If we want affordable housing, we simply need to fund and build it.
On Aug. 19, Mayor Katie Wilson issued Executive Order 2026-4 to accelerate housing production. That's good! We desperately need more housing across various income levels and sizes, including options both for rent and for sale. But there's a part of this I find a little disconcerting: the creation of the Housing Production Task Force that can "[recommend] changes to the MHA program that will incorporate lessons from initial implementation."
In July, a proposal backed by the Housing Development Consortium (HDC) and other developers suggested reducing Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) fees by 80% for two years for multifamily projects and 90% for townhomes and smaller projects under 30 units. It was tabled after the mayor and interested groups withdrew support and other affordable housing advocates came out against it. I hope Mayor Wilson and the task force continue to see reason and strengthen this vital source of funding for affordable housing, not weaken it.
MHA isn't perfect. There are lots of costs to developing affordable housing. But cutting MHA fees and depriving affordable housing developers of funding isn't going to speed up housing production. Certainly not for those who are most impacted and least able to endure the crunch of the ongoing housing crisis. In 2025, MHA payment contributions nearly doubled from 2024 to $47 million, according to Seattle's Office of Housing. A total of 3,258 homes (rental and homeownership) supported by MHA funding have completed construction since MHA's inception, with an additional 1,391 units in the pipeline. A total of 343 affordablee homes have been built through the MHA "performance" option, which requires developers to provide income-restricted rental or ownership units for eligible households, and 255 are currently in the pipeline.
Ryan Donohue of Habitat for Humanity Seattle-King County wrote an op-ed in The Urbanist that points to a slowdown in cities and jurisdictions without an MHA-style fee program. A March 2025 report commissioned by the city of Seattle found that while MHA fees may impact project feasibility, a number of other factors have also contributed to the construction slump.
According to the report, the city could mitigate the burden that MHA fees may place on project feasibility by regularly recalibrating MHA requirements to better align with market conditions, adjusting the MHA payment timeline to better align with the development process, and continuing to provide multiple options for complying with MHA. The report also suggests evaluating other ways to incentivize multifamily housing production.
There are several funding sources that go into developing affordable housing, and MHA in-lieu fees generate millions to produce such housing. Removing or severely limiting a major source of financial support for affordable housing would impact the feasibility of those projects to make more market-rate housing possible.
Developers often opt to pay the MHA in-lieu fees instead of using the performance option to build affordable units in market-rate buildings. Those funds, combined with tax incentives, philanthropic funding, support from other public funders such as the state, and low- or reduced-cost land, all play a role in developing affordable housing. Reducing MHA fees by 80% to 90% would be a major blow to affordable housing — especially at a time when the Trump administration is seemingly withdrawing federal funding for programs that prevent homelessness and support income-limited rental housing.
We need a wide range of housing options. Right now almost half of renter households are cost-burdened in Seattle. Increasing the supply of market-rate options is important to provide choices to those who can pay, but for those who are already cost-burdened, MHA fees have created and supported thousands of rental units and hundreds of homeownership units.
Instead of slashing MHA radically and hurting affordable housing production, the task force should consider a wide range of costs and options for changing the fee, including allowing MHA in-lieu payments to happen later in the development process. Let's be real: No one likes fees and taxes, but just cutting them isn't always the answer. A variety of options, from calibrating the fee to a very specific degree to addressing utility costs, would ease the cost burden that developers are concerned about while also continuing to support the creation of units that are desperately needed in this growing city — and could even help ease the affordability crisis felt in the region.
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Cliff Cawthon is a community activist, public employee, educator, and a radio/ podcast host of "The Unmasked Agenda" on Rainier Avenue Radio. Cliff has called Seattle and King County home for 12 years now. In that time he has worked with local labor, progressive, and socialist organizations to fight for a higher minimum wage, funding affordable housing and tenant protections as well as expanding mass transit.
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