Several new housing related grants are soon to be available from the Department of Commerce. AWC worked with legislative leaders to help create
these grant programs and we hope cities will take advantage of them.
Housing Action Plan Implementation
Grants are available for cities to adopt new housing action plans or to implement strategies from adopted housing action plans. This $5 million grant program continues the work spearheaded by AWC to support cities in addressing their housing needs through
HB 1923.
Transit-Oriented Development Implementation Grants
$2.5 million is available to support transit-oriented development around rail, bus or park and ride assets. The funds can be used for preparation of state environmental policy act (SEPA) environmental impact statements, planned action ordinances, subarea
plans, costs associated with the use of other tools under SEPA, and costs of local code adoption and implementation of such efforts.
Affordable Housing Utility Charges and Connections
$34.6 million is available to support the costs of utility connections, improvements and associated costs for affordable housing developments. Cities must have adopted an optional sales tax or property tax for affordable housing purposes. These include
the recent HB 1406 sales tax credit, the HB 1590 1/10th of a cent sales tax, or the affordable housing property tax level.