What's Happening in Kirkland, WA…

Kirkland recently approved an initiative to help tackle the problem of providing affordable housing in the city.

By a vote of 6-1, the Kirkland City Council gave the go-ahead to a pilot initiative to help provide affordable housing for residents. The initiative is a collaboration between the City of Kirkland, and Kirkland Sustainable, which in turn is comprised of Sustainable Kirkland, LLC, and Kirkland sustainable Investments, LLC.

The initiative intends to offer housing units that are generally affordable, and those that cater specifically to employees of the public sector, and the city. The buildings where these units are located belong to Kirkland Sustainable, and are in the Plaza multifamily housing development, which is still under construction, and the Arete multifamily housing development.

In order to make the 23 units at the Plaza available, it was necessary to amend Kirkland's multifamily housing property tax exemption (MFTE) ordinance, which comes under the Kirkland Municipal Code, Chapter 6.88. For the housing units aimed at public sector and city employees, the city manager will execute master leases with Kirkland Sustainable.

The changes to the code mandate that MFTE units need not be required to last for the “life of project,” but only for 12years. In addition, the units are to be priced at or below 80% of the area median income (AMI) for King County. Flyer printing can be used to make residents of the area aware of important information like this.