The 2015 I-Code update will soon be before the Snohomish County Council for official adoption. What will change going forward are certain fees, notably for fire sprinklers and alarms.

The Federal Way City Council has adopted amendments to its multi-family, senior housing, and special needs housing code to address issues that drove the MF moratorium.

The city of Federal Way has been under moratorium for multifamily development since June of last year, citing the need to reevaluate its zoning standards and MF development code as the driving force. The city has released its proposed amendments to the MF Development Code.

On July 18, 2017, the Kirkland City Council adopted a moratorium prohibiting phased tree retention plans with short plats and subdivisions in the Holmes Point Overlay zone. Effective immediately, short plat and subdivision applications are required to be reviewed through an Integrated Development Plan to show compliance with the tree retention requirements.

At its most recent city council meeting, the city of Bothell deferred consideration of its proposed tree code changes until September at the earliest.

Single-family and multifamily homes are now eligible for a Snohomish County PUD incentive. If Built Green 4-Star is achieved, builders will receive a rebate of $1,200 per house or $300 per multifamily unit.

This week, the Puget Sound Regional Council’s Executive Board heard a presentation on the latest population, housing, transit, and job trends. Not surprising for MBA members, the housing and population gap is wide and growing.

Governor Jay Inslee has signed into law the Master Builders Association’s top priority legislation for the 2017 session, Senate Bill 5254. The bill’s passage represents major progress for our industry on buildable lands.

The Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties has prepared this issue brief to discuss ways we can make housing more attainable and make the Growth Management Act work as intended.

The Housing Affordability Response Team (HART) has forwarded its final report to Governor Jay Inslee with recommendations on how to address the root causes of the lack of affordable housing in our state. This was a critical step towards moving forward recommendations to address many of the lot supply and buildable land concerns that the Master Builders Association has been raising for years.

On Wednesday, July 26, the Snohomish County Council unanimously adopted an ordinance allowing for the administrative approval of final plats. Made possible by the passage this year of Senate Bill 5674, the measure will save members time in the approval process, sometimes stretching to several weeks.

On Monday, July 17, the Mercer Island City Council continued their first reading and discussion related to the residential development code (RDC) update. The Council took up the RDC late in their agenda, leaving little time for the code discussion. It’s likely that they will not adopt the full set of code amendments until mid-September.

This week, the Duvall City Council discussed the moratorium and next steps. The administration and Mayor have recommended the City hold a public hearing to remain in moratorium, pending completion of policy work, including its tree protection, sensitive areas, and transportation plans.

On Monday, the Auburn City Council voted unanimously to be the first local jurisdiction to make the final plat process on long subdivisions administrative, effective July 23, 2017. This change was enabled by MBA-supported legislation.

The city of Edmonds has joined a host of other jurisdictions by adopting new code language to allow fee simple unit lot subdivisions. Your Association has been working with jurisdictions throughout the region to adopt such ordinances.

The Marysville City Council has unanimously approved industry requested code amendments.

In a major win for the MBA, Governor Jay Inslee yesterday signed into law Senate Bill 5674, providing a local option to allow administrative approval of the final plat process.

On Tuesday, April 18, the Duvall City Council voted to extend its 60-day emergency moratorium on residential plat applications and multi-family applications to six months.

The Shoreline City Council recently completed an update to its Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Plan and Park Impact Fee Rate Study that allowed for a maximum park impact fee of $13,723 per new single-family residence. After stakeholder outreach, city staff proposed a 71% fee reduction.

Seattle Times columnist Jonathan Martin recently wrote a column advocating for adopting impact fees in Seattle, arguing that “growth doesn’t pay for growth.” That statement is simply not true.

Your Association will be meeting with staff from the King County Assessor’s office to discuss implementation of HB 1283, which eliminates the requirement that advance taxes must be collected before any document is filed with the county auditor to divide, alter, or adjust property boundary lines.

Snohomish County will soon end the practice of collecting advance taxes on member projects. Your Association is scheduling a meeting with the Assessor to discuss changes in the process to make sure the new procedures are smoothly implemented.

This week, the stakeholder group tasked with exploring changes to Snohomish County’s school impact fee rules concluded its work. Your Association offered three potential changes to the code.

On Tuesday, April 18, the Duvall City Council updated its park impact fee schedule to collect $7,315 for each new single family residence and $6,486 for each new multi-family home.

This week, your Association met with King County Executive staff to establish specific goals for what will be a vesting ordinance. We were pleased to discover that most permits in King County already have codified vested rights. However, the vesting language should be clarified given recent case law, specifically with relation to permits associated with stormwater codes.

Last week, the Washington State Supreme Court issued an important Order Amending Opinion in the stormwater vesting case.

Your Association has been involved in advocacy efforts for increased Career and Technical Education (CTE) funding to high school trades programs. There will be a $200M investment from the state legislature in the next four years to reduce CTE class sizes.

This week, your Association attended the Governor’s Summit on Career and Connected Learning, where Governor Inslee announced establishment of funding to connect industry with instructors and students.