Politicians are sometimes fond of saying “don’t let a crisis go to waste.” The quote is of uncertain origin, but was most recently uttered by big city Mayor Rahm Emmanuel of Chicago. And it’s true, whether it’s a refugee crisis or climate change, a crisis is always a good way to get people’s attention. Seattle’s housing “crisis” is no different. The language of crisis is so powerful that even people who know better will say, “Don’t deny there’s a crisis. You’ll lose credibility with people. Just acknowledge there’s a serious problem.” It’s exactly that kind of unprincipled thinking that has lead us to a “Bargain” that isn’t really a bargain at all to solve a “crisis” that, as we’ve pointed out, isn’t really a crisis. But now it looks like the data is catching up to City Hall.

Here’s a long quote from a story by Marc Stiles in the Puget Sound Business Journal titled “Bad timing: As thousands of new apartments open, Seattle’s rental market weakens:”

The issue of slowing rents is most acute in Seattle neighborhoods that are experiencing an unprecedented amount of development, according to Dupre + Scott Apartment Advisors. The Seattle apartment tracking firm said that rents rose 5.6 percent region-wide from March through September, and were up 8.3 percent from a year prior.

But in the core of Seattle, rents went up just 3.9 percent year-over-year in September. That’s was down from 8.4 percent a year earlier.

“We expect the rate of rent increases to slow further as more new units open over the next years,” states the Dupre + Scott report.

Oops! Looks like rent increases are slowing down just as the City Council is starting down the road toward mandatory inclusionary zoning in the name of solving the city’s housing crisis. As we’ve pointed out before, (a phrase I find myself saying a lot these days) rents change. They go up, and they go down. The economy changes too, jobs are created and then lost, and productivity rises and falls. And, as I’ve said before, there never has been a problem of housing scarcity at higher levels of income between 60 and 80 percent of Area Median Income. The biggest problem we have is among people who are truly poor, those earning between nothing and 50 percent of AMI. The solution there is an expansion of the housing levy for more vouchers and, if needed, new units. 

Nevertheless, don’t expect people at City Hall to stop trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist using a tool (mandatory inclusionary zoning) that doesn’t work. The truth is that if we don’t have a housing crisis now, the City Council is sure to find a way to make one happen.