Category: Density

Density, Development, Guest Contributor, housing, King County

Local Control Can Work to Solve Our Housing Crisis: Here’s How

By King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci

If we’ve learned nothing else from the last couple decades of explosive growth in King County, it’s that that past attempts to provide housing that’s affordable to everyone in our county have come up short. Really short. So short, in fact, that we need to create an additional 200,000 affordable homes by 2044 to ensure that low-income individuals, people on fixed incomes, and families throughout King County can afford a place to call home.

The results of our failure to provide adequate housing are visible everywhere: An ever-increasing number of people across King County are homeless. Young people leave the region because they don’t see a future they can afford. Racial disparities in our communities persist and grow, with Black, Indigenous and other people of color continuing to be disproportionately harmed by high housing prices.

If we don’t act now to build more housing of all types, including much-needed affordable housing, these gaps will just grow bigger. And while building the housing we need has for years felt like an intractable problem, there is hope on the horizon.

That hope comes in the form of a new and unique collaboration between King County and all 39 of our cities. As all of our cities and the county are making once-in-a-decade major updates to their comprehensive plans – which form the DNA of how a local government plans for growth – we can begin to turn the tide in a way that fits our communities while making them more inclusive and affordable.

In planning for future growth, city leaders have long pointed out the benefits of “local control” over land use planning and zoning, based on the principle that local government is closest to the people we serve, and thus is the right level of government to enact residents’ vision for the place they live. However, the concept of local control has some historical downsides – it has been used as an argument to block new housing, and thus has been a way to disenfranchise people and families of lower means, people of color and other marginalized groups.

So, what has changed? Taking the cue from House Bill 1220, a 2021 state law directing all jurisdictions to “plan for and accommodate” affordable housing at every level, representatives from cities and the county started collaborating on the issue. Together, they crafted and all jurisdictions unanimously agreed with recommendations from King County’s Affordable Housing Committee to amend county Comprehensive Planning Policies and set individualized housing affordability targets for each jurisdiction and hold each other accountable to meeting these local goals.

These targets are ambitious and bold. For example, my home city of Bellevue will need to plan for 35,000 net new housing units, 30,349 of which must be affordable to people making less than the area median income. Every city and the county have agreed to similar ambitious commitments.

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This means that cities will plan for new forms of housing that will incorporate the so-called “missing middle” of townhouses and other affordable housing types. It means cities will plan to take steps to intentionally address and undo the harms of racially restrictive housing policies of the past that continue to show up in segregated patterns of housing in the present. It means cities will plan to address displacement of existing communities and provide more places to live throughout their communities, not just in industrial areas or along highways. But the solutions in each city will be tailored to the conditions and vision of that city and its local representatives.

Recognizing we are all in this together, we also agreed to hold each other accountable. The Affordable Housing Committee will review the proposed housing-related parts of every comprehensive plan and provide feedback and recommendations for how each jurisdiction can better meet our ambitious and specific housing goals. Following adoption, the Affordable Housing Committee will monitor and track how well cities are implementing the plans on a regular basis.

Getting to this point was difficult work, and took a strong partnership of local government, private and nonprofit partners, and a dedicated group of representatives from key communities impacted by high housing costs. But we all came together because the data was so compelling, and we all know that behind the data are human beings who all need and deserve a safe, healthy place to live. They are nurses, teachers, and firefighters, our family, friends, and coworkers. They are seniors hoping to age in place and young families with dreams to raise their kids in safe communities where they have access to opportunity. They are why we are here, and our work is ultimately for them.

With this countywide housing agreement, we are empowering each city to do that in the way that works best for their residents while recognizing that every jurisdiction needs to step up to address our shared regional housing crisis. And I’m hopeful that with this effort, we can close the gap and make King County – and our whole region – a place where people can find housing and build a life filled with opportunity.

