Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Housing Strategy topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Everett staff outline 2026–30 housing strategy, citing zoning, finance and manufactured-home protections
Summary
City staff presented a draft 2026–2030 housing strategy to the Everett City Council on Sept. 24, outlining 10 policy pillars, about 30 initiatives and next steps including an implementation schedule and funding analysis to return in December or January.
Frank Hong, special projects manager for housing in Everett’s Community Development Department, briefed the Everett City Council on Sept. 24 on a draft 2026–2030 housing strategy that staff say will guide city actions over the next five years.
Hong told the council the strategy is built on a 10-pillar strategic housing framework and a shorter-term work program of roughly 30 initiatives. Major themes include internal governance and coordination, land use and zoning changes, housing finance and accountability, use of innovation and manufactured/modular construction, protections for manufactured-home communities, and measures to reduce displacement associated with planned transit investments.
Why it matters: Housing availability and affordability affect public safety, economic opportunity and risk of displacement as major projects such as the Sound Transit Everett Link extension move forward. The strategy is billed as a road map to coordinate city resources, regional partners and private developers while tracking outcomes and data.
Key elements highlighted by staff
- Internal governance: staff recommended an internal realignment this year and a web portal to centralize housing information for tenants, developers and partners. Hong said the mayor has identified housing as a key city priority.
- Land use and zoning: staff flagged neighborhood planning and major-center work connected to the recently adopted comprehensive plan and noted ongoing neighborhood- and center-level planning to increase housing capacity.
- Innovation and factory-built housing: the city seeks to attract housing manufacturers, test demonstration projects and push workforce development to shorten construction timelines and reduce costs. Hong cited studies showing modular methods can be faster and less expensive and said the city is exploring a Coalition for Advanced Housing Production and an innovation “cluster” that could combine manufacturers, materials research and workforce training.
- Housing finance: staff proposed a more coordinated funding approach with regional partners, an update to how the city distributes housing funds and exploratory conversations with community partners such as LISC on tools like a housing levy.
- Accountability and data: the strategy would complete outstanding items from the Rethink Housing effort and build monitoring and reporting that staff say are currently incomplete.
- Manufactured-home community protections and displacement planning: staff identified work on a manufactured-housing overlay (noted as protections for roughly 10 manufactured-home communities) and modeling tools to assess displacement risk as capital projects such as Sound Transit construction proceed. Hong also proposed considering land banking as a long-term city tool.
Council questions and concerns
Council members asked about which initiatives would expand homeownership and owner-occupied housing versus those targeted to lower-income renters; Hong said regulatory and funding rules typically limit city-supported subsidies to lower-income tiers (generally 80% of area median income and below) and that increasing owner-occupied housing would rely in part on improving permitting efficiency and statewide changes such as condo liability reforms. Mayor Franklin said condo liability law reform is on the city’s legislative agenda.
Other council questions covered timelines (staff said the final strategy and an implementation schedule with funding impacts will likely return in December or January), whether the city will join or create regional coalitions or embed work in existing bodies, the potential reuse of underutilized commercial properties for housing, and clarification of terms such as “social housing” (Hong described social housing as jurisdictions taking a more active ownership role, citing some examples in Europe and pilot efforts elsewhere).
No formal action was taken. Hong said staff will identify final priorities, schedule implementation steps, estimate funding impacts, and return to the council with a more detailed plan in the December–January timeframe.
