There is no simple answer to this question. A percentage of housing could be required to be affordable or a percentage could be used as a "carrot" to encourage affordable housing. Working with the City to reduce building costs by the streamlining the process would also help. I am open to working with the Opportunity council and Kulshan CLt, the Building Industry Association and any other interested parties to find housing solutions.

Please see the answer to Question #6 for this response.

As we worked on the Old Town Plan for Bellingham my neighborhood, the Lettered Streets, asked for certain inclusions such as affordable housing. The City helped us formulate a method wherein a developer could put up a larger structure that includes housing in exchange for a certain percentage of the units meeting Bellingham 's affordable metric. Because Port land is unlikely to see single-family, detached housing built on it, tax incentives, development fee waivers, lowered lease rates and Floor Area Ratio alterations are probably the most effective way for the Port to help Whatcom County meet housing affordability goals in multi-family structures.

I suggest general purpose municipalities (GPM) rescind the excessive impact fee structure and return to a property tax only basis. Initial taxes and fees must be capitalized and therefore increase housing costs. GPM also continue to acquire and remove land from inventory and place restrictions and requirements that result in imposed scarcity, driving land and housing costs higher.

It is important for any community to have a variety of housing options, including rentals and affordable housing. I support the work of the Countywide Housing Affordability Task Force and its recommendations made to the Council. I am a member of the City of Bellingham's Community Development Advisory Board and have employed some Federal Stimulus money toward ending homelessness in Whatcom County.

In the long run, I believe the best way to increase housing affordability for all is to support policies that will bring about an economic recovery in Whatcom County that will create good paying jobs.

First, I do not agree with the premise of the question. Market demand dictates housing costs much more so than land supply. The goal should be to have a range of housing types that includes an adequate supply of affordable housing.

Establishing a housing trust fund account that can be utilized for the most critical housing needs should be recognized as a priority. I know significant background work has been done in this area and I will support moving forward on this sooner than later.

Utilizing real estate excise taxes towards the cost of public infrastructure associated with affordable housing projects should be an option. Setting up this funding option with affordable housing criteria that takes into account location to minimize the living/transportation costs for projects would be an attractive option for developers.

Whatcom County should include within the interlocal planning agreements with each city, specific goals to be met for each city for providing an adequate supply of affordable housing. Expansion of city boundaries would not be allowed until the goal is met or agreements are in place with developers that will ensure enough affordable housing is provided. Work on options for zoning that will ensure development of affordable housing options for developers and make these a requirement for city interlocal agreements. These options must recognize that the best way to meet these goals is for the developer to be able to profit. In that regards a range of options should be allowed developers. Allow employer-assisted housing projects as a means to meet affordable housing needs and consider this option for large employers.

Candidate did not provide a response by the deadline.

Incentives. I would support proposals to expedite the permitting process for housing projects that meet specific affordability, environmental, and other public policy criteria. Housing affordability is a key component of community health. People who own their homes are more involved in their local community organizations, maintain their property, and interact with their neighbors. In recent years, skyrocketing housing prices created an ownership problem in Whatcom County. Housing prices rose due to a nationwide speculative bubble and easy credit, combined with a local boom as the rest of the world discovered our northwest paradise. At this time, it is very difficult for local wage earners to purchase a home, as wages did not keep pace with housing prices. As housing prices increase, those with lower incomes move further from population and employment centers. That is the "drive 'til you qualify" effect, and it is not a sustainable solution. We want to encourage less driving and less conversion of our rural and resource lands - those are serious environmental issues. We have to provide affordable housing options within our existing urban areas, near employment, shopping, entertainment, and schools. I believe we need market-based incentives to affordable housing. No matter how many 5,000 square foot view homes we build on King Mountain, they will never be "affordable." We need smaller houses on smaller lots. We should award density bonuses to developers who build smaller houses. I will support programs that allow market forces to provide housing, by easing permitting, increasing density, and improving profitability for the developers. Any affordable housing projects that receive priority treatment must adhere to strict design standards to fit in with neighborhoods and meet certain green-building targets.

That's a great question because of the local pressure for impact fees, with their multiplied added costs by the time a residential project is ready for sale. I'm not opposed to impact fees, but perhaps there is a way that affordable housing projects can be considered for some kind of relief.

The County-wide Housing Affordability Taskforce (CHAT) brought the Council a number of great ideas to start to address these issues about a year ago. Some of those ideas such as better and consistent design standards, ADU's, and clustering are already in the hopper. Others such as allowing smaller lot sizes and more compact development are better suited to urban development in cities.

None of those solutions can effectively solve the problem without a source of money to also help close the gap between actual housing costs and low wage earner's ability to pay. The most significant recommendation out of CHAT was the need for the development of an Affordable Housing Investment Fund similar to the one already in existence in King County. I support and would be happy to help draft and sponsor the necessary legislation to take the creation of such a fund to the voters for approval. To be successful such an effort would take significant public education about the issues, and would need to be led by a broad and actively involved grassroots coalition. I would be happy to work with such a grassroots coalition, once it is formed and ready to undertake this task.

