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Lawsuit Challenges Seattle’s Mandatory Housing Affordability Law—A Law That Makes Building Housing Unaffordable
Institute for Justice ^ | 12/15/22 | J. Justin Wilson

Posted on 12/22/2022 10:00:41 AM PST by Pining_4_TX

SEATTLE—Today, a Seattle family partnered with the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm, to file a lawsuit challenging the city’s Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) ordinance—a law that makes it too expensive for them to build housing on their own property.

At the center of the case is Anita Adams. She’s a lifelong Seattleite who grew up and raised a family in the city’s Central District. With Seattle’s housing costs remaining stubbornly high, Anita’s two children cannot afford to live near her. That didn’t sit right with her, so she started to dream about building an addition to her property with room for her two kids and father-in-law. But when she started to research the process, she determined that although the city’s zoning-code made her plans permissible, the MHA effectively made it too expensive to build her addition: the law could force her to pay more than $75,000 in fees just to get a building permit. That made Anita’s dream unattainable.

“No one should have to pay tens of thousands of dollars in extra fees to build an addition to house their family,” said Suranjan Sen, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, which represents Anita and her family. “It is a measure of the city’s lack of understanding of basic economics or even common sense, that a law claiming to lower the cost of housing actually makes housing prohibitively expensive.”

(Excerpt) Read more at ij.org ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Local News
KEYWORDS: housing; laws; seattle; wa
This law was always intended to favor big developers. As usual, follow the money.
1 posted on 12/22/2022 10:00:41 AM PST by Pining_4_TX
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To: Pining_4_TX

The Seattle water shed is built on hard pan and can only realistically support 1.75 million people. Tops soil is only 1/2” deep - except in a few places, but they were filled and paved over decades ago.

After that number was achieved back in the early 80s, the whole of King county has been on borrowed time.

The much of the city is built on fill, in any case.


2 posted on 12/22/2022 10:08:14 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: Pining_4_TX

partnered with the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm,


https://ij.org/

The goals of the Project on Immunity and Accountability are to:

Roll back qualified immunity.

Defeat the two-track system of constitutional accountability, which treats federal workers preferentially and grants them near-absolute immunity.

Ensure state laws provide an alternative route for individuals whose rights are violated by government officials.

Get America back to its founding principle that where there is a right, there must be a remedy.


3 posted on 12/22/2022 10:10:14 AM PST by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: PIF

Yikes! That doesn’t sound good at all. What happens if they have an earthquake?


4 posted on 12/22/2022 10:11:09 AM PST by Pining_4_TX (The people who do us the most harm are the people who shield us from reality. ~ Agatha Christie)
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To: PeterPrinciple

IJ is one of my favorite organizations. They fight government on behalf of ordinary Americans. They are strong supporters of school choice and to end eminent domain abuse, among other things.


5 posted on 12/22/2022 10:12:43 AM PST by Pining_4_TX (The people who do us the most harm are the people who shield us from reality. ~ Agatha Christie)
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To: Pining_4_TX
"What happens if they have an earthquake?"

Someday it's gonna happen and it'll be a doozy. Cascadia subduction zone. Would not want to be anywhere near there when that happens.

6 posted on 12/22/2022 10:13:41 AM PST by alancarp (George Orwell was an optimist.)
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To: alancarp

That’s awful. My daughter-in-law has family in Seattle.


7 posted on 12/22/2022 10:14:56 AM PST by Pining_4_TX (The people who do us the most harm are the people who shield us from reality. ~ Agatha Christie)
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To: Pining_4_TX

Better question is what happens when Mt Rainer erupts ... lahar (mud) flows will wipe out Tacoma and parts of Seattle not to mention 14,440 feet of mountain falling on them

Earthquake? Seattle area over due for 9.0 quake. See images from the 1964 AK earthquake to get idea, but multiplied many times.


8 posted on 12/22/2022 10:25:28 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: Pining_4_TX
"Anita is a proud, prominent member of the local Black community. Over the years, she has seen how it is increasingly difficult for people in her community (and other historically marginalized groups) to own their own home in Seattle—largely due to city policies that, however well-intentioned, in practice favor those with deep pockets. Upon learning that the city would charge her a $77,000 permitting fee just to build a house for her family, Anita met with other Black homeowners and renters across Seattle who told her similar stories and who, accordingly, are moving away. But Anita is not keen to let the city run her family out of town."

Let me guess which party she has been voting for her whole life? ....enjoy the suck, you voted for it.
9 posted on 12/22/2022 10:30:45 AM PST by qwerty1234
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To: Pining_4_TX

10 posted on 12/22/2022 10:34:26 AM PST by Chode (there is no fall back position, there's no rally point, there is no LZ... we're on our own. #FJB)
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To: Pining_4_TX

The politicians have found another way to sabotage private property. They let you keep the title, the taxes, the mortgage, the maintenance, but tell you what to do with your property.

A little at a time, “private property” is less and less yours and more and more subject to the wishes of the politicians.


11 posted on 12/22/2022 11:13:39 AM PST by I want the USA back (News media not worth camel spit. My pronouns: Who, What, I Don't Know.)
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To: Pining_4_TX
$75,000 in fees just to get a building permit.

She should take the deal, she is getting off CHEAP at 75K, here in Los Angeles County it cost me $100K Just to get my Grading Permit...
12 posted on 12/22/2022 11:28:20 AM PST by eyeamok (founded in cynicism, wrapped in sarcasm)
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To: Pining_4_TX

“No one should have to pay tens of thousands of dollars in extra fees to build an addition to house their family,”

Just a hunch... Being a government employee and black she has supported every crazy democrat progressive scheme ever conceived. It’s like my mom after my dad passed on. She had to pay her own taxes and asked why they were so high and how unfair it was she had to pay them. “BECAUSE YOU VOTED FOR IT!!!”


13 posted on 12/22/2022 11:49:55 AM PST by Organic Panic (Democrats. Memories as short as Joe Biden's eyes)
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To: Pining_4_TX

“city’s Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) ordinance”

Sounds a lot like the “Inflation Reduction Act”

Orwell is smiling in his grave.


14 posted on 12/22/2022 11:54:15 AM PST by aquila48 (Do not let them make you "care" ! Guilting you is how thery control you. )
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To: Pining_4_TX
"No one should have to pay tens of thousands of dollars in extra fees to build an addition to house their family”

Of course not. In a sane world no one does. But unfortunately she lives in Seattle.

15 posted on 12/22/2022 12:34:56 PM PST by Savage Beast (Americans DESPISE the corrupt elites, their media toadies and their corruption of the US government!)
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