BIAW Bulletin: Feb 22

February 22, 2021

Hey hey hey! Welcome to the Hammer with Himebaugh hosted by the award-winning host, me, Jan Himebaugh. Again, I’m obligated to tell you that this is technically called the BIAW Bulletin, but together we can win this battle and get this thing named what it really should be named. Email: ListenToJan@biaw.com.

Today is fiscal committee cut off – which means bills that cost or spend money that isn’t necessary to implement the budget need to be out of the fiscal committees – which are, in the house capital budget, transportation, finance, and appropriations, in the senate transportation and ways & means.

And then Tuesday starts “floor action.” Again, there is a limited number of legislators actually in Olympia, and floor action mostly virtual – if you want get in on any committee action or floor action – TVW.org is a great access point.

Anyways, this year as the virtual session is incredibly cumbersome; the calendar is allowing an additional week of floor action before the house of origin cutoff.

Unfortunately, even while saying the principles of the virtual session were going to be focused on a limited set of non-controversial issues the legislature is not abiding by its own guidelines – instead we are still talking about a wide variety of issues – from expansive land use requirements, increased energy codes, to capital gains taxes and a host of every bad labor idea that has ever been thought of are all still alive. The minor amount of good or helpful bills is massively dwarfed by the mountain of additional burdens on, particularly small businesses. Here’s a fun (and by fun I mean NOT FUN AT ALL) visualization of the balance.

With that, I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it, please continue to respond to BIAW calls to action to contact your legislator – in these times it’s the best most effective way to show them the real costs and impact these policies would have on housing and access to housing.

we need to drive home that these policy choices impact Washingtonians’ access to housing – the priced out information for 2021 shows that in Washington the average new home costs over $522,000 which means a family needs an income over $122,000 to qualify – and for every $1,000 increased price over 2,500 Washington families are priced out of the market – so when the legislature chooses to add code requirements, uncertainty in land use, limited land supply, add liability, increase the costs of having employees, encourage employees to not show up – all directly impact the cost of a home and limit access to housing.

Thank you again for watching another captivating episode of the hammer with Himebaugh.

Homes start here.

Himebaugh out!