A Seat­tle ini­tia­tive that pro­pos­es to set up a pub­lic devel­op­ment author­i­ty to build pub­licly financed, pub­licly con­trolled hous­ing projects is ahead in ear­ly returns, King Coun­ty Elec­tions’ ini­tial Feb­ru­ary 2023 spe­cial elec­tion tab­u­la­tion shows.

With 21.23% turnout as of Elec­tion Night, Ini­tia­tive 135 had the sup­port of 52.82% of vot­ers, while 47.18% opposed. 102,040 votes have been tal­lied for and against the mea­sure so far. Seat­tle has 480,571 reg­is­tered vot­ers in this election.

I‑135 begin the count­ing peri­od with a 5,739 vote lead.

We assess its chances of pass­ing as strong.

Spon­sored by House Our Neigh­bors, a project of Real Change, I‑135 seeks to cre­ate “an inde­pen­dent, pub­licly fund­ed, com­mu­ni­ty led orga­ni­za­tion with the abil­i­ty to buy up exist­ing hous­ing to turn into social hous­ing, as well as build tru­ly afford­able hous­ing at the scale we need,” accord­ing to a primer from the cam­paign, which the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute has endorsed.

“The pub­lic is the sole share­hold­er, mean­ing that pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships in own­er­ship do not exist,” the cam­paign’s FAQ adds. “The Pub­lic Devel­op­er may not sell off assets or shares to the pri­vate mar­ket. Com­mu­ni­ty con­trol means that res­i­dents of the hous­ing make up a vot­ing major­i­ty of the gov­er­nance board. Addi­tion­al­ly, res­i­dent board mem­bers are elect­ed by oth­er residents.”

I‑135 has the sup­port of a large num­ber of civic and pro­gres­sive orga­ni­za­tions; Capi­tol Hill Seat­tle also found that most of the can­di­dates vying to suc­ceed Kshama Sawant in the city’s 3rd Dis­trict were vot­ing yes.

The mea­sure faced no orga­nized or fund­ed oppo­si­tion, but The Seat­tle Times called for a no vote, as did Alice Woldt, David Bloom, and John V. Fox, who devel­oped an oppo­si­tion state­ment for the voter’s pamphlet.

“Cre­at­ing anoth­er agency to com­pete for scarce hous­ing dol­lars that costs sev­er­al mil­lion to set it up before one hous­ing unit is pro­duced doesn’t make sense,” the trio argued. “I‑135 comes with no new fund­ing source. It diverts atten­tion from what’s most impor­tant – pass­ing a new hous­ing levy this fall and find­ing mil­lions more nec­es­sary to over­come the short­fall of need­ed low-cost units.”

House Our Neigh­bors not­ed in response that state law did­n’t allow for a fund­ing source to be includ­ed with I‑135 and con­tend­ed that the Seat­tle Social Hous­ing Devel­op­er would com­ple­ment rather than com­pete with exist­ing efforts to cre­ate attain­able hous­ing for peo­ple who want to live in Seattle.

“The Seat­tle Social Hous­ing Devel­op­er would­n’t seek Sec­tion 8 vouch­ers, Sec­tion 9, or the Low Income Hous­ing Tax Cred­it to finance projects,” HON’s FAQ says.

“We would be able to serve high­er income res­i­dents (those between 61–120% of the Area Medi­an Income) as we would­n’t be restrict­ed by the above list­ed fund­ing mech­a­nisms. We want KCHA [King Coun­ty Hous­ing Author­i­ty, which serves com­mu­ni­ties adja­cent to Seat­tle] to keep doing what they are doing, we see us work­ing in har­mo­ny with cur­rent afford­able hous­ing approaches.”

Con­grat­u­la­tions to House Our Neigh­bors and the coali­tion sup­port­ing I‑135 for secur­ing a major­i­ty of the vote for the ini­tia­tive in the ear­ly returns.

Count­ing will con­tin­ue on week­days for two more weeks, then the elec­tion will be cer­ti­fied and we will know the final results for I‑135.