⛪ Could a church be your landlord?

What To Do With Church Land As Congregations Decline?

Seattle is one of the country’s least religious cities, and as church attendance has steadily declined, local churches are rethinking their role in the community. Religious institutions of all faiths own about 1% of land in Seattle, and with the help of a local organization, some are reimagining their land as multi-use space, affordable housing, or gifting their deeds away entirely. We discuss all this in-depth on today’s podcast. [🎧 City Cast Seattle]

• The Faith Land Initiative: The Church Council of Greater Seattle began this initiative to address two circumstances they were witnessing in the community: predominantly white congregations were experiencing decline and were asset-rich but often lacked visions for their future; and communities of color had the vision but often lacked access to capital, space, and assets. So, the Church Council began stewarding cohorts of church leaders through decision-making about what to do with their buildings and land in a way that would meet these needs. [🎧 City Cast Seattle]
• Affordable housing on church land: Churches sometimes opt to build affordable housing, and state law supports this. In 2019, the state legislature passed HB 1377, which required cities to allow additional density for affordable housing developed on property owned or controlled by a religious organization. The affordable housing must be reserved for low-income households with incomes under 80 percent of the area's median income for at least 50 years.
• Gifting away deeds: Sometimes churches opt to redistribute their land entirely. In 2022, the Seattle Mennonite Church, in partnership with the Church Council, signed the deed for their historic eight-bedroom house on Capitol Hill over to the Trans Women of Color Solidarity Network (TWOCSN). The Mennonite Church purchased the house for $30k, and when they gifted it to TWOCSN, it was valued at about $2.5 million. TWOCSN says the house will be the permanent home for the House of Constance, named for a core member who passed away in 2022, and will provide housing and services for around 10 BIPOC trans women and femmes.

💸 Where do the millionaires' tax dollars go? On Monday, Gov. Ferguson signed the millionaires tax (SB 6346) into law, enacting a 9.9% tax on individual earnings over $1 million annually. The tax will be fully in effect in the 2030 fiscal year, when it’s expected to bring in $3.7 billion. About $1 billion, or 28%, of that total will go toward tax relief, and another 5% will go toward early education and child care subsidies. The law also expands eligibility for the Working Families Tax Credit. [Seattle Times]

🏘️ Housing surges around Judkins Park station: Over the weekend, the much-anticipated 2 Line and two new stations opened to the public. In the eight years leading up to this opening, more than 2,000 units of housing were built around the station. Another 900 or so are in the works. Just one of these projects, called Grand Street Commons, includes more new housing than Mercer Island has added near its just-opened station in the last 16 years. [The Urbanist]

🥤 Starbucks’ 'widely recyclable’ cups still go to landfills: Earlier this year, Starbucks announced that its ‘to-go cups are entering a new era of recyclability.’ But, reporting from Grist shows the recycling rate for plastic cups like the ones used by Starbucks is 1 or 2 percent. These cups are made from polypropylene, which is hard to sort and expensive to process — meaning recyclers don’t want it. [Grist]