(The Center Square) – Seattle voters are showing strong support for a new tax on big businesses that would fund the city’s Social Housing Developer, according to initial results from Tuesday’s special election.
Emerald City voters were tasked with deciding whether or not they favored the Social Housing Developer receiving funding and then having to decide between two competing measures to help pay for the public development authority created two years ago with the passage of Initiative 135.
Proposition 1A would create a 5% tax annual compensation above $1 million paid in Seattle to any employee and would provide more than $50 million per year to the new public development authority.
Proposition 1B, put on the ballot by the Seattle City Council, would allocate about $10 million per year from the city’s JumpStart Payroll Expense Tax. The arrangement would expire after five years.
According to initial results from King County Elections, 68% of voters are in favor of funding social housing in the city. Nearly 58% of voters approved of Proposition 1A over Proposition 1B.
Social housing is housing that is removed from market speculation, publicly owned and funded, and available to people without income restrictions. Rental rates at social housing units are no more than 30% of the household’s income.
If a tenant’s income were to exceed that income threshold, then said tenant would see their rent adjusted to continue to match the 30% rate. There is no time limit on how long a tenant can stay at a social housing unit.
Proposition 1A is the result of the community campaign House Our Neighbors’ efforts to gain enough signatures to place the measure on ballots. At least 95% of tax revenue would be allocated to the Seattle Social Housing Developer. Up to 5% of the tax revenue would be allocated to administer the tax, but the amount to administer the tax cannot exceed $2 million per year.
House Our Neighbors expects the tax to generate $52 million annually and could fund 2,000 units of social housing in the city over 10 years.
“Last night’s results left no doubt that Seattle voters want our city to act quickly to create permanently affordable social housing for people living on a range of incomes – and we believe that our wealthiest corporations should help pay for it,” Tiffani McCoy, policy and advocacy director at House Our Neighbors, said in a statement emailed to The Center Square. “This is now the second time that Seattle has told its elected leaders, loud and clear, that we want social housing.”
McCoy added that the organization fully expects legal challenge from “corporate interests who sought to defeat this measure.”
She concluded by noting, “Their opposition was never about any of the issues they raised – it was about making sure the wealthiest among us don’t pay a dollar more in taxes to solve the housing crisis.”