Committee hears bill to let more Washington counties use multifamily tax exemption to spur housing in UGAs

The Senate Housing Committee heard testimony on Senate Bill 5,679, which would let any county that plans under the Growth Management Act (GMA) offer the multifamily property tax exemption (MFTE) for qualified projects in unincorporated urban growth areas.

Melissa Van Gorkum, committee staff, summarized the bill and the current MFTE program. Under current statute, MFTE is available to qualifying cities and to certain counties that meet particular conditions (rural county with sewer or county with a higher‑education campus and student population thresholds). The bill removes those narrow county‑only requirements but keeps the condition that the exemption applies only to projects inside an unincorporated area of a county’s urban growth area (UGA). Van Gorkum told the committee…