Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) Program

 See also: Incentive Zoning Program

What Is It?

Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) is a developer contribution. Developer contributions are either a payment or provided benefit in consideration of a proposed project. The City of Seattle requires MHA developer contributions to mitigate the impacts of new development.

To achieve the goal of providing affordable housing in Seattle, development subject to the MHA requirements must contribute to affordable housing as part of most commercial, residential, or live-work projects. This contribution can be provided by including affordable housing units within new development (performance option) or paying into a fund that will support the development of affordable housing (payment option).

A property is subject to the MHA requirements after the City Council approves a City-initiated rezone (legislative) or an applicant-initiated rezone (quasi-judicial) that increases the maximum height or floor area ratio (FAR), or establishes a different zoning designation. The MHA requirements are found in the standards of the zone for legislative rezones, and as part of the Property Use and Development Agreements (PUDA) associated with quasi-judicial rezones (i.e. contract rezones). Most rezoned areas will have an MHA suffix, (M), (M1), (M2) to determine the appropriate MHA payment or performance amount; however, there are some zones where MHA is effective without an MHA suffix.

You can choose to comply with the MHA requirements through the payment option or the performance option.

• The payment option allows you to make a payment to the City as part of the permitting process. Payments are used for low-income housing development.
• The performance option allows you to incorporate affordable units into the proposed development.

Where required, we expect you to document your developer contributions on the plans before we issue a Master Use Permit (MUP) or building permit. Before we issue a building permit, you may also need to provide recorded agreements and declarations to document the ongoing terms of your contribution(s), as well as make any payments.

Several times a year the Office of Housing publishes Notices of Funding Availability for the development of affordable rental and homeownership housing for income-eligible households. The notices describe funding priorities and requirements specific to available fund sources, including payments contributed through Seattle's Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) program. The Office of Housing's Annual Investments Report includes maps showing the location of rental and ownership housing investments throughout Seattle.

Relationship with Incentive Zoning (IZ)

When a project is subject to both MHA and Incentive Zoning (IZ), the MHA program requirements satisfy the affordable housing requirement for the IZ program. Required developer contributions to child care, open space amenities, Transferable Development Potential and Rights (TDP/TDR) and Regional Development Credits (RDC) must still be provided via the IZ program.

Read the Code

Read the Seattle Municipal Code (SMC) section MHA provisions, SMC 23.58B and SMC 23.58C.

CPI Mandatory Housing Affordability Payment Adjustments

Please note the Land Use Code (SMC 23.58B.040 and 23.58C.040, respectively), requires the payment calculation amounts to be adjusted annually. The commercial and residential / live-work MHA requirements direct us to use the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to make these adjustments on March 1 of each year in proportion to the annual change for the previous calendar year in the CPI. The payment calculation amounts for your project depend on the date your project vested to the Land Use Code (SMC 23.76.026). You may need to know the zone, MHA suffix, and MHA payment and performance area (see Map A for SMC 23.58B.050 or 23.58C.050), or a combination of these to determine the correct payment calculation amount.

The tables below show the CPI adjusted amounts including the initial dollar amounts adopted in the code and the present amounts. For previous year’s amounts please see the Historical MHA payment amounts.

*Due to code changes effective April 19, 2019, the payment calculation amount may be different for your project. Please see your Zoning reviewer for more information.**  

Table 1: Adjusted Payment Calculation Amounts for Chapter 23.58B - Commercial Requirements in Downtown, SM-SLU, and SM-U Zones

Table 2 - Adjusted Payment Calculation Amounts for Chapter 23.58B - Commercial Requirements OUTSIDE Downtown, SM-SLU, and SM-U Zones

Table 3 - Adjusted Payment Calculation Amounts for Chapter 23.58C - Residential and Live-Work Requirements in Downtown, SM-SLU, and SM-U 85 Zones

Table 4 - Adjusted Payment Calculation Amounts for Chapter 23.58C - Residential and Live-Work Requirements OUTSIDE Downtown, SM-SLU, and SM-U 85 Zones

Resources:

• Historical MHA payment amounts
• Read Tip 257, Developer Contributions - Mandatory Housing Affordability for additional information.
• Research specific records through our Seattle Services Portal.
• Office of Housing's MHA webpage.
• Submit questions related to Land Use Code requirements and floor area calculations to the zoning reviewer assigned to the project. If the site does not have an assigned zoning reviewer, direct your inquiries to our Send Us A Question tool.