Amazon, Sound Transit Launch Affordable Housing Partnership

SEATTLE — Amazon and Sound Transit announced a $100 million partnership Wednesday, with plans to speed up construction for 1,200 new affordable housing units on unused property near light rail stations.

In a joint news release, Amazon said the first $25 million would fund "pre-development activities," like engineering and permitting, with the $75 million earmarked for construction costs. As the Seattle Times reports, Amazon will provide the latter amount in the form of low-interest loans for developers, which are immediately available.

The partnership in Puget Sound is part of Amazon's broader "Housing Equity Fund," which pledges more than $2 billion for affordable housing projects, aimed at creating more than 20,000 units in regions it has a presence in. Previously announced investments include millions in loans and grants for affordable apartments in Bellevue, where Amazon plans to add another 25,000 workers by 2025.

Sound Transit's East Link extension is on track to open in 2023, extending light rail service another 14 miles and linking Seattle with Bellevue and Redmond.

"In the first six months, Amazon's Housing Equity Fund has committed over $285 million to accelerate the creation and preservation of an estimated 2,000 affordable homes for the Puget Sound region," said Catherine Buell, Amazon's head of community development. "Housing and transit are intertwined and this latest commitment will help ensure families from all income levels will benefit from the build out of mass transit — greater affordability and equitable economic opportunity, easy access to daily needs, and the environmental benefits of reduced traffic congestion and car reliance."

Sound Transit said it has designed or built more than 1,500 affordable housing units on its surplus properties to date. Amazon's financial boost will allow it to expedite efforts regionwide.

"Increasingly we are facing an affordable housing crisis across the entire Puget Sound region, and Sound Transit is expanding rail service into communities that are becoming less and less affordable for working families," said Peter Rogoff, Sound Transit's CEO. "We have a forward-leaning policy of partnering with developers to facilitate affordable housing near our stations, but obtaining the necessary funding to build those units has always been a challenge."

Amazon's housing fund is tailored to provide options for households making between 30 and 80 percent of the median income. In Seattle, Tacoma and Bellevue, Amazon said that means a household of four earning less than $95,520 per year would qualify.