Category: Density

City Council, Density, homelessness, King County, legislature

This Week on PubliCola: April 4, 2026

Wilson and Zahilay Push Forward on Housing Rivera Wants to Audit HSD, and More.

By Erica C. Barnett

Monday, March 30

Ron Davis, Running for the State House on an Urbanist Platform, Says North Seattle Is Ready for a Change

Ron Davis, who ran for City Council in 2023 and narrowly lost to Maritza Rivera, is hoping his North Seattle neighbors will get behind his explicitly urbanist agenda in his attempt to unseat longtime 46th District state Rep. Gerry Pollet and his slow-growth agenda.

Tuesday, March 31

Hannah Sabio-Howell Says It’s Time to Replace Longtime Legislator Jamie Pedersen

Just south of the 46th, renter and labor activist Hannah Sabio-Howell is making the case that 20-year incumbent Sen. Jamie Pedersen is no longer serving the progressive 43rd District well. Sabio-Howell argues that Pedersen is out of touch with Seattle’s renter majority, and favors compromise too much at a time that demands urgent action on affordability.

Wednesday, April 1

County Executive Floats Countywide Housing Levy, 500 New Housing Units or Shelter Beds by Mid-2027

King County Executive Girmay Zahilay announced a new plan to add 500 units of “shelter and housing” in the next 500 days, or by mid-August 2027, and will convene a work group to discuss a potential countywide housing levy. Some of the new shelter or housing could be on county-owned land, similar to the strategy Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is using to cut down on the cost of new tiny house villages in Seattle.

Thursday, April 2

Mayor Wilson Says She’ll Accelerate Comprehensive Plan and “Go Bigger” on Density

The mayor announced this week she wants to accelerate the remaining phases of Seattle’s comprehensive plan update by one year, add more density within a “reasonable walk” of transit stops, and restore and expand the proposed neighborhood centers—nodes of density inside traditional single-family areas. We spoke with Wilson about her vision to update her predecessor’s anemic proposal.

Friday, April 3

Councilmember Wants “Audit of Human Services Contracts.” That’s a Big Ask.

City Councilmember Maritza Rivera wants the City Auditor to do an audit of all Human Services Department contracts, she announced this week, in light of a damning King County audit that found evidence of waste, misuse of funds, and potential fraud. But “audit the human services contracts” is a big request for the city’s small audit office, and Rivera doesn’t have council support lined up.

Afternoon Fizz:

Rivera Plays Grinch to Library Supporters, Saka Holds Committee Hostage for Extended NBA Rally

After a parade of library supporters told Rivera’s select committee on the library levy the city should go beyond Wilson’s $410 million levy proposal, she said she would not be supporting a single amendment to the plan. “It would be fiscally irresponsible to increase the proposal given the city’s other needs,” she said.

And Rob Saka turned his transportation and Seattle Center committee into a 90-minute rally for bringing an NBA team to Seattle, asking hard-quitting questions like “what color do you want the team uniforms to be” and “how excited are you for the Sonics.”

Coming next week: The city council will have a full day of meetings to discuss the latest updates to the city’s Comprehensive Plan on Monday. The pro-housing Complete Communities Coalition is having a rally at City Hall to support more apartments in Seattle (RSVP here); Tree Action Seattle is urging the anti-housing homeowner contingent to show up too, telling their supporters that “street trees are not a solution”—only private lawns are.

 

Density

Mayor Wilson Says She’ll Accelerate Comprehensive Plan and “Go Bigger” on Density
Why is “no rezone proposed” always the biggest area?

By Erica C. Barnett

Mayor Katie Wilson wants to accelerate the remaining phases of Seattle’s comprehensive plan update by one year, add more density within a “reasonable walk” of transit stops, and revisit the neighborhood centers—nodes of density inside traditional single-family areas that already have major transit stops or commercial areas—to restore the nine centers her predecessor Bruce Harrell removed from the plan and potentially add more.

On Thursday, Wilson announced that the city’s Office of Community Planning and Development (OPCD) is starting an environmental review process that will wrap up next year, with final land use and zoning legislation around June 2027.

Wilson previewed the announcement at a Housing Development Consortium fundraising event earlier this week. “As a renter, I think this is very exciting,” she said. “You don’t have to live right along a busy, noisy, dirty street.”

In an interview Thursday morning, Wilson said her plan would compress Phases 3 and 4 of the update (adding neighborhood centers and increasing density near transit and in regional centers, respectively) into a single phase, reducing the timeline by a year while slightly delaying neighborhood centers so that everything can get done at once. On Thursday, Wilson announced that she’ll launch an environmental review process hoping to wrap up environmental review and have final legislation ready to go by June 2027.