Claudia Balducci represents District 6 on the Metropolitan King County Council, which includes parts or all of Bellevue, Kirkland, Mercer Island, the Points Communities, and Redmond. She serves as chair of the King County Affordable Housing Committee and previously co-chaired the Regional Affordable Housing Taskforce (2017-18).

Density, Development, housing, land use, legislature, Mayor Harrell

State Legislator Told Seattle to Get Serious About Density Before Seeking Funds for Fort Lawton Housing Project

Not “even worth responding to as it’s so ridiculous,” a deputy mayor wrote.

By Erica C. Barnett

In an email to Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office, expressing “serious concerns” about the mayor’s status-quo comprehensive plan update, State Rep. Julia Reed suggested that she might be less than supportive of future city requests to help fund its $285 million Fort Lawton redevelopment project if the city didn’t get more serious about increasing density.

“I know the City is hoping for significant state support to deliver on the Mayor’s vision for Fort Lawton next year,” Reed wrote. “I don’t know if that will be possible if the City’s comprehensive plan isn’t seen to be doing everything possible to maximize housing growth in the state’s largest city. It’s already an uphill climb to do any funding packages for Seattle, and if there’s a strong impression the city isn’t doing all it can on its own, it makes the argument that much harder.”

Documents PubliCola obtained through a records request show that Reed’s email sent mayoral staffers into a tizzy. For two days, emails flew back and forth between at least 17 city staffers (plus Harrell’s in-house political consultant, Christian Sinderman) debating how to respond to Reed.

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Some of the emails were snarky (“I am surprised that these legislators had the time to read and analyze our proposed update with just three days left in legislative session,” mayoral spokesman Jamie Housen wrote) while others urged caution. Gael Tarleton, the former state legislator who led the mayor’s lobbying team in Olympia, noted on May 5 that it was the last day of the legislature and “Emotions are running high[.] .. May I suggest that once this letter is sent, we just let things quiet down, let session end, and re-group[?]”

Staffers debated how strongly to respond to Reed’s suggestion that the Seattle delegation’s advocacy for Fort Lawton funding would depend on Harrell’s larger commitment to density. Harrell’s deputy mayor, Greg Wong, responded to a draft response written by Harrell’s chief operating officer Marco Lowe and edited by Sinderman, saying the city shouldn’t even dignify Reed’s reference to Fort Lawton with a response, writing:

“I like Christian’s edits. I personally don’t think the Ft. Lawton piece is even worth responding to as it’s so ridiculous. It’s not the leverage they think it is and their stance doesn’t even make sense given what we’re proposing. But I don’t feel very strong about whether to delete. If you want to say something about it, I wouldn’t feel the need to explain or be defensive about it. Just point out the baseless bluff it is. You could say something like: ‘As to Ft.  Lawton, it is unfortunate to hear you would not support our plan to increase the amount and likelihood of affordable housing in this area. But that is a separate issue, which we are happy to discuss with you as well.'”

Continue reading “State Legislator Told Seattle to Get Serious About Density Before Seeking Funds for Fort Lawton Housing Project” →

Density, housing, legislature, Maybe Metropolis, Mayor Harrell

The Backlash to Harrell’s Comp Plan Proves We’re All YIMBYs Now

by Josh Feit

There’s actually some good news for density advocates in Harrell’s slow-growth comp plan proposal: It’s being widely panned.

I take this backlash as a sign of progress. Consider: Nine years ago, when then-mayor Ed Murray floated the unthinkable in his own housing initiative—universal neighborhood upzones to promote growth, density, and housing—the NIMBY backlash against him, led by the Seattle Times, was swift and furious. Murray was immediately forced to backpedal, and eventually the city only allowed more housing along the margins of the 75 percent of Seattle that’s otherwise off-limits to apartments.

While it’s certainly disappointing that Mayor Harrell is still committed to an old-fashioned planning model that relegates density to busy arterial streets, it’s noteworthy that this time around, the backlash is an outcry for more density, not less.  Critics are calling Harrell out for failing to go beyond the minimum statewide requirements established in last year’s House Bill 1110, which requires cities to allow at least four units on every residential lot, and for promoting a status quo that led to the current affordability crisis.

