Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed ten housing bills into law this week. The bills aim to boost housing supply in a state where the median home price is $562,936, well above the country median price of $375,700. Washington has to add around 1 million homes in the next 20 years to catch up with its population growth, according to the State Department of Commerce. The state now allows multifamily housing in more neighborhoods in almost every city, eliminating single-family zoning. The law mandates cities with a population between 25,000 and 75,000 to allow duplexes and over 75,000 to allow fourplexes in all residential areas. House Bill 1474 seeks to address the history of racial discrimination in homeownership. The bill claimed over 40,000 property deeds in the state had racially restrictive covenants. For a long time, these covenants have prevented anyone who was not white from owning a home and creating generational wealth. The bill creates a down payment assistance program for people from these marginalized communities. According to the National Association of Realtors, 33.4% of Black owners spend more than 30% of their income on housing, while White owners spend 23.1%.
The assistance is available to people who lived in Washington before the Fair Housing Act was implemented in 1968 and were affected by the racial covenants. Their descendants would qualify for low-interest or no-interest plans. The bill allocated $150M for the assistance program for the next two years. The year, lawmakers approved a $400M investment in the Housing Trust Fund to finance affordable housing projects. The money will be used to pay for 3,000 new rental homes and provide homeownership assistance to 250-400 households. Lt. Gov. Denny Heck said more housing bills were passed of consequence than in any other legislative session. Lawmakers have called it the year of housing. Highlights from other bills signed into law:
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