Agenda - 09-09-2021 Virtual Work Session; Item 1 - Options to Expand Affordable Housing Incentives and Opportunities

Browse Search

5 Conditional Zoning and Development Agreements—both legislative processes that allow for the placement of conditions and provision of public infrastructure. These powerful tools replace outdated methods of regulation with more straightforward procedures. There have also been the codification of regulatory trends, such as with form based codes. The County has been steadily amending its land use ordinance. It added some of the new tools, but retained the outdated or unused tools. Staff recently updated the table of permitted uses and will be recommending streamlining of the subdivision approval process. However,this piecemeal approach has kept the ordinance large and complex. This is an ordinance which requires a quasi-judicial hearing, five months of processing and more than a thousand dollars of fees to determine whether a taxidermy business is appropriate in the Agricultural Residential zoning district with no guiding standards for the Board of Adjustment other than the statutory minimum (e.g. being in harmony with the area). The availability of land suitable to dense development is also a concern heard from the home builders. There are three existing policies which exist primarily due to concerns about the environment or urban sprawl, but consequentially also reduce the availability of land. The Joint Planning Agreement contains minimum lot sizes within the Rural Buffer, the Water and Sewer Management, Planning and Boundary Agreement limits the availability of public utilities and the Water Supply Watershed Overlay District limits impervious surface on lots. These three policies cover the majority of land in the unincorporated county. None of the policies have allowances to incentivize affordable housing. Staff has compiled a list of available incentives in the Incentives & Opportunities Chart. Several other attachments aim at providing context. The Framework Chart lists each traditional regulatory or financial incentive, indicating the statutory limitations and comparison to other jurisdictions. The Regulatory Process Chart demonstrates the review process and the multiple decision points along the way. The Survey Summary describes the feedback from developers. The most direct incentive would be to expand the current density bonus which would require special legislation. Next, allowing exceptions for affordable housing in the rural buffer would create more opportunities, but would require initiating a discussion with stakeholders in the JPA and WSMPBA. Streamlining the subdivision process to be entirely administratively reviewed would make the process both quicker and more certain. Finally, an update to the comprehensive plan and adoption of a modern UDO would signal to the development community a recognition that affordable housing is a current priority.