Earlier this month, at Crossroads Community Center and here on NPI’s Cascadia Advocate we unveiled the initial findings from our first-ever poll of Bellevue, Washington’s fifth-largest city, which show residents are dissatisfied with the housing market and eager for their elected officials to take a “hands-on” approach to managing growth through policies like mandatory housing affordability.
The Seattle Times, the Bellevue Reporter, KIRO7, and KOMO AM 1000 Radio all ran stories covering the publication of those findings, which we released in partnership with our friends at Complete Streets Bellevue, the Sightline Institute, Eastside For All, and the Housing Development Consortium (HDC).
Today, as promised, our team and the Bellevue Housing Research Coalition have additional findings to share that illustrate the extent of Bellevue residents’ enthusiasm for policies that could get us closer to a future of housing for all.
These findings show that Bellevue residents are broadly in agreement on a number of ideas to tackle the city and region’s housing crisis, from creating additional homeownership assistance programs to allowing the construction of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) such as backyard cottages in every neighborhood to relaxing restrictions like building height limits for projects that preserve existing mature trees on the property rather than cutting them down.
Each of the ideas you’ll see below has the support of a majority of residents, and all but one has the support of more than two-thirds of residents.
Three ideas even have the support of more than three-fourths of residents.
The inspiration for many of the policy proposals that we chose to explore with the Bellevue residents interviewed by our pollster was the “Next Right Work” that the City of Bellevue’s staff and consultants have been undertaking in recent months at the direction of the Bellevue City Council to strengthen the city’s affordable housing strategy. That process has yielded many substantive conversations, but it hasn’t yet led to the decisive action that residents want to see from their Council.
Our survey shows that a range of those Next Right Work ideas are very popular with city residents and ought to be speedily embraced by the Council.
Take a look:
QUESTION: The Bellevue City Council is considering a number of ideas to increase the availability of affordable housing throughout the city’s mostly residential neighborhoods. Please indicate whether you support or oppose each of the following policies.
IDEAS & ANSWERS
Create additional homeownership assistance programs to support first-time buyers and low-income households
Support: 78% Oppose: 18% Not sure: Strongly Somewhat Somewhat Strongly 4% 51% 27% 8% 9% ——— Encourage the development of townhouses and rowhouses
Support: 76% Oppose: 18% Not sure: Strongly Somewhat Somewhat Strongly 6% 37% 39% 13% 5% ——— Allow the construction of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), such as backyard cottages, in all neighborhoods
Support: 75% Oppose: 20% Not sure: Strongly Somewhat Somewhat Strongly 5% 41% 34% 8% 12% ——— Give developers a “density bonus” (allowing, for example, taller buildings) if a minimum number of affordable homes are built as part of the project
Support: 65% Oppose: 29% Not sure: Strongly Somewhat Somewhat Strongly 6% 28% 37% 13% 16% ——— Relax restrictions like building height limits for projects that preserve existing mature trees on the property rather than cutting them down
Support: 64% Oppose: 29% Not sure: Strongly Somewhat Somewhat Strongly 7% 32% 31% 11% 18% ——— Remove barriers to the construction of tiny apartments (200–400 square feet)
Support: 51% Oppose: 39% Not sure: Strongly Somewhat Somewhat Strongly 10% 22% 29% 16% 23% ———
We also found extremely high support for collecting commercial fees to support the creation of more affordable housing throughout the city:
QUESTION: Do you agree or disagree with the following approaches for investing in affordable housing in Bellevue?
Idea: Requiring developers of new commercial (retail or office) properties in Bellevue to pay fees that the city would use for affordable housing units
ANSWERS:
- Agree: 69%
- Strongly agree: 38%
- Somewhat agree: 31%
- Disagree: 26%
- Somewhat disagree: 11%
- Strongly disagree: 16%
- Not sure: 5%
Our housing-focused survey of 475 Bellevue city residents was in the field from Monday, August 15th, through Friday, August 19th, 2022.
The poll was conducted entirely online for the Northwest Progressive Institute and its partners by Change Research. It has a modeled margin of error of 5.2%.
