Tag Archives: rents

Here’s what the District 3 Seattle City Council candidates think about rent control and rent stabilization policy

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A supporter hangs a banner before last week’s renters’ rights committee at All Pilgrims Church (Image: CHS)

One candidate in the District 3 primary supports her bill in its entirety. One supports “rent stabilization” policy. And one, “tangible goals” to help solve the city’s affordability crisis.

Friday will bring a showdown over rent control as Kshama Sawant’s renters’ rights committee of the Seattle City Council meets for a possible vote on her proposed “trigger law” legislation that would tie rents to inflation in the city — if a statewide ban on the controls is ever lifted.

CHS reported here on last week’s unusual committee session as Sawant brought the debate to her home District 3 with a hearing at Broadway’s All Pilgrims Church and challenged the “Democrat” members of her committee to approve the bill. “The question is whom will they allow to control rents? Is it going to be rent setting, price setting, or price fixing in interest of the insatiable greed of these millionaires and billionaires,” Sawant said during the evening session, “Or is it going to be rent control in the interest of the survival of the majority of our working people?”

District 3 primary candidate Ry Armstrong says they are the only D3 candidate who supports Sawant’s rent control legislation. Continue reading →

Seattle election could create a Social Housing Developer at City Hall — But it’s too late for The Madkin

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(Image: The Madkin Association)

It is time to vote on whether City Hall should aim directly at the center of the Seattle housing crisis and begin building government developed and managed apartment buildings across the city.

Ballots will be mailed later this month for a February special election to decide on I-135, an initiative that would create a new public developer “to build, acquire, own, and manage social housing” in Seattle.

If the majority of voters in the city approve the initiative, City Hall would fund the shaping of a new Seattle Social Housing Developer to first acquire and take over management of existing properties for affordable housing while also setting the groundwork for philanthropy and grants to create new renter-governed housing in Seattle. The process would begin with the hiring of a chief executive officer and chief financial officer for the body, positions that would be funded by the city for 18 months while the organization gets off the ground. Continue reading →

With any pandemic slowdown long gone, cost of renting in Seattle has surged 18.9% in one year

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Median apartment rents in Seattle have increased dramatically during the past year due to low rates of vacancy and a climb from falling prices at the start of the pandemic, according to an industry tracker.

Apartment List just released its national rent report, and its findings provide an image of an increasingly costly Seattle for renters. The report finds that rent in Seattle increased by 18.9% over the past year, considerably higher than the national average increase of 17.1% during that same time.

“So far the rent growth we’ve seen this year has been slower than what we saw last year, but still above expected averages,” said senior research associate Rob Warnock.

As per the report, the median monthly rent of a two-bedroom apartment in the city of Seattle weighs in at a staggering $2,097– over seven hundred dollars more per month than the nationwide average of $1,306. One-bedrooms in Seattle are similarly high, climbing to $1,681 against a national average of $1,139. Continue reading →

A Broadway development more than 20 years in the making, the process to fill Capitol Hill Station’s new apartments has begun — UPDATE

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Capitol Hill Station’s Park luxury apartment building will provide its tenants with plenty of Cal Anderson views (Image: Live Capitol Hill Station)

One quarter of the first batch of units in the new Capitol Hill Station mixed-use development have been leased, as of early this month, according to the complex’s general manager.

The major project above the light rail transit station has been seen as a key development for the neighborhood creating hundreds of new homes and thousands of square feet of new commercial space on Broadway. The COVID-19 crisis has delayed construction but the new, mostly “market-rate” apartments are finally hitting that market.

110 affordable units in the Station House development on the northeast area above the station opened earlier this year and faced high demand.

More than two years after the project’s groundbreaking across the street from Cal Anderson Park, which included a ribbon cutting from Mayor Jenny Durkan, the leasing process on the first 94 units of 400-plus on Broadway started in mid-September amid the coronavirus pandemic, general manager Kristin Lipp told CHS. Continue reading →

To protect against ‘shockingly unconscionable’ rent increases, Sawant calls for COVID-19 rent freeze — UPDATE: Call for rent and mortgage moratorium

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District 3 representative Kshama Sawant says she wants to build on the victory of her push for a ban on residential evictions during the COVID-19 crisis to protect Seattle renters and tenants across the state from “shockingly unconscionable” rent increases.

In a letter this week to Gov. Jay Inslee, Sawant calls for “a statewide rent freeze through the end of the year.”

“As vulnerable renters in Seattle and Washington state struggle to cope with the COVID19 pandemic, many are starting to receive notices for rent increases from their corporate landlords,” Sawant writes. “Constituents have reported this both to my office and to the Tenants Union of Washington State. This is shockingly unconscionable.”

Sawant says rents should remain frozen longer “if the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis continues in 2021.”

The full letter is below. Continue reading →

Seattle anti-displacement legislation focused on high risk, low opportunity areas — So, not Capitol Hill

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As the Seattle City Council moves toward a vote later this month to finalize the city’s Mandatory Housing Affordability plan, legislation to buttress the program with extra protections against displacement in Seattle’s most vulnerable neighborhoods will begin moving forward Wednesday at City Hall.

