On ballots that went out last week, voters have two choices to make to determine the future of Seattle’s newest plan for housing.
The first is whether the developer should be funded at all. The next choice — regardless of the previous answer — is how.
Option 1A is with a new employer tax on all salaries over $1 million a year. Backers hope the 5% tax would raise as much as $50 million a year to be spent on buying and, eventually, developing housing that would be cost-controlled and owned by taxpayers.
Option 1B is to fund the developer with $10 million a year in existing city funding — specifically the city’s JumpStart tax on large corporations in Seattle.
Is that happening? Are you adding those into your previous thoughts on housing?
Yes it is happening.
Yes, the fact that this is happening is considered in my comments thus far.
https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/Housing/Reports/2023_MHA-IZAnnualReport-a_157808.pdf
Rough numbers:
2023, MHA payments from the payment option totalled $63 million.
$8 million of which went toward helping to build 230 new units, which is roughly 1/10th the total cost of actually building 230 new units.
The rest went toward maintenance of existing low income units/properties.
So… yeah, woo, $50 million from this new tax basically doubles that.
We need 100x, 1000x, not 2x.