New apartments are built, but renters can’t get in. Here’s what is causing the logjam in Seattle

In 20 new apartments in the Central District, the appliances were inside and the paint was dry, but the doors weren’t open to tenants.

Developer Ken Tousley was still awaiting an inspection from the Seattle Fire Department for the addition of this building, one of the final steps required to rent the new apartments.

Email updates told him he was 57th in queue in town, and a few days later, mysteriously, he was 72. He felt better when he got an appointment on the books but said it was that day was canceled on which the inspector called in sick.

“You don’t build buildings to keep them empty,” said Tousley, who was in an empty apartment this month.

The city has been working on a backlog of requests for firefighter inspections, an important step in getting the final OK for a new building to be occupied. The department blames a spate of recent retirements just as the local construction industry was recovering from the pandemic and projects were nearing completion.

“We all crossed the finish line at the same time, which puts even more strain on the office,” said Tim Munnis, deputy head of the fire department.

For those building new homes, the delays were the last in a string of headaches that went well beyond the fire department.

The time it takes to get city permits has increased in recent years. Pandemic issues in the supply chain have added a number of new complications.

“It’s this cascading effect of unforeseen conditions,” said Jason Manges, construction director for the Beacon Development Group.

The company is working on ʔálʔal, an 80-unit Chief Seattle Club housing estate in Pioneer Square that was originally scheduled to open in early October. (ʔálʔal means “home” in Lushootseed). The project had long periods of time to get supplies and city power before a fire inspection could take place, Manges said.

The apartments will house people with homelessness, some of whom are now living in Chief Seattle Club accommodations.

“If we could house them, we could get more people off the street and into shelters,” said Derrick Belgarde, Seattle Club’s chief executive director.

For Seattle renters, the rental market has become expensive and competitive again after a temporary respite at the start of the pandemic. Although Seattle has seen a construction boom in recent years, jobs have been added faster than new housing units, driving rents and competition higher.

“It costs people money, but it really slows down housing availability,” said Andy Fawcett, project manager at Hybrid Assembly. His company had waited a little over a month to get a fire marshal inspection of a 15-unit apartment building in Beacon Hill this fall, he said.

Builders say fire inspections that they used to take in a week or two can now take a month or more.

The Seattle Fire Department says it’s better an average of 24 days from request to inspection. Pre-pandemic inspections typically took place within 10 to 15 days, a spokesman said. (The department was unable to provide accurate comparisons due to a new planning system introduced this spring.)

The department typically relies on seven to eight inspectors to inspect new builds, but six seasoned inspectors have retired in the past 14 months, SFD spokeswoman Kristin Tinsley said.

At the end of last month, the fire department had more than 200 requests for inspections that needed to be scheduled. The fire brigade completed most of this queue and planned 380 inspections for the rest of the year. (The department was unable to provide any comparable figures for the past few years.)

“Our inspectors’ calendars are pretty full for the next 24, 26 days and beyond,” Munnis said.

After the pandemic initially paused many construction projects, “each project started again at exactly the same time,” said Munnis.

Munnis said he expected waiting times to improve but could not estimate when that might happen.

With few inspectors and others in training, the city is prioritizing “city-designated affordable housing projects, hospital projects and housing for the uninhabited,” Tinsley said.

Community Roots Housing initially expected to wait months for an inspection of a nearly century-old building in Belltown that the organization had renovated. Then the city prioritized the project because it was affordable housing and increased the inspection, spokeswoman Jessica Sherwin said.

An inspector arrived at Tousley this week, more than six weeks after a subcontractor first requested the inspection.

Marketable homes rent for about $ 1,600 per month for one-bedroom apartments and about $ 1,900 for two-bedroom apartments, he said.

“The city needs workers’ housing,” he says.

Developer Jake McKinstry said he recently waited several weeks to get an inspection on a 176-unit apartment building that is also said to be home to an Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic near the Othello light rail station.

In addition to marketable housing, 40% of the building will be affordable for those earning 80% of the median income in the area or less, around $ 65,000 for an individual.

“I have great compassion for her,” McKinstry said of the city. Still, “it adds a real level of uncertainty”.