June 22nd, 2021

Mayor Durkan and OPCD

Seattle City Council
City of Seattle
600 4th Ave
Seattle, WA 98102

Dear Mayor Durkan and OPCD,

RE: Call for the Release of the Racial Equity Toolkit Analysis Report

On behalf of our organizations working together on housing advocacy, we call

for the immediate release of the Racial Equity Toolkit analysis report. We request
that the Mayor, Office of Planning and Development, and Council collaborate
to create an inclusive and affordable community by advancing forward the
analysis that will shape the city’s actions and opportunities for minimizing past
harm and achieving equitable growth.

The original intent of Councilmember Mosqueda’s RET was to undo the historic
impacts of restrictive and exclusionary zoning, and the unintended
consequences of the Urban Village Growth Strategy. The process will build on
the 2016 Displacement Risk and Equity Map work that birthed the Equitable
Development Initiative (EDI) work as a solution and serve as a tool to help the
city connect with impacted communities who are unduly burdened by the
current and historic policies. The delay in releasing the report undermines the
effectiveness of the RET in shaping the 2024 Comprehensive Plan update and
including the voices of impacted communities.
Background and Context
In November 2018 and 2019, the Council passed and dedicated a budget line,
respectively for a Statement of Legislative Intent requesting that the Office of
Planning and Community Development (OPCD), the Department of
Neighborhoods (DON), and the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) prepare a racial
equity analysis of Seattle's strategy for accommodating growth. The intent was
to embed a racial equity analysis into the pre-planning work in anticipation of
the next major update to the Comprehensive Plan. Two reports were requested:
(1) a report released in July 2019 on the proposed scope of work and (2) a
report on the status of the analysis which was initially due in December 2019 and
delayed by COVID as stakeholder engagement that was conducted by Policy
Link, alongside the departments was on-going. The role of the consultant was to
review policies, the Seattle Comprehensive Plan 2035, the Urban Centers and
Villages growth strategy and identify areas for additional work to achieve better
racial equity outcomes through an updated growth strategy and policies in the
comprehensive plan. Throughout the process, there was community
engagement and workshops for input to develop the final report on the findings
of the policy review and giving recommendations for addressing equity in the
comprehensive plan update, with a focus on developing an equitable growth
strategy.

We are eager to review the analysis, on the 1994 Urban Village Growth strategy
that has been treated as a “defacto” growth strategy with no question of how
its origination relates to the historic housing planning policies that exacerbate
inequities. The political and protectionist language of single-family
homeownership shaped the Urban Village Strategy and was baked into the
comprehensive plan. It has continued to be reiterated with each update.
The Seattle Planning Commission’s Neighborhood for All Report1 indicates that
during the 25 years since adopting the growth strategy, the median price for a
single-family home increased dramatically. The median home price in 1990 was
$293,283 (in 2019 dollars), and increased to $723,300 as of early 2019, making it
two and half times more expensive to purchase a home in 2019.During that
same time, median rents across all housing types measured together increased
from $981 (in 2019 dollars) per month to just over $2,500 per month. With the
recent housing price in spikes in 2020 and the economic recession created by
the COVID-19 public emergency, this crisis has only been exacerbated.

We urge the Council to join us in demanding the release of the RET report to
ensure an equity lens to our urban growth strategy. We thank you again for the
opportunity to comment on this critically important issue and we look forward to
working with you on ensuring that Seattle will emerge out of the COVID-19 public
health emergency as a diverse, inclusive, and affordable community for people
of all incomes.

Sincerely,

Housing Development Consortium of Seattle-King County

AIA Seattle
The Urbanist
Futurewise
MOAR
Share the Cities
Seattle for Everyone
Sierra Club Seattle

https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/SeattlePlanningCommission/SPCNeighborhoodsForAllFINALdigi
tal2.pdf
350 Seattle