We need to look at big-picture ways to make housing more affordable. We can't ignore the banks and lenders, because they provide the funds that make our economy hum. Low-income housing can't exist without available locations and capital. We might want to look at adjusting impact fees to accommodate housing for low income families.

I would support measures to have the development community adhere to inclusionary zoning practices, where they are either mandated to provide a portion of their housing at an affordable price or we work on incentivizing their participation in such a program. I have also been supportive of the Bellingham Housing Authority's efforts to expand their services to meet the demand for housing at a reduced price.

I have been very supportive of the Bellingham Housing Authority over the last 16 years on the council. They have done a great job of providing affordable housing for thousands of people here in Bellingham. We need to do more as we recover from this economic meltdown the need gets bigger and bigger everyday. It is my hope that the new infill toolkit will provide different kind of housing that will be affordable for more people.

The Bellingham Housing Authority and the Kulshan Land Trust, with help from the City, the County and the Opportunity Council, have been very successful at acquiring federal and state dollars to build and maintain housing for those most in need. I served on the County-wide Housing Affordability Taskforce (CHAT), a group representing all aspects of the development and housing community. For 18 months we studied the issue of affordable housing and concluded that high property values coupled with high construction and permit costs make subsidies a "necessity" for low income citizens to acquire housing. Recommended strategies include, density bonuses, height and bulk bonuses, fee waivers and extensions, parking requirement reductions, and expedited permitting. I personally support mandatory inclusionary zoning for large projects but the taskforce would only agree to these being "voluntary". The most bang for the buck is to supplement the new construction process with a "local" housing trust fund and a continuing lobby of local elected officials to enact CHAT recommendations. The current state of the economy has all but stopped new construction and frozen construction dollars, so little real improvement is expected until the economy is stronger. CHAT II is working to keep the pressure on electeds, which, in my view, is a good thing.

Affordable housing requires the injection of governmental financial resources to fill the gap between what the market requires for quality and what low income people can afford. Therefore, it is a mistake the start affordable housing with too little government resources. Affordable housing is integral to a healthy community. When the community is healthy but housing in unaffordable, the neighborhood becomes exclusive. When housing is viable but the community I unhealthy, the housing becomes sheltered from the outside environment. Affordable housing is a component in urban regeneration but by itself may be prone to failure.

To be successful affordable housing needs new resources, new approaches, schools-parks-public safety, and community buy-in and sustained stakeholder commitment. One of the things the city can do is use land that it already owns or trade property that developers may want for less expensive property for affordable housing projects. Building affordable housing projects that are stand alone from the rest of the community is a prescription for failure. Projects must be part of the vision for the whole city making sure the affordable housing is located near retail shopping, transportation, schools and parks. I believe the key to affordable housing is in public-private partnerships which provide housing that serves people with a range of income such as "Project Based." The real key to sustaining affordable housing is being able for residents to raise their rent paying ability. To do this our community must also invest in jobs.

Bellingham and Whatcom County are wonderful places to live, but one unhappy downside of our success and desirability is higher housing costs. In the long term, I think this is one of our most important challenges, and it is one of my personal priorities.

Housing affordability affects people at many income levels, and I believe that we need to continue to support a variety of programs directed at populations with different degrees of need for assistance. I think it is important to keep in mind the distinction between programs that address homelessness (and its various underlying factors) and programs that address housing affordability for low- and moderate-income level households. The solutions are as different as the causes. Housing affordability for lower and moderate income levels may be addressed effectively with land-use policy and regulatory changes, whereas very low-income housing and homelessness may be more appropriate targets for block-grant and general-fund programs.

Part of the solution for affordability, I believe, lies in a new flexibility for residential development and infill, encouraging affordable homes on moderate lots. We can identify incentives for affordable housing, such as deferred or reduced impact fees, property and excise tax credits, and density bonuses; and we can provide the funding to support these cost offsets for affordable home building and home purchasing projects by an affordable housing levy such as Seattle enjoys. I am also a long-time supporter of the Kulshan Community Land Trust, and I am certain that the Trust will continue to play a vital and growing role in the future.

The available evidence suggests that demand and desirability have far greater influence over housing prices than does supply. Loosening land supply in the past has not led to greater housing affordability, but rather to an expansion in higher-end homes. That is one of the reasons why I would like to see an emphasis on ways to reduce the costs of development, rather than an emphasis on urban expansion.

As co-chairman of the Countywide Housing Affordability Taskforce known as CHAT, I would work on implementing the recommendations that grew out of that effort. Two important recommendations, among others, were the concepts of establishing inclusive zoning that would require that certain sized housing projects include the requirement that some percentage of those units be made permanently affordable. Another idea was to establish a housing fund that would be used to assist those who cannot afford a median priced home. The money for this fund could be a combination of federal and state grants, local public money and fees in lieu of creating affordable units under the inclusive zoning concept.

During the years when the economy was growing, more fees were added to the cost of construction. As time went on more fees were added as well as impact fees. One way in which housing costs can become more affordable would be to re examine these fees and either reduce them or eliminate them entirely. These fees have hurt lower income people who wish to experience the American dream of owning their own homes.