Between the release of the Index 4, our semi-annual poll of Seattle voters, and the conclusion of the (very busy!) 2023 legislative session, I wanted to take this opportunity to spotlight some of the positive work happening to tackle problems and seize opportunities in our communities. While there’s no question that there is still work to do – including resolving the Blake decision on drug possession – we are seeing encouraging signals on downtown Seattle activation, taking action on the fentanyl public health crisis, and addressing housing affordability.
Activating Downtown Seattle
On April 17, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the first steps of his Downtown Activation Plan to encourage more people to spend time downtown. This includes filling vacant storefronts, encouraging more frequent closings of streets for special events, and improving street and sidewalk lighting in areas of downtown where crime and disorder is concentrated – and more. The Mayor’s Office also announced plans to update land use policies to create 30,000 jobs and more housing units in neighborhoods adjacent to downtown and activate development in the stadium area south of Pioneer Square.
These are great ideas. Government has its hands on many levers that can help – changing zoning to allow for more uses in more buildings, reducing barriers to starting a business, streamlining regulation, reducing fees, relaxing permits – and now is a good time to make temporary or permanent changes that incentivize activity. Our motto is: bring on the ideas. In fact, it’s critical that our elected officials – and new candidates for office – come to the table with ideas intended to create growth and opportunity across the local and regional economy. At the same time, politicians pushing policies that create barriers to downtown recovery, or increase financial uncertainty, need to put those ideas back on the shelf. Now is not the time.
Let’s honor progress made and continue onward toward more actions that will make change that matters. Beyond making progress on homelessness, public safety, and affordability, the city’s energy needs to be squarely focused on downtown recovery. Period. Hard stop.
The Fentanyl and Methamphetamine Crisis
Alongside the downtown announcements, the Mayor issued an executive order to address the devastating fentanyl crisis – a welcome action. The executive order on fentanyl seeks to disrupt the distribution and sale of narcotics in concert with other law enforcement partners. It also includes a number of actions such as launching a pilot expansion of the Seattle Fire Department’s Health One program to include an overdose response unit and supporting increased access to medication, resources, and services.
The scale of fentanyl and methamphetamine use in our region demands that officials take action at every opportunity. We need to support individuals with treatment options, we need crisis response, and we need to address the very real public safety issues that come alongside the public use of dangerous drugs. To that end, we supported King County’s Crisis Care Levy, which the voters are passing. We worked closely with Mayor Bruce Harrell on his executive order, and we support the proposal released today by City of Seattle leaders to address public drug use – another tool aimed at disrupting deadly fentanyl distribution – and one that the mayors of Auburn and Kent are also taking up. People are dying in our communities every day and while the idea of a patchwork approach to laws regulating drug use and possession across the state is frustrating, the absence of the state taking action means our local officials will.
Housing Affordability Wins in Olympia
Switching gears, we approached the 2023 Legislative Session with action on our housing affordability crisis as a top priority. I hear from our members all the time that you struggle to find and retain employees, and that you want to make sure that your kids, your employees, and your neighbors can take part in our region’s prosperous economy. That’s why we have put our stake in the ground saying we will work relentlessly to tackle affordability.
This is an issue where the business community is uniquely positioned to bring an important voice, and working in coalition with partners including labor, community-based and environmental organizations, we ensured policymakers did not miss this critical opportunity to create housing options in this region for our employees to buy and rent across all life stages and across the income spectrum.
One major victory is the middle housing legislation, House Bill 1110, which will bring more flexibility for duplexes, triplexes, and more in areas traditionally dedicated to single-family, detached housing throughout our state. This is incredibly important in unlocking more options for housing across our region.
We also applaud the passage of House Bill 1474, which addresses the direct harms caused by racially restrictive real estate covenants. This bill will establish a covenant homeownership account and program to provide down payment and closing cost assistance to Black, Indigenous, people of color and other historically marginalized communities in Washington state. I heard from many of you about this bill and we’re proud to have supported it during session.
Seeing this work accomplished brings me hope. We’re encouraged to see legislators and local government leaders working together at the state and local levels to address misalignments and anchor conversations in our values – and we know there is more work ahead. Celebrate, take a victory lap and then keep going.
Onward,
Rachel
Rachel Smith
President and CEO