who is? Non-profit developers,” she said, “like Vashon Household.”
Jason Johnson, Vashon Household’s outgoing executive director, said large Seattle non-profit affordable housing developers have created mixed-income apartments that are around 50 percent market-rate and 50 percent affordable. With such a mix, “you can develop a revenue stream that helps offset some of the expected losses that come with the lower, more affordable rents,” he said.
But that’s not on the horizon for Vashon Household, he added.
“That’s not to say we couldn’t look at that in the future … But it’s just not our mission to do market-rate.”
Johnson and board member Goforth said they support Mosqueda’s plan for Inclusionary Housing for Vashon Town.
“It could potentially be something that enhances the number of affordable units on the island,” Johnson said. “But, honestly, there’s not any one single change that’s going to open up a lot more property for Vashon Household in order to do more.”
Other barriers still stand in the way, they said. Permitting challenges, for one.
Johnson said permitting issues surrounding the organization’s Island Center Homes development, now nearing completion, cost the project several years and $5 million.
And there’s the limited availability of water from Water District 19, which serves Vashon Town.
“The biggest issue with development on the island is not these (density) bonuses they want,” Goforth said. “It’s water. It’s all about water … That is so limiting.”
More changes
Other proposals in the current version of the Comprehensive Plan update also attempt in different ways to address housing affordability. They include:
• Increasing the base residential density of CB-zoned properties in Vashon Rural Town from 8 units per acre– which also is now the maximum – to 12. Any Inclusionary Housing density bonuses would be calculated using that new base.
• Rezoning all 73 properties in the south end of Town now zoned R1 – one home per acre – to R4, or 4 units per acre. For most of those properties, one home per acre now is both the base and maximum density. The rezone would make 4 units per acre the base for calculating any density bonuses.
It also would establish minimum densities for new development. The intent, Mosqueda said, is to discourage “McMansions,” built on large tracts, that preclude development of smaller, more affordable homes later.
With minimum densities, “If you do build a [large] stand-alone home, you need to make sure that the footprint is still going to allow for additional options to be built on that site in the future,” House added.
• Increasing the height limit in the central core of Vashon Town from two stories to three, to give developers more flexibility. Higher height limits in Town outside the core would remain unchanged.
• Requiring just one off-street parking space for any townhouse, apartment or other multi-family unit in Town. Existing regulations can require up to two. Parking can a major expense for developers; On Vashon, House said, most renters — even in larger units — have just one car.
• Designating the 14 acres on which Brown proposes to build deep-green housing a “Regenerative Development Demonstration Project.” As previously reported in the Beachcomber, the designation would, among other things, authorize county officials to expedite permits if the project meets certain affordable-housing thresholds.
• Commissioning a study, to be completed in 2027, on whether the county should regulate short-term rentals, such as AirBNBs and VRBOs, and, if so, how. Some Vashon residents have pointed to the conversion of long-term rental housing to short-term rentals as a major factor in the island’s affordability crisis.
• Mandating another study, also to be completed in 2027, evaluating ways to encourage and expedite affordable housing development. Ideas to be considered include property-tax exemptions, exempting affordable housing from environmental review, and developing standard plans, pre-approved by the county, for Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) — Mosqueda credited the Community Council for that idea.
The Comprehensive Plan iteration now before the Council also calls for a “comprehensive analysis” of what Johnson and Goforth of Vashon Household labeled the biggest barrier to new housing on Vashon: The island’s limited water.
Among topics to be studied: The impact of climate change, reuse of greywater, and ways to prioritize affordable housing in allocating water shares.
The deadline for completing that analysis is June 2033.
Eric Pryne is a retired Seattle Times journalist.
