Clyde Hill News: resident HOA efforts trail off; uncertainty on new housing laws continues
Also: Pushing back on Clyde Hill’s budget deficit, and election disinformation starts ahead of candidate registration
This week, some answers to residents’ questions about HOA efforts and the local impact of new housing regulations signed into law this week, along with an update about plans to address Clyde Hill’s long-running budget deficit.
Also below: concerns about disinformation and incivility in our upcoming local election for mayor and two council seats.
And in case you missed it, an unflattering article in The Seattle Times (link) related to the lids above the 520 highway and Clyde Hill, Medina, Hunts Point, and Yarrow Point:
I’ll suggest there’s more going on here than the article covered; before writing about this topic, I’m doing a little more reading.
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Disclaimer: while I am a councilmember on the Clyde Hill City Council, I write this newsletter in my capacity as an individual resident. Any opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily the position of the City. City information and references here are from public sources. I welcome email responses — and if the topic is about City business I will respond from my City email account.
End of “single family zoning”
The gist of questions I’ve gotten from residents about the local impact of new housing laws looks something like this:
“I saw that Gov. Inslee signed the bills into law. Does this mean it’s too late for us to take action to maintain single family housing in our community?”
For context:
The Points Communities (Clyde Hill, Medina, Hunts Point, and Yarrow Point) currently limit residential development to “one single family house + one accessory dwelling unit (ADU).”
Washington State’s new housing laws, intended to help address the housing shortage, appear to lift these local limits on residential development.
For more detail on these new laws, here’s a link to a previous newsletter, “Condos and 3+ homes per lot: the local impact of new state housing laws on Clyde Hill” (link).
Private HOA efforts; caveats
A Seattle Times article reported that some communities will be exempt from the ban on single-family zoning and “continue to be enclaves of single-family homes even as surrounding areas open up to new development.” These communities have private agreements among homeowners — HOAs, or homeowners associations — restricting multifamily development (link).
I wrote about recent local efforts by residents to create similar agreements ahead of the new state laws going into effect here (link).
Again: I’m not a lawyer, this newsletter does not offer legal advice, and I’m writing here in my capacity as a resident to provide a resident’s point of view on local news and issues, not endorsing or sponsoring these efforts.
Answers in the face of uncertainty
Briefly: local HOA efforts appear to have stopped for a variety of reasons.
There may be other local efforts to form new HOAs to maintain single family housing zoning in the Points Communities that I’m not aware of.
More broadly, there are other factors between where we are now and three- or four-plex condominiums appearing in our neighborhood:
Legal challenges to the new laws;
Referendum efforts to repeal one or more of the new laws; and
Efforts to amend and refine the new laws in the next legislative session.
If you’re interested in connecting with people involved in these efforts or an update, please send me mail and I will follow up with you. Out of respect for the privacy of the people involved, I am not publishing that information publicly.
When, not if
Separately, before Clyde Hill issues a permit to a homeowner or developer for denser residential development, the city will need to modify its land use code. The deadline for complying with the state law and modifying city code appears to be sometime in 2024 or 2025, after the city complete its “comprehensive plan update:”
It’s not clear right now what happens if someone submits plans for denser housing after the law goes into effect and before the city updates its land use code.
It’s worth noting that the laws do not require homeowners to increase density.
Housing the homeless in Clyde Hill
The city council approved a new ordinance at its May meeting last week, setting some limits and requirements on permanent supportive and transitional housing efforts in Clyde Hill. The ordinance reflects months of work by the city’s Planning Commission.
(“Permanent Supportive Housing” refers to subsidized rental housing with no limit on length of stay; “Transitional Housing” is similar, just temporary.)
As a result of a 2021 state law, Clyde Hill must permit permanent supportive and transitional housing facilities anywhere it permits residential development.
Pushing back on the budget deficit
The city council “will only consider budget proposals for 2024 that eliminate the city’s future operating deficit,” according to a resolution it passed at last week’s city council meeting by a vote of 4-0, with one member (newly-sworn-in Councilmember Eckel) abstaining.
