Drafter
Clerk 08/25/2003
Title
AN ORDINANCE related to subdivisions, extending the effective time for preliminary approval of subdivisions where the majority of the lots are dedicated to affordable housing; amending Ordinance 13694, Section 56 as amended, and K.C.C. 19A.12.020 and declaring an emergency.
Body
BE IT ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF KING COUNTY:
SECTION 1. Findings.
A. Under K.C.C. Title 19A, the majority of preliminary subdivisions expire after sixty months from approval date, unless all conditions of preliminary plat approval have been met and the lots have been recorded.
B. Larger affordable housing projects are typically proposed by nonprofit organizations and tend to rely at least in part on public funds and volunteer services. This often makes it difficult for projects to complete all of their conditions of preliminary plat approval within the sixty-month period.
C. Where these projects have been funded, at least in part with community block grant funds or federal housing funds, it is in the public's best interest to provide these projects with sufficient time to complete the conditions of preliminary plat approval.
D. For example, Covenant Housing Association, a nonprofit housing organization, received preliminary plat approval in August 1998 for fifty-six lots of owner occupied affordable housing.
E. At least seventeen of the units will be affordable to households with incomes between sixty-five and eighty percent of the King County median income. At least another seventeen units will be affordable to households with incomes between fifty and sixty-five percent of median income.
F. Covenant Housing Association obtained seven hundred thousand dollars in federal housing funds in 1998 to acquire the 14.3-acre project site in the West Hill community. King County committed an additional three hundred seventy-five thousand dollars in federal housing funds in 2001, contingent upon the project receiving final engineering ...

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