“Basically, we inherited this comp plan process, and … we were looking at ways we can really accelerate and go bigger,” Wilson said.

Currently, the city council’s comprehensive plan committee is considering upzones in the neighborhood centers and urban centers—denser areas within neighborhoods that were previously known as “urban villages”—and within a half-block of certain frequent transit routes. Land use and comp plan committee chair Eddie Lin did not immediately respond to an interview request on Thursday.

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Wilson’s plan is to go beyond those limits in a revamped Phase 3, adding back and potentially expanding nine neighborhood centers that the council placed on a “docketing amendment” last year, while also considering new ones the city hasn’t studies yet. The city’s original plan contemplated nearly 50 neighborhood centers, a number that was eventually scaled back to 30 after the council heard complaints from homeowners in areas like Magnolia, Maple Leaf, and Laurelhurst.

“I’m open to new neighborhood centers,” Wilson said. “I certainly want to go back and consider the ones the previous administration cut out, and if there are additional ones that weren’t considered but made sense, I’m happy to consider that too. We’re going to do an efficient but hopefully effective stakeholder process to decide what we want the scope to be, but in general, my bias is to go big.”

Wilson also called the city’s current plan to allow new housing within just a half-block of rail and frequent transit stops “pretty darn stingy.” As a renter in Capitol Hill, she said, she lives within a ten-minute walk of light rail and much closer to several frequent bus routes, so her “instinct” is to change the requirement to allow more housing within “a reasonable walk”—somewhere between a couple of blocks and half a mile. “How long do you walk to get to a bus stop? That’s more than half a block,” she said.

Legislation passed last year, House Bill 1491, imposes new density requirements near transit and restricts parking mandates, which force developers to build parking even in dense areas where fewer people own cars. With a compressed timeline to finish the comp plan, the city should be able to “comply or exceed compliance with state law” before the 2029 deadline, Wilson said.

City Council, Density, Mayor Wilson, Police

This Week on PubliCola: March 28, 2026

Surveillance cameras, high-tech toilets, an interview with pro-housing councilmember Eddie Lin, and more.

By Erica C. Barnett

Monday, March 23

Seattle Nice: Does Mayor Wilson Really Believe Police Surveillance Enhances Safety?

Was Mayor Katie Wilson’s decision to audit the safety and security of police surveillance cameras a classic “split-the-baby” compromise, a pro forma move with a foregone conclusion, or a thoughtful approach to ensure public safety for Seattle residents? That was our topic on Monday’s episode of Seattle Nice.

Tuesday, March 24

Councilmembers Say Wilson Must Turn On Stadium Cameras by June

Previewing a demand he would make official via press release later in the week, the City Council’s budget committee chair, Bob Kettle, said a new audit into whether police cameras are protecting people’s privacy better happen fast—an odd statement, don’t you think, from a man who drops “good governance” into every other sentence?

Rob Saka Won’t Use His Committee’s Actual Name

City councilmember Rob Saka won’t call his Transportation, Waterfront, & Seattle Center committee by its name! You can’t make him!

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What Is the NYU Policing Project, and Why Did the Police Chief Resign from their Board?

Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes was on the board of the NYU Policing Project, the group that’s doing the audit of SPD’s cameras, but resigned on Monday—three days after we asked the mayor’s office if his presence on the board represented a conflict of interest. The co-founder of the Policing Project, Barry Friedman, filled us in on the group’s history and what their audit in Seattle will involve.

Wednesday, March 25

Seattle Gives High-Tech Toilets Another Go, Starting in Pioneer Square

Seattle is a really hard place to find a restroom, especially if you don’t look like you’re coming right back to buy a latte. Throne, a D.C.-based toilet company, is coming to the Seattle area soon—including Pioneer Square and the stadium district— with its high-tech toilets, which use AI and user reviews to schedule maintenance and ban people who trash their freestanding restroom from using them again.

Friday, March 27

Seattle Councilmember Eddie Lin: “Go As Big As We Can” On Growth in Comp Plan

On our second episode of Seattle Nice this week, we talked to new City Councilmember and Land Use committee chair Eddie Lin, who’s overseeing the ongoing adoption of Seattle’s (ahem, the “One Seattle”) comprehensive plan. We talked with Lin about density, the fees Seattle charges developers to fund affordable housing (which could come down soon, at least temporarily), and his take on surveillance cameras.

Also this week: I appeared on KUOW’s Week In Review, hosted by Bill Radke, along with former KIRO host Dave Ross and KUOW’s Libby Denkman. We talked about surveillance cameras, the potential return of the Sonics, why light rail across Lake Washington took so long, and more.

