The City of Sammamish has taken an important step toward improving housing feasibility and encouraging the construction of new homes by adopting significant amendments to its Inclusionary Affordable Housing Program.

Approved by the Sammamish City Council on August 18, the changes reduce affordable housing fee obligations for many projects while preserving the City's affordable housing requirements. The reforms reflect a growing recognition that increasing housing affordability requires policies that not only support affordable housing but also make it feasible to build new homes.

Throughout the process, MBAKS’s position has been clear, “You don’t make it less expensive to buy a home by making it more expensive to build a home.”

What Changed?

The Council adopted several key reforms intended to improve flexibility and support housing production, including:

• Increasing the exemption threshold from 1,500 square feet to 1,750 square feet.
• Creating a full exemption for residential additions and expansions.
• Allowing unit-size averaging for multi-unit developments.
• Applying affordable housing fees only to square footage above 1,750 square feet.
• Creating an exemption for involuntary reconstruction, such as rebuilding after a fire or other qualifying loss.

The Council also directed that the newly adopted exemptions be applied retroactively to January 1, 2025, creating refund opportunities for qualifying applicants who have already paid into the program. Projects currently under review may also benefit from the updated regulations.

Why It Matters

Housing affordability isn't improved by regulations alone. It also depends on whether we can make it economically feasible to build more homes.

When fees, regulations, and development costs become too burdensome, projects quickly move from risky to financially infeasible. When projects don’t pencil, homes don’t get built and communities lose both market-rate and affordable housing opportunities.

Sammamish's reforms will reduce some of those costs and are a step in the right direction to improve project feasibility for new housing.

The impact can be significant. A four-unit development consisting of 2,500-square-foot homes would have seen affordable housing fees reduced from approximately $344,500 under the previous rules to approximately $103,350 under the newly adopted regulations, a reduction of roughly 70 percent.

This is a meaningful improvement in project feasibility.

Affordable Housing Requirements Still Apply

Importantly, the Council's action does not eliminate Sammamish's affordable housing program.

Projects that trigger the City's on-site affordable housing requirements must still provide those affordable units. The reforms did not eliminate affordable housing obligations, but rather created a better balance between affordable housing goals and the financial realities of housing development.

A Step in the Right Direction

MBAKS appreciates the Sammamish City Council's willingness to revisit the program and make meaningful adjustments that support housing production.

The adopted reforms are expected to reduce barriers to development, encourage additional investment, and support the creation of both market-rate and affordable housing in Sammamish.

More work remains

Housing affordability remains one of the region's greatest challenges, and additional work will be needed to address permitting timelines, development costs, and other regulatory barriers.