PSRC Leveraging Federal Funds to Limit New Housing

At an annual joint meeting of the City of Black Diamond, The City of Enumclaw and the Enumclaw School District, Black Diamond Mayor Carol Benson disclosed that her city had to reduce the amount of housing it planned in its Comprehensive Plan because of pressure from the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) that placed the city’s access to federal transportation funding—controlled by the PSRC—in jeopardy if the city failed to do so.

Several years ago, the PSRC made a similar demand upon the city of Covington and other small cities adjacent to Interstate-90 in East King County, to reduce the amount of housing added in their comprehensive plans. The PSRC created a “certification” process. The agency said that if the PSRC chose not to “certify” a city’s comprehensive plan (regarding housing supply), the PSRC would cut off access to federal transportation funding. That would create a significant hardship for small cities, because funding almost any transportation project now requires multiple sources of funding, including federal funds. To exert leverage, the PSRC treated countywide housing targets as “maximums,” even though the targets are “minimums” under state law. The effect of minimizing the amount of housing “farther out” might potentially provide a strong-arm justification to keep more of the federal monies for projects closer to downtown Seattle.

In response to Mayor Benson’s comments at the annual three-jurisdiction meeting, REALTORS® obtained a commitment from Covington City Manager Regan Bolli to reach out to Mayor Benson and discuss how Covington was able to nullify the prior effort in the middle of a Housing Crisis that has only grown worse since the last time the PSRC put pressure on cities to reduce the supply of housing.