The following is a slightly edited version of a fundraising email I sent out yesterday. Seattle For Growth is the only group in town that calls this stuff out. It’s amazing to me that the Seattle City Council will keep utility rates for single-family home owners low at the expense of raising rates for renters. Just another day at the office of Lisa Herbold.

Have you gotten a call from Councilmember Lisa Herbold asking you what you think about impact fees? Has she reached out and included you in her process for making new housing pay for infrastructure? I don’t think so.

She’s made up her mind. Here’s something from her most recent email newsletter:

Other jurisdictions utilize these charges in order to hold new development accountable for increased costs for the utility, rather than spreading the costs of this infrastructure to general ratepayers (emphasis is mine).

First, Herbold and the City Council think that you need to be held accountable for all the damage you do when you build housing. That’s right, for too long you’ve gone unpunished for trying to meet growing housing demand in the city. Time to pay up!

Second, Herbold and her colleagues seem clueless to the fact that you already pay for water, drainage, sewer, and transportation. Ever written a check for a water hook up? Has your project paid surface water management fees to King County? How about those street use fees? For Herbold and the Council this simply isn’t enough.

Third, Herbold claims she wants to save the ratepayers from having to pay these costs. First of all, they don’t. You pay these costs first, then pass them on to your customers who are often first time home buyers and renters. And Real Estate Excise Taxes (REET) collected pays more than $76 million into the Cumulative Reserve Fund (CRF), a fund that pays for infrastructure in the city. What happened to all that money?

If Herbold’s plan goes through, single-family homeowners lower rates will be subsidized by higher rents for people living in newly built apartments. Herbold doesn’t want to believe basic economics; when she adds higher costs to building rental housing it isn’t “development” that gets stuck with the bill but renters and poor people. 

You may have seen the bumper sticker somewhere, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” I’m asking for your attention.

In spite of being rebuked by the public for trying to shake down businesses with a tax on jobs the Council has not learned its lesson. And for those that think setting up a 20 minute meeting with Councilmember will dissuade them from imposing fees (really fines) on your projects I say, “Good luck with that!”

Seattle For Growth is the only organization that gets under the skin of people at City Hall. They don’t like being held accountable. Seattle For Growth is the only organization that advocates for you, not just legislation or Directors Rules. What you do is the heart and soul of what makes this a great city, building and managing the housing for people who live, work and seek more opportunity in this city.

This is from my editorial in the Seattle Times about a year ago on the topic of impact fees:

Housing development also pays lots and lots of fees, taxes and charges that contribute to infrastructure (e.g. sidewalks and drainage) all over the city. Take a look at Seattle’s Cumulative Reserve Subfund (CRS), funded by Real Estate Excise Taxes (REET), taxes charged whenever land changes hands in the city. This year the REET will generate more than $80 million that will be spent on projects like maintaining bridges ($2.6 million), roads ($1.1 million) and even funds the city’s Tenant Relocation Assistance Ordinance (TRAO) with $382,000. And the fees builders and developers pay when they get an alley or right of way vacated by the city will generate $16 millionfor infrastructure needs. And this doesn’t count sales tax and property tax that fund city programs.

What will impact fees do to the cost of housing? A recent study by the city of Portland estimated that on average, “government fees” add 13 percent of the total development cost of housing.

Seattle For Growth doesn’t back down from the principle that adding costs to projects makes them infeasible, and when they do work it is because the price had to go up. You already pay as much as 25 percent in fees and taxes on every project you build. Do you want to pay more? And that doesn’t consider all the costs of accumulating regulatory overreach by the city.

Then, when your prices go up to pay all these costs, you’re blamed for building and operating luxury housing!

We will be a relentless voice, one you need to push back against costly and destructive policy this year and into 2019. You are too busy building housing to be outraged; leave that to us!