This week, Shannon talks to MBAKS Product Manager Kevin McDaniel about enrolling in GRIP and this year's GRIP refund—our largest ever.

Enroll by June 15

A LEGACY OF BUILDING IN THE PUGET SOUND

Bellevue-based BDR Companies provides investment, development, and home construction in the Puget Sound area. With highly respected backgrounds in the residential development community, BDR executives have been recognized with major industry awards, including national Gold Nugget Awards for building excellence, Builder of the Year (twice), more than 100 industry-wide MAME Awards, and numerous Built Green recognitions.

Todd Bennett is the founder and president of BDR Companies. Prior to that, he was a principal in Bennett Homes for 30 years. In his current role, Todd puts together developer partnerships for BDR’s residential building projects. “Our partnerships mostly build homes. We have two groups: BDR Homes for homes priced under two million and BDR Fine Homes for homes priced over two million.”

MORE THAN 20 YEARS IN THE MBA HEALTH TRUST

Between Bennett Homes and BDR, Todd has been a member of the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties (MBA) for 34 years (once serving as President) and the MBA Health Trust for 21 years. “MBA’s health insurance is a big benefit for us,” says Todd. “We’ve used the Trust from the beginning. All of our employees are on our plan now. We’ve always been able to provide good coverage for them. And it’s affordable for us.”

SIGNIFICANT COST SAVINGS

The MBA Health Trust has provided Todd and his companies with consistently lower premiums. “We’ve looked at other health insurance providers, but we’ve never been able to get the same combination of cost savings plus benefits,” he says. “The MBA plan has consistently been 10-15 percent less cost, even with the big increases in health insurance premiums since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.”

REGENCE BLUESHIELD “KEEPS IT SIMPLE”

Regence BlueShield is the MBA Health Trust’s insurance partner, and Todd has had good experiences with them over the years. “The Regence plan is flexible. So far, we haven’t had a hitch at all on who we can use and what’s covered—even with large medical issues. Regence has covered most everything so far and kept it simple.”

MBA MEMBER BENEFITS ALSO INCLUDE BUILDER ADVOCACY

In addition to the MBA Health Trust, Todd’s long membership in the MBA has helped his business in other ways. Todd says the MBA has a very strong government relations group. “A great benefit to MBA membership is the advocacy role the MBA plays,” he says. “We get a common voice in the industry. Local municipalities listen to the MBA. That’s a primary benefit from a builder standpoint. The MBA gives the builders more of a collective voice. It’s very powerful. The MBA has helped get code changes that benefit the home building industry adopted, for example.”

CITIES LISTEN, PROCESSES ARE EXPEDITED

Todd cites challenges with some cities and how the MBA interceded. “We were having slowdowns with building permits and the MBA got involved and arranged a meeting with city officials. This got the process moving forward quicker.”

Administrative design review processes implemented due to COVID-19 are permitting housing faster. We should consider making them permanent.

Excerpt from design review document for Queen Anne mixed-use Safeway redevelopment

Washington state is experiencing an unprecedented shortfall of housing, coming short 225,000 homes between 2000–2015 to meet housing needs. The Puget Sound region is projected to add 1.8 million more people and 1.2 million more jobs by 2050, which means if we want to accommodate for growth, we cannot afford to stall building.

On April 27, 2020, Seattle City Council passed CB 119769. With COVID-19 rendering the usual community meetings unsafe and projects backing up in the pipeline, this emergency measure allowed projects subject to full design review to opt into administrative design review (ADR) instead.

Developers and builders could choose this expedited process or wait until the design review board resumed business. Under ADR, city staffers, rather than volunteer design review boards, had final approval. Public comments on projects continued through email in a 14-day window. Affordable housing projects were exempted altogether.

SDCI also implemented video or virtual inspections of approved projects, meaning that wait times for land use, permitting, and final inspections have also been streamlined as city staffers continue to work from home.

These streamlined methods meant to alleviate pressures during a health crisis show us that these same expedited processes can also help address our housing crisis.

We have the technology readily available for moving public comments and inspections onto virtual platforms, helping to mitigate costs and ultimately move affordable and missing middle housing through the pipeline faster.

What kind of benefits would a streamlined process produce?

More Affordable Housing

Unnecessary delays add up. The high cost of design review is passed down to renters and buyers alike and can have devastating consequences. Having proposals return for review and comment through multiple meetings, stalling construction for six months to two years, costs thousands of dollars for every month of delay. Multifamily projects that spend less time in design review ultimately end up being less expensive.

For an in-depth look: How Seattle’s Design Review Sabotages Housing Affordability, Dan Bertolet, Sightline Institute

More Housing Types

Exempting affordable housing projects frees up more time for city staff to look over other projects that sit in design review limbo for too long. On top of that, certain housing types, like townhouses and smaller multifamily buildings, could get faster approval processes or be exempted completely based on their size. More housing types means more housing choices means more housing for everyone.

Administrative design review shows us a glimpse of what could be an effective alternative, pending a more intensive design review overhaul in the city of Seattle. Cities looking to address rising housing costs and create efficient permitting processes could—and should—consider eliminating design review altogether.

We understand those concerned about not having a say in how their neighborhoods are designed. We know it’s important for neighbors to come together in shaping their communities. But it should not come at the expense of people having a safe and healthy place to call home.