Affordable Housing Advocate Carl Haglund Hits Back at Proposed Sawant Tax
Sawant ignores quarantine rules to hold hearing. All other councilmembers boycott.
SEATTLE, WA – Carl Haglund, Founder and CEO of the Carl Haglund Foundation, responded to Seattle Councilwoman Kshama Sawant’s call for a head tax earlier this week. “This is symbolism over substance. Councilwoman Sawant is attempting to impose an unpopular tax in the name of ‘affordable housing’, yet by her own numbers admits it will utterly fail to address the workforce housing needs of Seattle” Haglund said in a prepared statement. “Sawant concedes that her tax will only create 1,350 housing units in 5 years. That’s 270 units a year. A paltry amount of housing that will do nothing to alleviate Seattle’s affordable housing crisis. In comparison, private sector homebuilders are slated to produce over 57,000 units, in the next 5 years, without the tax. The affordable housing industry will create thousands of jobs. This government program will create almost none,” Haglund noted.
Sawant is the Chair of the Sustainability and Renter’s Rights Committee which is part of the Seattle City Council. Last Thursday, Sawant held a hearing on her newly proposed tax. Despite Covid-imposed rules limiting Council hearings to “emergencies” Sawant pushed ahead with her hearing. None of her fellow members attended the meeting, noting that a new tax on business is not an “emergency.” Haglund expressed his frustration at the hypocrisy. “While small businesses are getting slaughtered by lockdown rules, Swant thinks she is above the law, using her City Council hearing as a political rally.”
Haglund, who has been developing affordable housing in Seattle for the past 25 years, suggested an alternative solution. “If you really want to create affordable housing, create thousands of new jobs and avoid any new job-killing taxes, a simple adjustment to the Multi Family Tax Exemption would do the trick. There are hundreds of affordable housing firms that would love to create single-unit, workforce housing for individuals just starting out or trying to get off the streets. They just need some flexibility that is not part of the current tax incentive.”
According the Haglund Foundation, housing providers are producing over 5,000 smaller studio apartments, yet currently almost none qualify for the multi-family tax exemption as the law limits rents to $760 per month. This is far below market rents for small studios, which are about $1,400. A small adjustment in the MFTE rent caps would allow 1,250 of the current 5,000 units to become part of the affordable housing market. Haglund notes that he personally could add 450 units of affordable studio apartments to the Seattle housing stock with this small change.