Op-Ed: To Save Mandatory Housing Affordability, We Have to Recalibrate It

Seattle is in the midst of a housing production freeze, and it should alarm everyone who cares about affordability. In 2025, just under 4,000 homes entered the city's permitting pipeline, roughly a third of the pace Seattle sustained from 2018 through 2021. Because housing takes years to move from permit to occupancy, we are only beginning to feel the consequences.

A frozen pipeline is bad for renters, aspiring homeowners, construction workers, and affordable housing alike. A development that never breaks ground produces neither market-rate homes nor the affordable homes that come with them through Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA).

For those not steeped in Seattle land use and housing policy: MHA, adopted between 2017 and 2019, requires new multifamily and commercial development to create affordable housing in exchange for added density through upzones. Developers must either include income- and rent-restricted homes on-site or pay into the Office of Housing’s fund to build affordable housing across the city.

The Housing Development Consortium, the member association for King County's affordable housing community, championed that grand bargain from the start, because we believe deeply in the principle it embodies: growth should be inclusive, and new development capacity should help create homes for the people who keep our city running. We want to protect MHA for the long-term. And that is why we are working to move forward short-term changes to MHA that respond to the moment we are in.

https://www.theurbanist.org/op-ed-to-save-mandatory-housing-affordability-we-have-to-recalibrate-it/