For context on the city’s budget:
This year’s 2023 Clyde Hill city budget has a planned operating deficit of ~$490K (link).
The 2020, 2021, and 2022 budgets also ran deficits, with expenditures exceeding revenue (link).
The 2019 budget, according to the city administration’s memo at the time, avoided a $340K deficit only because of exceptional revenue related to the Bellevue School District construction projects taking place in Clyde Hill1:
The resolution noted that Councilmembers Steve Friedman and Bruce Jones “provided specific advice and guidance about how to achieve a sustainable balanced budget” and that the council looks “forward to working together with the community and the administration on this challenge on behalf of residents.”
Addressing the gap between revenue and expenditure
The city’s budget reports have many recommendations like the following one from a November 2020 Budget Message from Mayor Klaas (link):
Staff has recommended that Councilmembers work with staff and the community to develop a strategy to deal with this situation long-term. The use of reserves to balance the budget is not a sustainable long-term strategy.
The problem is that the discussion simply never happened — until this year.
Cms Steve Friedman and Bruce Jones spent a few months digging in to the details with staff and made specific proposals over the last few months. The administration responded that more research was needed.
At last week’s city meeting, Cm Friedman asked
“the administration when they will be done with the study so that we can hear their specific plans to operationalize what we’ve all agreed needs to happen.”
The city’s response: “It is a really busy time right now for our finance right now.” (link)
The administration requested the council authorize spending on a consultant to help the process along; the council approved that request, 4-0 (with Cm Eckel abstaining).
Disinformation, ad hominem attacks, and Clyde Hill elections
Eligible residents interested in running for local office will be able to declare their candidacy next week. Ahead of any official entrants, some residents are already concerned about lies, ad hominem attacks, and smear campaigns.
The accusations fly
A resident reached out to me last week saying that he had planned to run for office but decided not to because he did not want to deal with a smear campaign.
I thought he was exaggerating until another resident showed me a blog post accusing a sitting councilmember (and possible mayoral candidate) of:
trying “to limit the flying of the American flag,”
failing “to balance the city budget,” and
“pushing a vote of no confidence” in the mayor.
No. Just no.
These accusations are just nuts. Here are the facts:
A few years ago, the administration proposed limits to flag poles and flags in response to a resident’s decision to block a neighbor’s view by putting up a flag pole and flying an enormous flag. The then-assistant city administrator described the entire effort as a “debacle.” (link) Neither the Planning Commission nor the council set out to limit the flying of the American flag, and no changes to city code happened.
As noted above, the city budget is a collaboration between executive and legislative branches (administration and council). No one councilmember can balance the budget unilaterally any more than the mayor can change city laws unilaterally. Fundamentally, the administrator authors the budget, and the council can only react to it. The 2024 budget is currently in the administration’s court after extensive council feedback.
Last year, all five city council members approved a statement of “lack of confidence in the mayor’s performance.” This unanimous vote came after police officers expressed their “lack of trust” in the mayor and administration (link).
The outlandish claims are from the same local man who expressed concern that the fire department can’t locate fire hydrants (link).
“Bullying tactics” and “lies… to scare residents” is how one councilmember described related efforts to “rile the public up” in an council meeting a few months back.
More sanity, please; less bullying and lies
I’m not sure how to cover blatant misinformation and unfounded ad hominem attacks like this. I’m open to feedback about how to do this better.
On a personal note, I’m saddened to see our local politics dragged down by lies and scare tactics. I hope it dies down before it dissuades any more people from civic engagement.
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Dean Hachamovitch
“By far the most important sales tax revenue source for the City comes from contractors building new homes and major remodeling projects,” according to the city’s website (link).
Clyde Hill collected sales tax on every nail, window, and piece of lumber Bellevue School District had delivered to a Clyde Hill address during the major construction projects at Chinook Middle School (2012) and Clyde Hill Elementary (2018).
The city is using these exceptional surpluses to balance the budget today. More links and graphs about this here (link).