Call For The Release of The Racial Equity Toolkit Analysis Report
Editor’s note: Sierra Club Seattle Group recently signed on to this important letter from the Housing Development Consortium, which we share here to amplify our call.
June 22nd, 2021
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
350 Seattle
