Faced with what he described as a “crisis,” Gov. Bob Ferguson has proposed spending $244 million on housing investments across the state.
“It’s not really unique to our state,” Ferguson said during a news conference Thursday in Seattle. “I talk to governors across the country, this is an issue that comes up all of the time. The need for more housing is something that is urgent in our state, and in many communities across the country.”
The announcement is part of a series of budget proposals the governor is expected to unveil in the coming days. The investment, he said, is needed to address a problem residents across the state experience.
“I’m often asked, ‘Hey, you went to all 39 counties, what issue did you hear about the most in going to all 39 counties?’ ” Ferguson said, recalling his campaign for governor. “And the answer was always the same: more housing, more housing, more housing. It really didn’t matter what part of the state I was in, but that was something I heard about over, and over, and over again from Washingtonians on both sides of the mountains, in communities large and small.”
Under the housing proposal, the state would direct $225 million in bonds for the state’s Housing Trust Fund, which he said will build or preserve more than 4,000 housing units. The governor also signaled his support for a proposal by state Sen. Emily Alvarado, D-West Seattle, that would require jurisdictions that use growth management plans to permit residential and mixed-use development in areas that are currently zoned for commercial use.
“In our state, there is underused land within urban growth areas where housing is compatible, but right now, it’s not allowed to be built, in commercial zones and in mixed-use zones,” Alvarado said Thursday. “These are places where we’re already planning for future urban development, there are tens of thousands of parcels where housing is prohibited and where real barriers make development infeasible.”
Alvarado said while the proposal wouldn’t ensure new housing is built, it’s “necessary to ensure that homes can be built.”
According to the Washington Department of Commerce, the state will need to build around 1.1 million new units over the next 19 years, with at least half of the units designated as affordable housing. Ferguson said about half of Washington’s renters spend more than a third of their income on housing, a group that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development classifies as “rent-burdened.”
“At the risk of being redundant, but some things bear repeating, we are in a housing crisis, we have a severe housing shortage. The governor gets this,” Lt. Gov. Denny Heck said Thursday. “The solution is fairly obvious, harder to implement, but fairly obvious: We need to build more homes, of all kinds, for all of our neighbors, especially affordable homes.”
While on the campaign trail, Ferguson pledged to build 200,000 new units of housing in the state during his first term in office. On Thursday, Ferguson signed an executive order to begin the process of establishing a new Department of Housing, an agency the governor said would be focused on creating more housing supply.
“This is a huge issue for our state, it’s going to be for a long, long time,” Ferguson said. “And to have that elevated to a cabinet level, I think, sets the right priorities for the state, the right priorities for the governor, and the right priorities for the people of our state.”
Ferguson’s announcement follows recent pushes in the Legislature to increase housing supply in Washington.
Earlier this year, Ferguson signed a slate of bills passed during the legislative session he said would reduce red tape and cut construction costs, which he hopes will spur the construction of more housing and further the state’s efforts to reach his goal.
The legislation included cutting the number of required parking spaces for new developments and directing developers to build affordable housing near transit centers.
“The list really goes on and on and on,” Ferguson said Thursday. “No one of those things, again, is going to solve this crisis, and that is for sure. But continued focus on this is going to help.”
Following the recent flooding across the state, Ferguson said he also modified his budget proposal to include $55 million for rehabilitation and housing preservation. The governor said the money would allow state officials to continue to assess the scope of the damage.
“We also consider this funding to be, really, a bridge while we pursue federal relief for this historic crisis,” Ferguson said. “I want to be clear, we are seeking disaster relief from the federal government. That relief, if granted, is designed for folks whose homes have been impacted by the flood. That’s really what it’s there for.”