Opponents of Seattle land-use legislation will still be able to appeal to King County Superior Court or the Growth Management Hearings Board.
By Erica C. Barnett
On the narrowest possible vote, the Seattle City Council approved legislation yesterday that will eliminate one of several avenues for opponents to appeal land-use legislation, such as the city’s comprehensive plan. The bill, sponsored by Councilmember Eddie Lin, eliminates pre-legislative appeals to the city’s hearing examiner while still allowing people to appeal legislation to the state Growth Management Hearings Board or to King County Superior Court after it passes.
Currently, hearing-examiner appeals are one of many tools that people and organizations opposed to apartment construction use to delay or stop development.
Yesterday’s four-hour meeting, which I covered live on Bluesky, featured the kind of over-the-top rhetoric that has long characterized debates about housing in Seattle. Public commenters who opposed new housing, mostly older white homeowners, argued that denser housing harms the environment by removing individual trees when homeowners sell their houses to developers (opponents refer to these lawn-based tree removals as “clear-cutting”), and contribute to climate change that kills salmon, orcas, and birds.
Although opponents have repeatedly raised the specter of Seattle turning into New York City (the horror!) the comprehensive plan, currently delayed indefinitely by an appeal that began at the hearing examiner’s office, would in fact allow modest new density in a few dozen small areas citywide, all within a block or two of major transit stops.
One speaker suggested that the city just convert all the vacant commercial buildings downtown into housing and let renters live there. (This isn’t really a new idea: “Solutions” that involve moving all renters into segregated areas are exactly what we have now, with new rental housing mostly confined to highways and busy arterial roads). Another said councilmembers who supported Lin’s appeal reform bill are just like Trump, because they’re taking away the civil rights of local density opponents the same way Trump is taking away the civil rights of Black voters and immigrants.
Councilmember Rob Saka, a former Facebook attorney and Air Force veteran who proposed an amendment to Lin’s bill that would have restored the appeals the underlying legislation sought to eliminate, also invoked “civil rights” in a speech excoriating his colleagues for violating “fundamental due process rights, free speech rights, the right of people to petition their government for redress of grievances. These rights form the bedrock of our democracy, and these rights are enshrined in our Constitution,” Saka said.
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Later, after Lin confirmed with a staffer that there’s no Constitutional right to appeal land-use legislation to a hearing examiner in Seattle, Saka said, “Even if it’s not a right, we heard dozens of people today say, from their perspective, that it is a right.” As I noted yesterday, that is not actually a point—just because a political faction uses highfalutin language about “rights” and “democracy,” that doesn’t mean their feelings trump the law. Allowing property owners to endlessly delay housing for renters by appealing land-use changes is arguably pretty anti-democratic in itself, especially when it halts legislation before the public legislative process can begin.
After Saka’s amendment failed (even Maritza Rivera voted against it), the final vote ended up being a nail-biter. Rivera, the council’s most consistent opponent of pro-housing legislation, said she of course wants to see more housing, but doesn’t support “taking something away” from her constituents. Debora Juarez, a former elected councilmember who was appointed to serve out Cathy Moore’s term last year, said she wanted to “err on the side of giving a little bit more… because that’s due process, and that’s what the people want.”
Bob Kettle, who represents downtown, Queen Anne, and Magnolia, ended up casting the surprise swing vote (Joy Hollingsworth, who abstained from voting in committee, voted no), but not before chiding housing proponents, mostly younger renters, for using rhetoric he called inappropriate.
Kettle says it's not "right to declare our neighbors are weaponizing" the appeals process because of the war in Iran and the gun violence epidemic. Of course he is only chiding people on the pro-housing side. The anti-housing folks have been vitriolic, but he isn't tone policing them.
— Erica C. Barnett (@ericacbarnett.bsky.social) 2026-07-29T00:35:34.683Z
Lin, who’s emerging as a pro-housing star on the council, said little before the final vote, which took place at nearly 6:30pm. Earlier in the meeting, however, he did take a moment to respond to commenters who likened new housing to toxic waste and highway expansions. “I don’t think housing and future residents are toxic waste or pollution that need to be studied for years and years and years on end,” Lin said. “I believe housing is a human right.”
Although yesterday’s 5-4 vote to eliminate hearing examiner appeals won’t prevent housing opponents from challenging land use changes in court or to the state Growth Management Hearings Board, the change will allow the legislative process to move forward during appeals, and puts Seattle in line with Bellevue, Everett, King County, Tacoma, King County, and many other local jurisdictions that don’t allow this kind of pre-legislative appeal.