Sponsored by West Seattle rep Lisa Herbold, the anti-displacement legislation will be taken up by the council’s Planning, Land Use, and Zoning Committee. Despite the Capitol Hill and Central District area’s high potential for displacement from continued redevelopment, Central Seattle’s many resources including jobs, high performing schools, and robust levels of transit would disqualify it from the proposed legislation’s protections. Continue reading →

Spring analysis shows Capitol Hill rent rise has… slowwwed… dowwwn…

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Analysts say all the construction may be making a mess of Capitol Hill streets but it might, indeed, be making a small dent — or at least slowing down — the juggernaut that is rent across the area’s neighborhoods.

Overall, rents across Capitol Hill and Eastlake are up 3.9% compared to spring 2016, according to Mike Scott of industry analysts Dupre+Scott Apartment Advisors. The firm’s seasonal reports based on interviews and tracking continue to be one of the city’s most watched indicators through an ongoing affordability crisis — and a boom for landlords and City Hall’s coffers thanks to an around 75% leap in taxable activity in Seattle’s construction sector since 2010.

While the continued rise in rents is further hardship for tenants — up some 48% compared to 2012 and a whopping 88% since 2007 — the rise has moderated. Continue reading →

21+ things CHS heard at Capitol Hill Housing’s annual community forum

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Capitol Hill Housing served up a buffet of neighborhood discussion during its 9th annual community forum Thursday night. Five Capitol Hill speakers touched on a range of forward-looking topics, ranging from lidding I-5 to expanding the Broadway Business Improvement Area to retaining arts spaces in the neighborhood.

This year’s theme was Gearshift, “all about how we respond to the rapid changes facing Capitol Hill.” The presentations and follow up discussions could have been pulled straight from the headlines of CHS:

Expanding the Broadway BIA — Sierra Hansen of the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce
Lidding I-5 to create developable land and open space — Scott Bonjukian of Lid I-5
Creating a Capitol Hill parking benefits district — Alex Brennan from Capitol Hill EcoDistrict
Building leadership and power for renters on Capitol Hill — Zachary Pullin of the Capitol Hill Community Council
Incentivizing developers to build or maintain arts space — Tonya Lockyer of Velocity Dance Center

Participants, who gathered for the event at The Summit on E Pike, took a dive into each topic and city leaders presented the results.

During the group discussion about how to build renter power, City Council District 3 rep Kshama Sawant said many people echoed Zachary Pullin’s concerns that renters are given far too little consideration in the city’s development planning.

“Our democracy should not be dependent on property ownership” said Pullin during his presentation.

There was considerable support for a parking benefits district — wherein a portion of metered parking fees are spent within the neighborhood — as long as it did not result in cuts to underserved neighborhoods. Participants proposed extending paid parking hours past 8 PM on Capitol Hill and using those extra funds for neighborhood projects. Continue reading →

After cashing in on the ‘burbs, nation’s largest owner of apartment buildings can’t get enough of Capitol Hill

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No word if the the "Find your pearl" marketing slogan was part of the deal

No word if the the “Find your pearl” marketing slogan was part of the deal

Screen Shot 2015-12-27 at 5.49.09 PMChicago-based Equity Residential, the largest publicly traded owner of apartment buildings in the country, has closed on a $33.5 million deal to acquire 15th and Madison’s The Pearl building.

The acquisition expands the company’s Capitol Hill-area holdings after it paid $36.1 million for the Three20 apartment building on Pine and bought the Piecora’s property for $10.3 million in the spring of 2014.

Equity Residential and architects at Ankrom Moisan showed off their plans this summer to replace the old Piecora’s building with a 140-unit, six-story development that includes parking for 140 cars. The planned development will stand within view of the newly acquired Pearl. Continue reading →

Hill’s rents continue to soar as Seattle delays affordable housing plan

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E Denny Way's Pantages is featured in the city's report on affordable housing (Image: William Wright Photography)

E Denny Way’s Pantages is featured in the city’s report on affordable housing (Image: William Wright Photography)

From the Seattle Workforce Housing study

From the Seattle Workforce Housing study

Screen Shot 2014-06-29 at 8.16.20 PMHousing costs on Capitol Hill and throughout Seattle are reaching new heights as the most recent study showed average rents on the Hill have reached $1,557 a month. That’s up $162 from this time last year when CHS reported on soaring rents in 2013.

Escalating housing costs have created what many officials say is an affordable housing crisis in Seattle. In February, Seattle City Council member Mike O’Brien said there was a “sense of urgency” to develop an affordable housing plan as soon as possible. “Every day the challenge is growing, people are struggling to survive,” O’Brien said.

At that time, O’Brien said the council would have an affordable housing plan by the end of this summer following the results of three studies. At a special committee meeting last week to review one of those studies, O’Brien said the plan would likely not coalesce until September and legislation would not reach the full council until 2015. Continue reading →