It’s not 2015 anymore. With a keener sense of the racism encoded in Seattle zoning rules, a pressing housing affordability and homelessness crisis, and an urgency about environmental catastrophe all informing the debate, a whole new generation of pro-housing advocates has dislodged the anti-growth, Seattle-politics-as-usual attitudes that Harrell’s comp plan proposal regurgitates.

It’s not just the usual suspects—armchair planners and YIMBYs on social media—either. Mainstream Seattle state legislators have formally joined the fray. Not only did they champion and help pass HB 1110, but they’re pushing back on Harrell for doing the bare minimum to comply with its density mandate. In a letter to Harrell’s office on March 5, the day the mayor released the plan, Seattle state Rep. Julia Reed (D-36) expressed “serious concerns about the Mayor’s comprehensive plan,” calling it “disappointingly modest, particularly as it relates to the [density] floor, middle housing zoning, and breadth of exemptions.” (PubliCola obtained Reed’s letter through a records request).

The two most recent takedowns of Harrell’s non-comprehensive comp plan—a 19-page letter from the Seattle Planning Commission and an in-depth analysis from the progressive Sightline think tank—both lay out the basic problem with Harrell’s proposal: It doesn’t call for density in enough of the city, providing for just 100,000 new units over the next 20 years. That’s 20,000 less than the bare minimum the city will need, as the Planning Commission put it, to “help us climb out of the existing housing deficit.”

Additionally, in the areas where Harrell’s plan actually does call for more housing, it doesn’t allow enough housing types, excluding apartments in favor of tall, skinny townhomes. Critiquing Seattle’s longstanding “strategy of confinement” for density, Sightline goes all in on advocating for apartments, writing: “Seattle’s plan could rise to the moment by allowing highrise towers in all regional centers and near all light rail stations, eight-story buildings in all urban centers, and six-story buildings near frequent transit stops and other community amenities like parks. It could also designate more and larger neighborhood centers with apartment zoning.”

And as everyone—even the Seattle Times—has pointed out, while Harrell says his plan follows the new state mandate to allow fourplexes wherever detached single-family homes are allowed, his reluctant proposal renders such development merely theoretical with restrictive caps on floor area ratio (a key measure of density) that prevent construction from actually penciling out.

Of course, Harrell may simply dismiss the negative reviews as grousing from a gaggle of liberal elites. And certainly, on cue,  Erica and I both registered our disappointment  in his proposal here on PubliCola wondering if it was written by AI, with a prompt from the minutes of a mid-90s neighborhood council meeting.

However, Harrell (who deleted density and equity goals proposed by his own Office of Planning and Development (OPCD) shouldn’t take comfort in his single-family comfort zone. Seattle is now skewed heavily toward renters—a change that’s reflected by this city’s new slate of leaders. Indeed, the people who were most outraged by Harrell’s timid plan were not think tanks and bloggers, but the squad of progressive populists who now officially represent Seattle in Olympia, including Reed—pro-density voices that helped pass the statewide fourplex rule last year. Demonstrating this changing of the guard, they passed that rule in part by first ousting longtime slow-growth Seattle Rep. Gerry Pollet (D-46) from his powerful position as chair of local government committee.

“Frankly, we were expecting to see the City take meaningful advantage of the additional flexibilities provided in HB 1110 and other tools that the state has made available,” Rep. Reed wrote in her letter criticizing Harrell’s plan, adding that she was “not the only member from the Seattle delegation with these major concerns.”

This spring, OPCD met with members of the Seattle delegation, including Sen. Noel Frame, (D-36) to respond to “the questions [and] concerns we’re hearing from our constituents,” Reed told PubliCola. Reed said OPCD staffers were informative and answered their questions, and that she and her fellow Seattle reps “want to work with the city so that the final plan reflects a shared vision of abundance, affordability, and unified belonging for the entire city.”

