The Washington State Department of Commerce is seeking applications for its new Housing Action Plan and Implementation Grant program.
The $5 million funding competition was created by the 2021 Legislature to increase residential building capacity in cities. The funding is available for cities to adopt new Housing Action Plans (HAPs) and to implement strategies from adopted HAPs or housing plans by June 2023.
Applications are due by October 7, 2021 at 5 p.m. Cities must be planning under the Growth Management Act to be eligible. Cities with a population over 20,000 can receive up to $100,000 and under 20,000 can receive up to $75,000.
PSRC is finalizing the Regional Housing Strategy, which is intended to be a “playbook” of regional and local actions to preserve, improve, and expand housing stock in the region. The aim is to make a range of affordable, accessible, healthy, and safe housing choices available to every resident and to promote fair and equal access to housing for all people.
Housing has also emerged as a key issue in the update to the Regional Economic Strategy. The strategy will include a section on Regional Growth, which recognizes that the region has a backlog of 45-50,000 housing units just to accommodate its recent growth and will need approximately 800,000 new housing units by the year 2050.