League of Women Voters' forum tackles Skagit housing shortage

The challenges of balancing preservation of farmland, forest areas and wetlands with development of affordable workforce housing in Skagit Valley are many and abundantly clear.

Solutions, though, are less apparent and more elusive – but sorely needed, and now.

The Skagit County League of Women Voters brought attention to the issue, organizing a 90-minute public forum in Sedro-Woolley Aug. 21, emphasizing the challenge that has priced working families out of the valley and shrunk the labor pool. Some 100 people attended and more watched on YouTube.

“We focus on solutions,” moderator Elizabeth Jennings of Skagit County Community Action stressed at the start. “This isn’t an official government meeting. We don’t endorse candidates We just bring people here who are knowledgeable.”

The panel featured Sedro-Woolley Mayor Julia Johnson, Paul Woodmansee of BYK Construction, Tina Tate of Skagit Habitat of Humanity, John Janicki of Janicki Industries and state Rep. Sam Low of the 39th Legislative District.

Johnson noted that home construction prices have risen post-pandemic in part because of interruptions in the global supply chain. Permit delays and building codes mandating energy efficiency are also factors in rising home costs, she said.

She presented statistics showing that one-third of Sedro-Woolley residents are cost-burdened, with their housing expenses at 50 per cent or more of their monthly budget – a trend likely present elsewhere in the county as well.

And she cited inflation as a cause for hikes in housing prices.

“Wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living,” she said. “And we have more units for sale than for rent.”

Shortages in workforce housing create a ripple effect of conditions that plague communities, said Johnson, including difficulty in attracting workers, higher property taxes and increased traffic.

As in La Conner, Johnson said Sedro-Woolley is interacting with Skagit Habitat for Humanity and revising its comprehensive plan to better accommodate accessory dwelling units (ADUs).

Janicki, a lifelong Sedro-Woolley resident, said the housing crisis is “a national problem” linked to unfavorable interest rates and banking regulations. He said jurisdictions all too often discourage new housing starts with restrictive zoning.

“If you say, no, let’s keep it the way it was 50 years ago,” he asserted, “you’ve got your home, but your kids won’t be able to live here.”

Janicki lamented the rise of homelessness in America.

“We have a major housing problem,” he said. “People are living in trailers and RVs, many of them illegally. It’s just a travesty.

“The free market could develop units quickly,” Janicki insisted, “if we didn’t have so many regulations.”

Woodmansee, whose company has built over 1,000 housing units in Skagit and Snohomish counties, said housing is a supply and demand business.

“The more housing you have,” Woodmansee said, “the cheaper housing gets.”

Voters can do their part to solve the housing problem, he said.

“We must build more housing to bring costs down,” said Woodmansee, “but we continue to vote for measures and candidates who don’t encourage housing development.”

Government regulations add significantly to home construction costs, Woodmansee said.

Tate offered a wider picture, pointing out housing shortages and elevated home costs adversely affect entire communities.

“Children suffer,” she explained, “because parents are stressed out having to work extra hours so they can’t help with things like homework.”

Income inequality leads directly to housing insecurity, said Tate.

“A lot of people,” she said, “don’t make enough to buy a home or even to rent one.”

Low, representing eastern Skagit and Snohomish counties, serves on the House of Representatives Housing Committee. Crafting legislation to meet a statewide housing problem can be hard because communities vary in their specific needs.

“Olympia can be a very complicated place,” Low said. “There’s a lot of chess playing going on in Olympia.

But he said lawmakers have acted in a bipartisan manner to address workforce housing, in particular. Low said legislators have supported earmarking a portion of sales tax revenue for workforce housing. He has also advocated for rural ADUs “to let people stay on their farms.”

The path forward requires collaboration, Johnson said.

“We want people to walk away from here with hope,” she said. “We can do it if we come together.”

Cottage houses, which have been proposed for La Conner and utilizing residential units above retail stores, which is already the case here, were promoted as strategies to help mitigate housing shortages.

Low perhaps framed the situation best.

“We don’t want our kids and grandkids to live in the cheapest place they can find in Eastern Washington,” he said, “just because we don’t have any place for them here.”