Now that the recording is in progress, welcome to the City of Everett Parks and Built Environment Council Committee meeting of August 13th, 2025.

We're here in the Everett City Council chambers.

We only have one item on our agenda, and I bet it will be awesome because it's about housing.

So I will tell you what that is.

And it is the housing strategy briefing from staff.

And it looks like we have some awesome staff without name placards.

So I'm going to allow you to introduce yourselves so I don't get it wrong.

Take it away.

Good afternoon.

I am Julie Willie.

I'm the community development director.

And Frank Hong, our housing project manager is here with us today.

And he's going to get most of the airtime.

And so you will have the pleasure of learning from Frank and the work that he has done over the course of the last what year and a half to really look at what we've done around housing in the last several years regarding rethinking housing in regards to housing directives and housing for all, certainly in regards to our 2044 comprehensive plan and our consolidated plan to address the individuals in need.

And every one of those reports obviously has pointed to the direction of housing.

So Frank, alongside of that work, has been really trying to understand what other opportunities exist within the city of Everett and within our region, our state, and our federal environment, as well as building partnerships and relationships and strategizing.

And so tonight we've asked Frank to share kind of his vision for our 10-point strategy, a framework by which we will kind of bucket all of our future housing work into.

And then next, probably at a council full in the full briefing, kind of talk a little bit more specifically about the initiatives that he also or we also have been working to move um move forward.

So I think it'll be an opportunity for you to learn and to ask questions and to kind of co-create.

And then hopefully we can quickly move into action for 2026.

So with that, Frank Hong Share.

Thank you, Julie.

Oh, sorry.

I forgot one more thing.

Another thing that we're doing kind of internally as a staff team is working to kind of better align our community planning and economic development efforts.

So we've kind of moved some of Frank's work a little bit closer to community development because he's already really aligned with planning and has a great relationship with the planning department.

But we wanted to also remember the funding and the affordability and our other residents that were also working to ensure shelter and housing options for all.

So that's been a really cool opportunity, as well as thinking about it from economic development level.

So Frank kind of like floats through all three of our divisions to really bring you know housing as a united force.

So that's just also something we wanted you to note.

Now I now I've remembered everything.

Thank you very much, Julie.

One second.

Okay.

Well, good afternoon, everyone.

Good to see you all again.

Uh, here today, uh, we're just going to provide you with a sort of very high-level introduction to the next five-year housing strategy that we're working on as a department.

It's still in a very draft phase, and uh, hopefully through the next few months, we'll get something prepared at the end of this year to take it into 2026.

The strategy.

Oops.

The strategy uh comprises two main components, a long-term housing strategic uh strategic housing framework that uh will govern our sort of roadmap for housing for there's really no timeline to that.

And in addition to that, there's more targeted action items that will come back again at Julie mentioned in September to discuss further.

So I wanted to ground you.

I'll go into details of each of these pillars uh later on, but just wanted to help everybody anchor uh what we're talking about today.

And this is the strategic framework that I mentioned, consists of 10 pillars that's pretty comprehensive and cohesive, and there are 10 pillars that are in many ways interrelated to support a thriving and sustainable housing environment for Everett.

But before we get into those, each individual pillar, I also just wanted to take a step back and help you understand how we sort of came to this uh place.

As you all know, housing is a foundation for so many other issues from public safety, public health, education, community and social cohesion, economic mobility and infrastructure and transportation and each one of these again, vitally important.

You need housing to have safe place to stay, housing so that when you have a safe place to stay, you can pursue your educational goals, et cetera.

So understanding that housing is so critical in so many ways, I think is a good reminder for us as we move forward because oftentimes we get caught up in maybe just the numbers, thinking housing is just a supply, but it just it's so much more.

And um, short speaking to the choir here, you all you folks know that.

Also, with this strategy, what's coming into it from a comprehensive perspective, but it's also grounded on data.

And I could present a lot of different types of data, but I'm sure you've heard a lot from Chris Collier and many other folks that have come before you.

But some of the key data points that again sort of expresses that urgency that we're approaching is that Everett is expected to grow to 179,000 approximately population-wise, which is 57% more than uh 2020, uh, when this was based on or 2024.

At the same time, that population needs housing.

And so we have a big challenge ahead of us in producing nearly 38,600 units of additional housing in addition to 2,400 beds.

And these are generally like the temporary uh beds for emergency assistance um shelter, et cetera.

We also have not just limited Everett, but region wide.

There's a growing housing on abordability issue.

Um in 2023, our last census numbers of 58% of Everett's residents in the rental market suffered from cost burdens.

So again, there are big challenges ahead of us.