Research & Analysis: Property Tax Incentives for Downtown Housing Development

Olympia has several tax incentive tools to encourage development of multi-family housing in Downtown Olympia.

What Are the Tax Incentives?

The Historic Properties incentive provides a 10 year tax exemption on improvements to historic properties when the cost of the improvements is equal to at least 25% of the property’s current assessed valuation.  The incentives apply to both residential and commercial space.  The owner must make a written commitment to preserve the historic nature of the building.

The Non-Profit Housing incentive provides an ongoing exemption for properties owned by non-profits dedicated to housing or serving the poor, disabled, aged or veterans.   The non-profit owner must apply for the exemption each year.  The Boardwalk Apartments are an example of housing developed using this incentive.

Research & Analysis: Capital City District FAQ

The proposed Capital City District is a tool to help revitalize downtown Olympia without raising any local or state taxes.  Olympia is a company town.  Unfortunately, that company (state government) doesn’t pay property or B&O taxes.

How would the Capital City District work? Within the district, one cent of the sales tax currently collected by the state would be retained by the city to be spent on revitalizing downtown by making public investments to attract private capital to redevelop downtown.

What would be the boundaries of the district? The City Council and ultimately the Legislature, will decide on the boundaries.  OLY 2012 is suggesting that the District extend from the southern edge of the State Capital Campus to the tip of the Port peninsula and from Eastside Street to West Bay Drive.   This is the area frequented by Legislators and visitors to the State Capital.

Research & Analysis: What Would Wilder & White and The Olmsteads Have Done?

Johnson, Norman J., Washington‘s Audacious State Capitol and Its Builders. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988: 35-37

As you can see, these images clearly show that both designers assumed that the isthmus would be built-out. I say assumed because the book clearly states that the isthmus was not part of the scope of the campus design project – and this was true even for the Olmstead’s project, which was meant to be only landscape design in scope.

So, in all fairness, we do not think this completely answers the question of exactly how the designers would have designed the isthmus; it just shows that they did not assume it would be a park – they assumed it would be built out. In fact, the Olmstead rendering shows a diagonal park corridor between the campus and the edge of the core of downtown (today’s Legion and Capitol, perhaps?), as well as a narrow view corridor through the built-out isthmus, similar to OLY 2012’s vision. It was noted by Johnson, however, that this proposal was deemed unfeasible by the state campus commission because it would have been too costly for the state to buy the land from the private sector that would have made up the corridors. (An important practical reality in mind when debating what to do with the isthmus).