According to a spokesperson for Frame, the senator is also “a critic” of Harrell’s proposal “and says it ‘falls far short of what we should be doing’ as the biggest city in the state, who should be leading on the housing crisis.” Frame and other legislators plan to send a letter to Harrell’s office in the next few days, the spokesperson said.

PubliCola has been covering the density debate for 15 years. It’s only been in the past few years that pro-housing voices, now represented by a contingent of Seattle lawmakers with a new state law in hand, are part of the fight. And—as opposed to the days when anti-density homeowners ruled the public process—legislators like Reed are working in concert with an organized YIMBY movement that’s amplified by a sympathetic urbanist media infrastructure which regularly fact checks and pushes back against the Seattle Times’ NIMBY narrative.

Thank you, Mayor Harrell, for formally and finally revealing where you stand in the housing debate; Erica’s earlier reporting on Harrell’s drastic re-write of OPCD’s initial pro-housing draft proposal wasn’t surprising, but it was clarifying. The current backlash against Harrell’s plan is clarifying as well.

Josh@PubliCola.com

City Council, Density, homelessness, labor, Mayor Harrell, Transportation

This Week on PubliCola: May 4, 2024

A roundup of this week’s news.

Monday, April 29

Planning Commission: Harrell’s Growth Plan Will Worsen Inequities and Keep Housing Unaffordable

The Seattle Planning commission weighed in on Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed comprehensive plan update, which proposes a continuation of thepr “urban village” strategy developed to preserve single-family enclaves in the 1990s, calling it unrealistic and inadequate. ““In order to ensure everyone has a home they can afford in the neighborhood of their choice, we need to plan to increase, not reduce, our current rate of housing production” to allow “five to eight story multifamily housing in many more areas of the city,” the commission wrote.

Burien Moves Forward on Tiny House Village as Mayor Vilifies Police Chief for Not Enforcing Camping Ban

The city of Burien tentatively approved a zoning change that could help advance a long-planned tiny house village on property owned by Seattle City Light (see below, though, for an update). Meanwhile, Burien Mayor Kevin Schilling claimed the city is selectively paying the King County Sheriff’s Office for police service except for what they would owe the county for enforcing the city’s homeless ban—a claim the sheriff’s office couldn’t verify, since the city doesn’t owe them a payment until next month.

Tuesday, April 30

“I’m Losing My Temper”: Moore Accuses Morales of Calling Her Council Colleagues “Evil… Corporate Shills”

In comments that rattled some of her colleagues, Cathy Moore accused her fellow council member Tammy Morales of “vilifying” Moore and other council members in the media, saying she had called them “evil… corporate shills” who “don’t care about our fellow human beings” because they voted against an affordable-housing pilot Morales had been working on for years. Morales did express disappointment in the vote, but there is no evidence for Moore’s specific accusations. Moore also threatened to use council rules to silence Morales if she failed to be “civil.”

Labor Fizz: City Reduces Delay for Workers’ Retro Pay; Harrell Praises SPOG Contract for “Enhancing Accountability”

City workers learned this week that they’ll get retroactive pay increases in July, rather than October. Last month, the city told employees working under a new contract that the city would have to delay paying back wages because they’re implementing a new payroll system later this year. Also, Mayor Bruce Harrell released a tentative police contract that would make Seattle police the highest-paid in the region, boosting their starting pay, before overtime and bonuses, into six figures.

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Wednesday, May 1

Council Kills Morales’ Affordable Housing Bill, Arguing for More Process and Delay

The Seattle City Council voted 7-2 to kill legislation aimed at helping community organizations with “limited development experience” build small-scale affordable housing developments. Morales had been working on the program, called the “Connected Communities Pilot,” since 2022. Council members called the legislation premature, saying such proposals should get in line behind the 2024 housing levy and what will likely be the 2025 comprehensive plan.

