The Issues
Advocating for better housing policy brought me to politics, and to an understanding of how it underpins each and every one of our other policy goals. When you understand how integrally housing is connected with climate resilience, financial sustainability, transportation, community, homelessness, schools, and even supporting small businesses and better health, it becomes clear that in order to create a better outcome for our community, we have to start focusing on the cause, and not the symptoms.
Housing
For most of us, the biggest expense each month is housing, and the cost keeps going up. We’ve already priced countless residents, both former and potential, out of the community, and we haven’t taken meaningful steps to promote actual affordability for our residents. In fact, we keep going backwards. Kenmore has pledged to work on affordable housing, which serves 80% of Area Median Income (AMI), but a thriving and diverse community provides housing that residents at every income level can afford. Crafting our zoning codes to create the variety of housing types and prices that our community needs is vital to the future success of Kenmore, and we need to elect leaders with experience in housing in order to meet this goal.
Financial Sustainability
Over half of our General Fund revenue comes from property tax and sales tax. With the City facing a financial cliff, our options are limited: raise taxes on our existing residents, cut services, or find a way to sustainably raise our future revenue potential. The way that we encourage or restrict development today will have long-lasting impacts not only on our housing affordability and availability, but our budget as well. By utilizing smart, data-driven development planning, we can increase our General Fund revenues, decrease cost, and create a sustainable financial future.
Climate Resilience
Our two largest sources of emissions are residential energy and on-road vehicles, both of which are directly impacted by our housing policy. As our region grows, and people need somewhere to live, creating denser development closer to where we work shortens commute time, reduces traffic congestion, and dramatically reduces emissions. As new homes are built, we have the ability to use our building and zoning codes to support the construction of homes with lower energy use, Passive House features, and green building technology.