And if you missed Mayor Wilson’s Town Hall meeting on surveillance cameras Friday night, I live-posted minute-by-minute updates and analysis on Bluesky.

City Council, Density, homelessness, podcasts, Police

Seattle Councilmember Eddie Lin: “Go As Big As We Can” On Growth in Comp Plan
Image via Seattle.gov

By Erica C. Barnett

This week on Seattle Nice, we talked to City Councilmember Eddie Lin, who’s serving his first term representing Southeast Seattle’s District 2. He’s the third council member to represent this district since 2025, when Tammy Morales resigned just one year into her second term; she was replaced by Mark Solomon, a crime prevention coordinator for SPD who served until Lin was elected in November.

As head of the council’s land use and comprehensive plan committees, Lin will oversee the work of updating the plan that guides the city’s growth and density for the next 10 years, as well as zoning and land use decisions like whether to grant developers a temporary break from the Mandatory Housing Affordability program that allowed taller, denser housing in some areas in exchange for fees that fund affordable housing.

We talked to Lin about those fees and whether they’re working as designed. While MHA has brought in tens of millions a year for affordable housing, developers argue it has increasingly squelched development, by adding significant costs at a time when market-rate housing developments barely pencil out. Lin talked (favorably but cautiously) about a different concept called Planned Inclusionary Zoning, which requires developers to build affordable housing but offers them tax breaks, rather than charging a fee, to make it more feasible for them to build.

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“We absolutely want to go as big as we can” in the remaining parts of the comp plan, Lin said, by expanding the areas where housing is allowed (as The Urbanist pointed out recently, the city’s planning department actually reduced density along several arterials in wealthy neighborhoods). Lin said “we need to be going deeper into the neighborhoods” with density, as well as restoring the neighborhood centers former mayor Bruce Harrell removed from the plan, nodes of density where modest apartment buildings will be allowed.

We also asked Lin about the new dynamics on the council, Mayor Wilson’s new plan to build tiny house villages all over the city, and police surveillance cameras, a program Wilson once opposed and now seems likely to expand.

After pointing out that many people want cameras in their neighborhoods, including people who live in the Chinatown-International District, Lin said he’s still not happy that the cameras were expanded without any analysis of whether the “pilot” program launched last year (and immediately expanded) was effective and protected people’s privacy. His outstanding concerns, Lin added, have to do with the potential for the footage to end up in the hands of the Trump Administration, which could use it for immigration enforcement or to target people seeking gender-affirming or reproductive care. That’s the focus of an audit Wilson has commissioned, but hardly the only reason to question mass surveillance by local police.

Density, housing, legislature, Maybe Metropolis

An Alternative Approach to Creating Affordable Housing: Inside-Out Urbanism
Image of a four-unit apartment building
Sneaky urbanism adds housing inside the existing buildable footprint—and can be a way to expand the footprint in advance of major zoning changes.

By Josh Feit

The city of Seattle was supposed to be done with its 10-year comprehensive plan update more than a year ago, in December 2024. The comp plan is the document that governs local land use and zoning, which means it’s also about where the city will (and won’t) allow more density. As you know, it’s now 2026.

This should give you an idea of how many deadlines we’ve missed. Here we are, 14 months on, and pro-housing advocates are still waiting as the city braces for yet more debates over the specifics of the Neighborhood Center and Urban Center strategy that, sigh, continues to cordon density into tightly constricted areas.

We don’t have the luxury of waiting for the city to take action. It’s time to take matters into our own hands—at least as we wait for the new pro-density council members like Eddie Lin and Dionne Foster to join forces with Alexis Mercedes Rinck and new self-avowed urbanist Mayor Katie Wilson to get the zoning right. In the meantime, I’m hopeful about an emerging method to usher in the dense housing we need citywide to address the affordability and climate crises: Instead of fixating on wholesale land use changes, focus on discrete housing regulations with piecemeal reforms. Devious density.

I’m not advocating for timid tinkering around the edges. I’m thinking of ingenious hacks that are possible within the restrictive height limits, contorted floor area ratio guidelines, and setback requirements that currently define and limit the number of units you can fit into an apartment building. Like rearranging how you pack your suitcase rather than buying a bigger suitcase, affordable housing advocates should change the construction equation inside apartment buildings themselves.

Pro-density progressives in Washington state have already had success with this sneaky inside-out approach. In 2025, they won parking reform, which maximizes the square footage available for housing by lowering building costs and forgoing the need for carports and underground garages. Similarly, in 2023, advocates succeeded in passing the nation’s first-ever single-staircase bill, a reform that frees up space for more units in the same building footprint by getting rid of unnecessary two-staircase mandates.