We are currently losing each year the equivalent of a Lincoln Park in trees. Someone tell me how this is trivial? Two doors down from me under our current pro developer pro rich-person Comprehensive Plan, a realtor purchased a lot, clear cut 14 trees without the appropriate permits and is now building what appears to be a 4000-5,000 square-foot home on land with 90% permeable surface i.e. almost entirely driveway or home.
The Comprehensive Plan has many loopholes, including loopholes that allow building up to 10,000 ft.² of one house by joining together ADU and home once the inspection is finished. (Under the latest regulations basements are no longer considered in the FAR so you can build a four story SF home.) In other words, it is encouraging the exact kind of house maxing that we voted several years back to prevent. The plan has dozens of other problems with it, ranging from the fact that it does not legally meet environmental impact study requirements, and also, and perhaps most importantly to all the young people who are so happy to throw old people under the bus, (even though they might be their parents or grandparents or future babysitters,) the Comprehensive Plan encourages real estate speculation and higher housing prices.
Mr. Lin Has led a charge on Bluesky and in his other statements that perpetuates the stereotyping of opponents by race and age and housing status as being automatically wealthy and NIMBY. Being “white” is an automatic proxy for being “racist.” This, in spite of the fact that it is in the central area and south end that we are seeing some of the greatest resistance to the comprehensive plan.
There neighborhoods with a high percentage of residents of color have seen their communities completely denuded of gardens and trees, paved and filled with soulless blocks of mostly unaffordable new homes— while the increase in property taxes forces many to move. The latest demographic studies show that families are moving fastest out of the south end and central district because they’re being displaced at the fastest rate. These families are moving farther and farther into the suburbs where they can still find an affordable small home with a yard.
We could focus on the common ground here rather than resorting to race, age and stereotypes. It’s not useful.
If someone is building something without the appropriate permits, that is an issue unrelated to the comprehensive plan – it’s an issue related to someone breaking the law. I’m not personally familiar enough with the land use code to know what permitting requirements exist for tree preservation. In either case, administrative appeals to a comprehensive plan update are not a fruitful method for addressing this, as the focus would surely be more wisely spent on amending our existing land use codes to better protect trees. This piece of policy will not meaningfully impact tree policy, it will just make the appeal process for land use decisions easier to administer and less likely to wind up in multi-year delays. If our current land use code makes it too easy to remove trees, then there is no value in endless delays to changes.
All of the issues you mention in the second paragraph are things that can be appealed still, just at a different point in the process. If the plan really does not conform to state law (which I am skeptical of), then this is something to appeal to the GMHB.
“This, in spite of the fact that it is in the central area and south end that we are seeing some of the greatest resistance to the comprehensive plan.” – citation needed. I also think you are grossly – and I mean grossly – mischaracterizing CM Lin’s statements on this.
Do you have a link to provide for the statement about family displacement out of the Central District and South End? I don’t doubt it per se, but I’d be curious to read the methods. When I look at a place like Census Tract 88 (between Union, Yesler, 23rd, and 31st), I see more families live there now than in 2015. And while there are probably fewer families earning less than $100k now than there were in 2015, it is within the (quite large) margin of error. See ACS Table S1901. https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST5Y2015.S1901
Discouraging that a common sense reform like this took so much effort to enact and only passed by the slimmest possible margin.
The constant bickering about zoning and fees only add more reasons builders are not willing to build new housing in Seattle. Pick a lane and be done with it so builders and investors know what they’re dealing with. Right now it’s looking like Bellevue might add more new housing than Seattle over the next couple of years! Mayor Katie needs to firm up exactly what the rules are going to be over the next 3-4 years for Seattle isn’t going to get much new housing whatsoever.
“Although opponents have repeatedly raised the specter of Seattle turning into New York City ”
Does this mean decent public transpo too?
The fact is that anti housing folks exposed themselves in public. Where this normally is a quiet process.
The absurdity is laid bare. The out of touch petty excuses are really shaming.
It is “those dirty people”(Very MAGA stance) vs. people (Very Seattle)
“(opponents refer to these lawn-based tree removals as “clear-cutting”), and contribute to climate change that kills salmon, orcas, and birds.”
Oh yeah? Wait till these sea creatures pick up the morning paper!