Some Random, Innovative Housing/Land Use Policies

Three months ago, City of Seattle Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda asked me to sit in on a panel on housing for the committee she chairs, Housing, Health, Energy, & Workers’ Rights. Specifically, she wanted me to talk about innovative housing/land use policy outside of Seattle. A number of people have asked for the crib notes/links from what I was reading off of, so here it is. It’s by no means comprehensive — just what I had time to throw together in an afternoon.

Among these policies are several themes that could be relevant for Seattle:

• social housing: affordable housing (workers, students, elderly, families) via fed, state, and non‐profit actors.
• cohousing / baugruppen / cooperatives as urban middle class housing, heavily funded or supported by gov’t.
• passivhaus/nZEB: high construction quality/durability. Very low energy buildings, buoy against energy poverty, mold free, less asthma issues (intersection w/ health & energy)
• design competitions: much higher quality of design/livability v. RFP/RFQ processes
• high level of planning coordination: open space, schools, daycare, transit investments
• broad zoning: no ‘wedding cake’, no modulation, no single family zoning, 1/2‐3/4 mile walkshed
• State preemption: overriding local control/obstruction of housing

Netherlands
Amsterdam

• City owns ~85% of land. long term ground lease for housing ‐ funds add’l affordable housing
• In the process of adding 50k new units by 2025 throughout city to relieve pressure on market: ‘compacting the city’ ‐ economic mix w/ investments in accessibility, green/open space, sustainability. Likely to include office to housing conversions
• Producing new land for mixed income areas

Switzerland

• Right to housing in Swiss constitution
• Cooperatives: no‐equity model, residents own shares and pay monthly rent. Shares returned at end.

Zürich:

• Surplus land offered to cooperatives v. market rate developers
• Coops done as a low‐cost ground lease (>60 years)
• Rents of coops based on construction costs, maintenance and operations. roughly 20% of housing since 2001 in form of cooperatives: quality, affordable housing, social mix, efficient, etc.
• Well planned (schools, transit, open space, daycare, etc)
• Coop members are eligible for federal housing subsidy
• Member solidarity funds: rental assistance, and used for loans for new construction

Germany
Freiburg:

• Intensive redevelopments of brown/greenfields. ~50% of land for affordable housing or coops/cohousing/syndicates (eg in Rieselfeld and Vauban)
• High level of investment, planning and coordination between departments
• Mietshäuser Syndikat (rental house syndicate): non profit that joins up w/ tenants to buy and manage apartments, construct/rehab coops

Hamburg

• Hafencity — mixed use redev of port. office, housing, schools, parks. coops and co‐housing are ~50%
• IBA ‐ International Building Exhibition: essentially a springboard for innovative housing and construction. Built ideas. Berlin hosted IBA in the 90s, founded a non‐profit housing corp to build the housing.
• Sets aside 20% of land for cohousing/baugruppe initiatives/groups
• City promotes and facilitates cohousing/coops. holds land during financing

Austria:

• more innovative fire codes, heavy usage of mass timber/innovation, advanced prefabricated high-performance assemblies industry, highly regulated but simple forms to keep costs normalized.
• city as affordable housing developer (historically, almost all NFP today. Neue Heimat Tirol in Innsbruck: large scale social housing developments are generally aiming for, or achieving passivhaus levels of construction w/ EU nZEB req’ts.
• Indefinite housing tenure w/ regulated rents (v. monthly or yearly lease)

Vienna

• Long history of progressive social housing paired w/ amenities, parks and transit.
• No single family zoning, affordable housing is legal everywhere housing is legal (no SFZ in AT/DE/CH).
• Fund rehab/new construction/preservation of social housing at ~$650M FY 2017 (via federal taxes)
• energetic retrofits (e.g. passivhaus) ‐ extend life of building, better IAQ, no mold.
• housing developer competitions ‐ for/non profit developers submit proposals for housing based on parameters ‐ award based on design, economics, social mix and environmental merits.
• parks surrounded by density/density isn’t limited to arterials
• Industrial redevelopment large part of housing component ‐ eg as at Nordbahnhof (former train station), Seestadt Aspern (former airport w/10ks units of housing, jobs integrated w/ schools, parks, shops, transit)
• Social housing & development in general planned w/ community needs (daycare, schools, shops, doctors, parks, etc.
• Gender mainstreaming
• >10% of city is 6‐story buildings (Seattle: ~1.5% zoned 6 story and 2/3 is developed)

Edmonton, Canada: Infill guidelines: broad infill regulations w/ education, design competition, neighborhood
input (https://www.cityofedmontoninfill.ca/)
NYC: office of tenant advocate
California: SB 827 Proposal for minimum zoning near high quality transit (1/2 mi stops, 1/4 mi corridors) exempt from local controls on max density, FAR, min parking. height increase if lower than 45‐85'