Another recent bit of tactical urbanism, passed last year, made an exception to mandatory setbacks (the distance a building must be from the street and other lot boundaries) for smart construction methods like mass timber, passive house, and modular construction, as well as for affordable housing units.

In the current legislative session, pro-housing advocates are now on their way to passing elevator reform, which will lower costs for developers, hopefully hastening construction of more units.

As I reported last week: While the elevator industry stripped out a push for universal reform, urbanists are still set to pass a deceptively specific change at the ground level. The legislation will change elevator size guidelines for apartment buildings up to six stories tall, lowering costs and allowing more units. This detail-oriented code change will open the doors to multifamily housing in neighborhoods where the the overall zoning remains antagonistic to this type of renter-friendly development.

Consider this “within-the-envelope”-approach a pro-housing hack against the classic anti-density refrain about “neighborhood character.” (The housing “envelope” is the planning term for the ultimate size allowed for a development after all the setback, density, height, and other parameter guidelines are taken into account.) By adding the potential for more units within buildings that are visually in sync with the surrounding area, pro-housing advocates may reveal what intransigent NIMBYs actually mean when they say “character.”

Courts, Density, Drugs, Elections, Police

This Week on PubliCola: December 20, 2025
Like this, but bigger: The city council just approved eight-unit apartment buildings everywhere.

SPD Invites Cops to Evangelical Event, City Attorney Quadruples Drug Prosecutions, and More

By Erica C. Barnett

Monday, December 15

SPD Invites Officers in “Officer Involved Shootings” to Attend Billy Graham Evangelical Ministry Retreat

In a department-wide email, the Seattle Police Department wellness team invited officers and their spouses to sign up for a retreat hosted by the Billy Graham Law Enforcement Ministry. The evangelist group, which espouses fundamental Christian views, is controversial: In 2021, then-chief Adrian Diaz rescinded an invite to a dinner hosted by the ministry. An SPD spokesperson said there was nothing unusual about the invitation—a sign, perhaps, of how much things have changed under Mayor Bruce Harrell and Chief Shon Barnes.

Tuesday, December 16

SPD Paid for New Executive to Stay at Four-Star Hotel for a Month

Lee Hunt, part of the cohort of new executive staff Police Chief Barnes brought in when he was hired last year, spent a month staying at the four-star Arctic Hotel last year on the city-s dime—a $6,300 expense SPD said was a normal part of a “relocation package” provided to all the new hires.

Unclear Whether New Contract Would Have Let Police Handle Auderer Case Internally

Besides boosting rookie officers’ pay to $126,000 after their first six months, the new Seattle Police Officers Guild contract allows sergeants to investigate minor misconduct, which has previously gone to the Office of Police Accountability, freeing OPA to spend more time on serious allegations. While the change was generally noncontroversial, the definition of “serious misconduct” appears to exclude professionalism—meaning that situations like ex-SPOG vice president Daniel Auderer’s “jokes” about the killing of pedestrian Jaahnavi Kandula by a speeding police officer might not see the light of day in the future.

Thursday, December 18

Drug Prosecutions Quadrupled In Final Months of City Attorney Ann Davison’s Term

City Attorney Ann Davison, a Republican who lost to Erika Evans by 34 points this year, accelerated filings of misdemeanor drug possession cases during the last few months of her term, more than quadrupling prosecutions against people caught possessing drugs in public, generally homeless people with addiction. Private use and possession of illegal drugs has not been a policy priority for the police or Davison.

Friday, December 19

Seattle Council Approves Eight-Unit Apartment Buildings Everywhere

The latest 10-year update to the Seattle comprehensive plan—still a work in progress thanks to delays by outgoing Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office—actually allows eight-unit, three-story apartment buildings on every residential lot in Seattle, thanks to density rules that encourage “stacked flats” instead of townhouses. If developers save trees or add eco-friendly landscaping, that number goes up to 10 units and four stories.

Council Passes Watered-Down Consultant Ethics Bill

Outgoing City Council president Sara Nelson’s proposal to bar political consultants from working for the city itself while also running election campaigns was ultimately reduced to a mere disclosure bill—meaning consultants like Christian Sinderman can still work for city candidates while working for elected officials (and even having dedicated offices) at City Hall.

Wilson Appoints SDOT Director Who Headed Waterfront, Mercer Projects

Mayor-Elect Katie Wilson appointed Angela Brady, currently head of the city’s waterfront office, to replace Harrell appointee Adiam Emery as head of the Seattle Department of Transportation. In addition to overseeing the transformation of the downtown waterfront, Brady was in charge of the Mercer reconstruction project, which was supposed to fix the “Mercer Mess” in South Lake Union.