One of the highlights from this set of results for us was the broad support for townhouses, rowhouses, and ADUs, which are all types of what is referred to as missing middle housing. Opticos Design, which maintains a website devoted to explaining the term, describes missing middle housing this way:
These house-scale buildings fit seamlessly into existing residential neighborhoods and support walkability, locally-serving retail, and public transportation options. They provide solutions along a spectrum of affordability to address the mismatch between the available U.S. housing stock and shifting demographics combined with the growing demand for walkability.
Drive, walk, or bike through Bellevue, and you’ll find plenty of highrises with pricey apartments, or large single family detached homes with three car garages, but far less of anything that falls in between. It’s evident from our survey that there is serious demand for missing middle housing in Bellevue.
“I couldn’t find anything affordable in Bellevue. I have to live at my in-laws apartment in order to save money to buy a house,” a young man currently residing in the Newport neighborhood told us.
“Over half my income goes to rent and I know many people in similar positions,” said a tenant in West Bellevue who identifies as a Strong Republican. They added: “Working class people or people with lower paying white collar jobs cannot afford to live here. Not everyone works for Microsoft or Amazon.”
“I am considered middle low class. On paper I do not qualify for any assistance for my family of four. But between rent, grocery, and just basic living we have no money left over or we are under,” said a tenant who lives in Bridle Trails.
“We are not able to grow our family because we live in a tiny outdated 1960s rambler,” a Lake Hills tenant told us. “Even though we both work full time and make a decent living for a couple barely in their thirties we can’t find a larger home to rent or purchase. We both work full time too now in a 900 square foot three bedroom home. We feel suffocated.”
“Mentally, we are paralyzed with anxiety. We are stuck.”
The strong support for the creation of a commercial fee to support affordable housing is also encouraging. Bellevue’s downtown core continues to grow, as the cranes that are currently part of the city’s skyline attest, and the forthcoming opening of Sound Transit’s East Link / Line 2 project will make Downtown, the Spring District, and Bel-Red attractive to developers for decades to come.
Legally speaking, commercial fees to support housing are permitted under Washington State law if the fee is implemented in the context of density increases or other incentives. Our coalition believes a properly calibrated policy can both encourage development and raise funds for affordable housing.
It makes sense that Bellevue should require developers of commercial buildings to contribute to the city’s housing future. Otherwise, it will become even harder for people who work in Washington’s fifth largest city to live there.
As we emphasized two weeks ago, an outright majority of respondents to our survey (51%) said they “know someone who works in Bellevue but must commute from far away to be able to afford rent or housing.”
“Across the board, housing prices exceed the means of a large fraction of the working population in the city,” one Bridle Trails homeowner told us. “Too many of Bellevue’s workers cannot afford to live in, or even close to, the City.”
“First time home buyers can’t afford to buy in Bellevue; many are forced to commute long distances to jobs (especially teachers),” agreed another homeowner, who lives in the Cougar Mountain / Lakemont neighborhood.
“Inventory is exceptionally low for everyone, especially those who aren’t wealthy. What little is available is often disconnected from transportation and daily services,” a tenant who rents an apartment in the city’s downtown core told us. “The car dependency is strong but the lived experience of driving here is like driving in a city with 3–4x the population & density.”
“Local lower paying jobs are not being filled because no one can afford to live here on those wages,” a tenant from northeast Bellevue told us, adding: “Who would drive/commute/transit to the Bellevue area if they could find a similar paying job close to where they could afford to live?”
If Bellevue wants to be an inclusive, welcoming city, it needs a housing market with homes that people of all professions can afford.
A market that is hyperfocused on providing luxury dwellings to well-paid technology workers and serving almost nobody else is a broken market.
As mentioned, the Bellevue City Council is aware of the problem, which is why they’ve directed city staff to study solutions through Next Right Work.
Our research shows that many of these ideas aren’t just promising, they’re overwhelmingly popular with people throughout the city.
Bellevue would be well-served if the Council moved swiftly to transform these ideas from concepts on the drawing board to adopted city policy.
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[…] released our initial findings on September 12th and a second set of findings at the end of the month. On October 3rd, we released a third set of […]
[…] released our initial findings on September 12th and a second set of findings at the end of the month. On October 3rd, we released a third set of findings, and last week, we released a fourth […]