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Housing fees don’t damp building boom

September 11th, 2007 · Comments · By Matt

Seattle Times, Housing fees don’t damp building boom:

Those regulations, which took effect in spring 2006, allow residential developers to build to 400 feet, or about 40 floors, in parts of downtown’s Denny Triangle, an area now dominated by parking lots and low-rise buildings.

Elsewhere downtown, residential developers are allowed to build to 45 stories or more.

In one Denny Triangle section, for example, developers pay nothing for affordable housing if they stay below the designated base height limit of 290 feet.

For every floor above that, they pay $15 to $25 a square foot up to the maximum height limit of 400 feet. The higher the floor, the higher the rate, since the views tend to be better and worth more to developers.

What other condo taxes are buyers paying?

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Tags: Seattle Times

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  • kh
    as mentioned above... downtown living = smaller carbon footprint

    http://www.begreennow.com/redoffset/begreenredu...
  • mhays
    Politics is one thing. But moving into a Downtown condo does tremendous benefit to the community anyway. If you're taking your car off the road you're reducing transportation demands. You're probably reducing your land usage. You're possibly downsizing and buying less stuff. You use less energy. You're helping energize Downtown. You're supporting neighborhood businesses. The list goes on. We shouldn't use the tax system to actively discourage Downtown living.
  • seattle67
    Regarding condo taxes, if you're buying into one of the new Westlake condos you'll be paying Local Improvement District (LID) taxes for the new streetcar.
  • Chris
    It was the only politically feasible meanss to raise height - in exchange for "public benefits". I wish more of the benefits were open space related though
  • mhays
    PS, who said they're not damping the boom? Plenty of stuff is getting proposed, but very little has actually broken ground under the bonus system. Proposals mean nothing.

    Furthermore, the stuff that is getting built is doing so in a good economy. What happens in a marginal economy?
  • mhays
    It's fundamentally unfair that the City is addressing housing affordability by making housing cost more.

    We do need more money for affordable and low-income housing, but the better method would be to expand the voted levy. It passes easily every time, currently at $16 million per year, and should continue to pass at $20 or even $25 million per year. This is fair because everyone pays, whether directly as property owners or indirectly as renters.
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