SB 5290: Washington State’s Answer to the Housing Crisis

The U.S. is experiencing a national housing crisis – the housing market is short 6. 5 million homes. The county does not have enough supply to meet demand.

In Washington, “more than 25,000 people are living on the street or in emergency and transitional housing across the state, an 11% increase from 2020”. The dream of homeownership in Washington is slipping away for many, as more than 85% of households do not earn enough income to afford a home at the average market price. Prospective buyers must have a minimum of $38,000 to cover closing expenses, while renters typically have only $1,500 saved.

As of July 2021, Washington had 3.25 million homes. According to the Washington Department of Commerce, to tackle the housing crisis, the state must undertake the construction of over 1.1 million homes in the next 20 years. There also needs to be a focus on ensuring that more than half of these homes are affordable for residents in the lowest income brackets.

The State has passed numerous bills to combat its housing crisis, including SB 5290. The Bill encourages local governments to streamline their permitting processes for new housing:

“Senate Bill 5290 seeks to modernize permitting systems, providing grants to update the systems from paper to electronic, provides grants to augment permit review staff, and sets deadlines on when permits must be reviewed by, to be enforced by partial refunds on permitting fees if these deadlines are not met.”

Complex and time-consuming processes play a significant role in slowing down construction projects. Usually, with traditional paper-based or on-premises solutions, governments rarely receive complete applications.

By using online community development software, government staff can force applicants to submit complete applications every time. This saves valuable time that staff typically need to spend chasing down missing pieces of an application. Instead, they can focus their time on higher-priority projects to encourage faster construction.

On average, cloud-based software speeds up building permit issuance by 80%. It also strengthens collaboration between departments, keeps all information in one place, and allows inspections to be performed in the field on any mobile device.

With SB 5290, Washington is sending a clear message to its local governments: prioritizing streamlined housing construction with digital processes will be rewarded and slow processes will be strongly discouraged.

By the end of 2024, Washington is urging all governments to embrace digital processes, or else face dire consequences, like fines. Among these consequences, the most significant one looms large: thousands of Americans are left without a place to call home.