Thursday, May 2

Officer Who Joked About Pedestrian Death Will Speak on Traffic Safety at Conference; Moore Calls for “More Vice Squads”

Daniel Auderer, the Seattle Police Officers Guild vice president who laughed and joked about a fellow officer’s killing of pedestrian Jaahnavi Kandula, will speak at a prestigious conference on traffic safety later this year. The conference program says Auderer will be representing SPD, although SPD denies this and says they aren’t paying for him to attend. And: At a meeting on public safety, Councilmember Cathy Moore said that in addition to bringing back an old prostitution loitering law, she wants to see “more vice squads” on Aurora Ave. N.

Friday, May 3

Harrell’s Transportation Levy Proposal Boosts Tax Measure to $1.45 Million, Front-Loads Sidewalk Construction

After advocacy groups expressed disappointment that the proposed transportation levy renewal backed off on bike, pedestrian, and transit projects, the mayor proposed a revised version that adds $100 million to the ballot measure and pushes sidewalk construction to the first four years of the eight-year levy proposal, which now heads to the city council for amendments.

Harrell Discusses Gig Worker Minimum Wage Repeal, Burien Restrictions Could Prohibit Tiny House Village

Remember what we said about Burien’s tiny house village vote? Well, it turns out the zoning legislation they’re considering on Monday will prohibit a proposed tiny house village unless the council amends it, because it restricts transitional housing to parcels much smaller than the one where the village is supposed to go. And: Will Harrell come out against Sara Nelson’s proposal to repeal the current minimum wage and labor protections for delivery drivers? Organized labor seems to be banking on it.

City Council, Density, housing

Council Kills Morales’ Affordable Housing Bill, Arguing for More Process and Delay

By Erica C. Barnett

The Seattle City Council voted 7-2 to kill legislation sponsored by Councilmember Tammy Morales aimed at helping community organizations with “limited development experience” build small-scale affordable housing developments and “equitable development” projects, such as health clinics, day care, and retail space.

Morales had been working on the program, called the “Connected Communities Pilot,” since 2022. The five-year pilot would have helped as many as 35 community organizations build larger, taller buildings, as long as they preserved a third of their rental units for people making 60 percent or less of the Seattle’s area median income (AMI), or built homeownership units for people making 100 percent of Seattle AMI or less.

It would have also allowed community groups to build apartments in areas of the city that have historically been reserved for single-family houses, and exempted certain projects in historically redlined areas from design review and parking minimums, two requirements that can add significant time and cost to projects.

The council’s land use committee, which Morales chairs, voted against her bill last week, citing vague concerns that the bill had been rushed and that there were more appropriate avenues for building affordable housing.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Morales’ new colleagues repeated those claims, suggesting that the city should instead provide affordable housing through the comprehensive plan, the housing levy, or some unspecified future legislative route.

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“After the comp plan process is finalized, we can determine if additional legislation is needed to achieve our housing goals,” Councilmember Maritza Rivera said on Tuesday. “In addition, the city just passed a nearly $1 billion [housing levy] and we do not yet know how these funds will be implemented. … Finally, given our housing shortage and the slowing down of recent development, we need to consider how to incentivize all development, rather than singling out some investments over others.”

In fact, as Morales pointed out, the city does know how the Housing Levy funds will be spent. And the comprehensive plan update is a set of policy guidelines, not legislation—the city can still pass housing legislation and incentives before finalizing the update, which might not happen until next year. “This is just another tool to help us meet our housing shortage, which we all acknowledge we have,” she said. Continue reading “Council Kills Morales’ Affordable Housing Bill, Arguing for More Process and Delay” →

Density, Development, Equity, housing, Mayor Harrell

Planning Commission: Harrell’s Growth Plan Will Worsen Inequities and Keep Housing Unaffordable
Diagram by Matt Hutchins, from Planning Commission letter

By Erica C. Barnett

The city’s Planning Commission, which advises the mayor and City Council on policies related to Seattle’s growth, sent a point-by-point critique of Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed 20-year Comprehensive Plan Update to Harrell and Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) director Rico Quirondongo last week, echoing many of the issues PubliCola has identified with the status-quo proposal.

