SEATTLE — The campaign to raise $53 million a year to fund publicly owned “social housing” in Seattle submitted just over 37,000 signatures Monday, likely guaranteeing the question a place on the ballot this year or next.
If 26,520 of those signatures are deemed valid by King County Elections, voters will decide whether to tax businesses in Seattle with employees earning over $1 million a year. Revenue from this so-called “excess compensation” tax would go straight to the city’s social housing developer — established by voters in 2023 without any funding source.
The Seattle City Council must now vote to place the measure on the ballot. If they do so before this summer’s primary, it will likely appear on the crowded November ballot. If they delay, it will likely go to a February special election.
When it comes to placing ballot initiatives, the council has only limited latitude in what its members can say or do. But council members can choose to place competing measures on the same ballot, as the council did in 2022 when it put ranked choice voting in opposition to a measure that would have approved a different form of voting.
Tiffani McCoy, spokesperson for the House Our Neighbors campaign, called Monday a “celebratory day.”
“People are really desperate for solutions,” she said. “They’re desperate for more options to address the crises facing our city.”
Voters approved the creation of a new social housing developer in a 2023 special election. The mission of the developer, according to proponents, is to fill the gap between private development and public housing for the city’s poorest residents with homes tailored toward people who earn near the city’s median wage. Modeled after the publicly owned buildings of Vienna, the new housing would be affordable in perpetuity.
However, because of rules requiring ballot measures to only contain a single subject, the 2023 campaign did not include a funding source. As a result, the expectation was the 2023 measure would be shortly followed by another.
If passed, companies would have to pay a 5% tax on every dollar paid to an employee after $1 million. If someone was earning $1.1 million, for example, the company would pay a 5% tax on $100,000 of that salary — or $5,000.
The campaign to establish the social housing developer had no formal opposition. That’s not likely to be true this time around. The Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, in particular, has voiced early opposition to the payroll tax and raised questions about the developer’s readiness.
“If passed, this would be the third increase to the city of Seattle’s payroll expense tax in three years, and coming at a time when downtown’s economy has not recovered and employers are making real decisions about where their employees work,” said Rachel Smith, the Chamber’s CEO.
The developer has struggled to find momentum. Dollars from the city and state to help set up its administration were slow to get out the door, creating a backlog of debt for the developer. It had hoped to have a CEO hired by the end of last year. The board has reportedly extended an offer to a candidate, but has not released that person’s name.
McCoy, who is separate from the developer, said she’s confident the organization will be ready in time for the money to come through the door.
