Nilu Jenks ran on relaxing zoning rules, accelerating the permitting process, and overhauling Seattle’s troubled mandatory affordability program.
In Seattle’s sole city council race this year, voters in District 5 chose the forward-looking urbanist Nilu Jenks over the more centrist Julia Kang, according to The Seattle Times. Jenks’ victory could prove a surprising win for both homebuilders and people who rent homes.
Much of the campaign revolved around safety, housing costs, and local taxes. Jenks—backed by democratic socialist figures such as state Rep. Shaun Scott (D–Seattle)—advocated policing with less heavy-handed intervention, affordable options for workers, and a more progressive approach to taxation. Kang, a former teacher and banker, pitched herself as the moderate candidate, calling for fiscal discipline from the Council and arguing for a stronger police presence in high-crime areas. Reducing crime was Kang’s top priority, and while she acknowledged affordability as important, it wasn’t the centerpiece of her campaign.
Jenks, by contrast, tackled Seattle’s affordability crisis head-on with a plan to increase the housing supply.
On her campaign site, she identified “Building 1,000 New Units of Affordable Housing” as her top objective. Though the term “affordable” is often tied to government interventions—such as rent controls and publicly funded construction—Jenks has previously supported a number of market-friendly reforms and emphasized them during the campaign.
In a 2023 written questionnaire to The Urbanist, she framed the city’s affordability problem as a shortage of housing. To address this shortage, she proposed “removing restrictive zoning; speeding up the historically slow, costly, and inefficient permitting process; reforming restrictive and unpredictable design review processes; and fixing well-intentioned but counterproductive affordability programs.”
One of those “well-intentioned but counterproductive” programs Jenks wants to fix is Seattle’s Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) program. Initiated in 2017 and broadened citywide in 2019, the MHA requires all new housing projects to reserve rent-controlled units or pay substantial fees into the city’s affordable housing fund.
Fees under the MHA range from $11 per square foot to $50 per square foot, adding up quickly. ChangeWA, a nonprofit “focused on advancing common sense governance,” found that a redevelopment plan for a Safeway site in Capitol Hill would owe more than $8.5 million in MHA fees when construction begins, equating to an 8% rise in construction costs.
In 2025, Christian Britschgi of Reason reported that Seattle’s MHA program added about $36,000 in fees to a local couple seeking to convert their home into a smaller duplex and an accessory dwelling unit. Under the rules, a developer hoping to build four townhomes on a parcel would face $126,000 in housing fees.
The MHA program effectively acts as a tax on new development, steering builders away from costly projects in Seattle. Over the past five years, applications for new multifamily permits have steadily declined in the city; so far in 2026, just 509 new high-density unit applications have been filed, according to the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections. That’s a sharp drop from the 16,000 filed in 2020.
The MHA isn’t the sole factor behind this trend; broader market conditions have cooled development in many cities. Nevertheless, any levy on development hinders the market’s ability to align housing supply with demand, pushing housing costs higher for all residents of the city.
Some Seattle City Council members have recognized this, with Councilwoman Dionne Foster recently teaming up with builders to propose a plan to cut MHA fees by 80 percent for the next two years. Seattle’s democratic socialist mayor, Katie Wilson, postponed that pause on MHA fees, instead forming “a stakeholder workgroup to continue refining the proposal,” according to The Urbanist. Wilson’s decision drew criticism from both Jenks and Kang.
While Jenks has not been precise about every detail of MHA reform, her willingness to challenge the program and her clear intentions to deregulate permitting and zoning helped her secure the endorsement of YIMBY Action, a national pro-housing coalition.
Though it remains to be seen whether she can turn this vision into action, in a city where housing costs keep rising and anti-market approaches seem to proliferate, a progressive councilmember with serious, pragmatic plans to tackle the housing shortfall offers a refreshing alternative.
Natalie Foster
I’m a political writer focused on making complex issues clear, accessible, and worth engaging with. From local dynamics to national debates, I aim to connect facts with context so readers can form their own informed views. I believe strong journalism should challenge, question, and open space for thoughtful discussion rather than amplify noise.