As we’ve reported, OPCD originally proposed a plan that would have included significantly more density throughout the city than the anemic version Harrell ultimately introduced, along with an “anti-displacement framework” that deleted dozens of proposals aimed at addressing ongoing harms caused by city policies, like zoning and development rules that prohibit most housing in single-family neighborhoods.

“The [Anti-Displacement] Framework, as drafted, is a list of what the City is already doing to address displacement, yet displacement has already impacted many people and continues to happen,” the commission wrote.

By failing to provide enough housing of all types, especially apartments, in more parts of the city, Harrell’s proposal perpetuates the existing “urban village” strategy, which preserves most of the city for single-family homeowners while concentrating apartments on major arterials and highways. “Upholding this pattern of economic and racial exclusion will do little to reduce disparities in housing affordability, access, and choice,” the commission wrote.

Instead of remedying the existing housing shortage and planning for continued growth in the future, the proposal assumes housing growth will slow down dramatically over the next 20 years, from about 8,000 units a year to just 5,000.

“In order to ensure everyone has a home they can afford in the neighborhood of their choice, we need to plan to increase, not reduce, our current rate of housing production” to allow  “five to eight story multifamily housing in many more areas of the city.” Specifically, the commission recommends expanding “neighborhood centers”—small, isolated where Harrell’s plan would allow three-t0-five-story apartment buildings—to include high-end neighborhoods like Laurelhurst and Seward Park, and allowing higher-density housing further away from “high-volume, high-speed” arterials, so that renters could more easily access amenities like “large parks and quiet streets for recreation” that single-family homeowners enjoy.

“The current housing market locks the most affordable homes, multifamily apartment buildings, into small areas of the city that are often along noisy and polluting major highway corridors or in areas that historically faced disinvestment,” the commissioners wrote. “If the City continues to concentrate affordable housing types like multifamily apartments in the same areas of the city, these long-term patterns of inequity will not change.”

While Harrell’s proposal technically complies with state law by allowing four housing units on all residential lots, the city envisions these units as tall, narrow townhouses, not apartments or “stacked flats,” which are generally more affordable (and accessible to people who can’t climb multiple flights of stairs.) Increasing density in formerly exclusive single-family neighborhoods to allow  small apartment buildings would make it more likely that people with modest incomes could live in these units, the commissioners wrote.

In addition to growth, the comprehensive plan includes strategies related to transportation and parking; these, too, fail to acknowledge 21st-century reality, the Planning Commission argues. Like Harrell’s back-to-office mandate for city of Seattle workers, the plan “overemphasizes centralized employment in Downtown and other Regional Centers,” despite the fact that “daily life and commuting patterns have shifted significantly with many more daily needs being met closer to home.” Acknowledging this reality would mean allowing more neighborhood businesses (not just corner stores on literal corners) and “incorporat[ing] flexibility into land use policies associated with residential and commercial uses,” the commission wrote.

As PubliCola reported, Harrell’s office deleted an OPCD recommendation to get rid of minimum parking requirements throughout the city, a decision the commission recommended reversing “to reduce housing costs and encourage alternative transportation modes.” In addition, the commissioners noted, Harrell’s plan focuses on private vehicle electrification to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—a future in which Teslas, rather than gas-fueled vehicles, clog city streets every morning and afternoon. With Seattle already “leading its peer cities in the number of cars owned per capita,” the commission argued, the city should focus on reducing vehicle trips by investing in alternatives to driving. 

It isn’t too late to weigh in on Harrell’s vision for growth, housing, and transportation in Seattle, but the deadline is approaching. The city will hold its final in-person open house on the comprehensive plan from 6 to 7:30 pm on Tuesday, April 30, at McClure Middle School on Queen Anne, followed by a virtual open house starting at 6:00 on Thursday, May 2. The public has until 5 pm on Monday, May 6, to submit comments on the proposal.