eyeneye
commented
7 years ago Here are some places to read more on housing affordability in Seattle
Seattle HALA literature Seattle MHA literature (Environmental Impact Statement) Seattle Transit Blog The Urbanist FB Group - city builders (bunch of contributors are 'market urbanists' who annoy me but have good points sometimes) Other FB group ‘new urbanist memes for transit-oriented teens’ very important Crosscut Next City Sightline Institute
Hi all! Just a few points of feedback from your local urbanist lol.
In general I think you all have selected an interesting topic - one very similar to ours actually! But it's awfully broad and I'm afraid you won't be able to answer nearly any of the questions you seek to address, however I think the directions you've gone in are interesting. Especially the linkage between building affordable housing and other factors like houselessness/displacement - are you suggesting that building affordable housing is possibly not the best choice? In that case I'd set up a question that compares building different types of housing, like public housing, private nonprofit affordable housing, and market-rate private housing and these impacts.
I think some of your sub questions have also been answered by other people/groups: Zillow put out some interesting analysis that answers your question about the relationship between affordability and houselessness/displacement.
Seattle I think has some info about eligible people and how much affordable housing can be built. I'd in general suggest doing more research into each of your questions to make sure you can find out if they've already been tackled - or ask me!
Also another correction is that Seattle Housing Authority isn't part of the city - they are an independent public corporation that the city contracts, among others, to develop and maintain affordable housing.
Once again, question is rather broad. I'd narrow it down and just focus on one of your sub questions. You ask, will building affordable housing protect low income earners. How do you define 'protect'? Does that mean they don't get displaced, or does it mean more housing is added that allows low income earners can move into the city? How do you define low income earners? I also don't see sources for data yet - I'd suggest looking at the data about permits that Seattle has - that's what we're using haha. I'd also in general focus in on one particular aspect of HALA - it's a set of 65 recommendations so just look through and see which ones you think are interesting and do some exploration. Ok that's all I have for now, good luck!