The Building Industry Association of Clark County held a luncheon Thursday and Lt. Gov. Denny Heck, who grew up in Vancouver, was the keynote speaker, discussing challenges for the building industry and giving his ideas on how to overcome those challenges

Paul Valencia
Clark County Today

Washington Lt. Gov. Denny Heck returned home to Vancouver on Thursday to give a presentation on the need for more housing.

His audience?

Those who build homes.

Heck was the keynote speaker at the Building Industry Association of Clark County’s legislative update at Heathman Lodge. He opened with descriptive language to drive home his point on the state of housing in Washington, and also gave three ideas on how to improve the situation.

“Let me begin with a statement of the obvious: We have both a chronic and severe shortage of housing. Chronic and severe,” Heck said.

“We are watching the American dream of home ownership disappear. That’s not hyperbole.”

Heck noted that in 1992 the average age of a first-time homebuyer was 28. Today, the age of the average first-time homebuyer is 40.

“We need about a million additional homes in the next 20 years and we’re not … anywhere near that,” he said.

“We’re behind. We’re way behind. And we’re falling even farther behind. To put it bluntly and very directly, we have an urgent problem before us. We are not responding with anything resembling a proportional sense of urgency.”

Since the Growth Management Act was adopted in 1992, Heck said, the state’s population has grown 60 percent.

“Home construction has been caught in an ever tightening vice grip,” he said, noting that homebuilders can’t build outside the urban growth boundary, and it is tougher and tougher to build in cities. Costs and fees are making it difficult for builders to create more starter homes, for example.

“This problem’s only going to be solved when the private sector is sufficiently incentivized to invest. Period. Full stop,” he said.

He wants local and state officials to make it easier on the builders. He said all forms of housing are part of an “ecosystem” where all are connected. More starter homes, for example, would lead some to leave apartments, freeing up more space for low-income families.

“More supply leads to lower costs,” he said.

He presented three ideas to the BIA crowd.

“We’ve got to build a movement,” Heck said. “A coalition … to promote the goal of building more homes of all kinds for all of our neighbors.”

He asked to support the governor, Bob Ferguson, in the goal of creating a state Department of Housing, a department with the mission to build more homes.

“You want more homes? Make it somebody’s job to get them,” Heck said.

He also wants a starter home initiative campaign. While all homes have a place in the housing ecosystem, Heck believes starter homes are the lynchpin to fix the housing crisis. The lack of starter homes has slowed down the entire market, he said. Young people can’t get started and boomers can’t downsize, and the market gets stuck.

Heck opened his remarks by thanking the builders.

“Being invited here today also gives me a chance to thank you,” he said. “Thank you for your work day in and day out to provide folks with the most basic need that they have: a place to call home,” Heck said.

Heck, who grew up in Vancouver and graduated from Columbia River High School back in the day, appreciated the invite.

“This is home. I don’t need much of an excuse to come home,” he said prior to his presentation.