Category: housing

City Council, housing, Mayor Wilson

Greater Seattle: Katie Wilson is to Jimmy Carter as Zohran Mamdani is to Barack Obama

By Josh Feit

First of all, a quick followup to an item from a couple of weeks ago, when I wrote: “Trump’s Case Against US Olympian David Hearn for Vandalizing the Reflecting Pool (since abandoned by Trump’s own DOJ) > North Seattle Couple’s Case for Recalling Katie Wilson.”

Yup. Last week, King County Superior Court Judge Patrick Oishi dismissed the request for a recall. At a confusing hearing last Thursday, August 27, Oishi told the petitioners their case was “befuddling.” For starters, they missed a filing deadline and then withdrew their request. Seems like the Trump analogy was spot on. And in what seemed even more similar to Trump’s endless mishegas, the couple then claimed they had more info. Oh brother.

Barack Obama > Jimmy Carter

Speaking of Wilson and analogies to presidents, let me alert you to this one: With her econo-travel  aesthetic, earnest policy brain, lefty-populist comfort zone, socially-awkward-bookworm personality, and (from what we hear about her behind-the-scenes leadership style) prickly isolation on the 7th floor—Wilson is Seattle’s own Jimmy Carter. If this analogy isn’t tracking for Gen Zers and Millennials, ask the internet about solar panels, sweaters, and thermostats. Carter, an outsider who was a elected during America’s post-Watergate call for goodie-goodie governance, eventually started to tank in the polls during his presidency. I initially thought Wilson’s high-wattage smile and unbridled joy in civics would confound the naysayers, critics, and bitter media. But—recall effort or not—recent polling indicates this mayor is in trouble.

Thanks to Wilson’s socialist label and sudden, surprise rise, the analogy that used to come to mind was more encouraging: Wilson was Seattle’s own Zohran Mamdani. But Mamdani veers toward a presidential analogy of his own. And it’s the opposite of a one-termer like Carter who got mired in “malaise.” Mamdani’s soaring popularity, confident charm, and big-ideas agenda make him like Barack Obama, an incorrigibly popular two-term president.

As Mamdani continues to wow the public and generate hope with his own gleeful project of sweeping governance (sweltering subway stations as pools of sustainable energy being the latest Mamdani lightning bolt) a pal in New York asked me why Wilson was having so much trouble in Seattle. I don’t think this fully explains it, but the fact that he’s a he and she’s a she has evidently allowed the media to normalize an unbridled condescension, giving their anti-Wilson bias free rein.

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50 > 0

Protesting density, liberal Boomers and Xers often quote Joni Mitchell’s famous line, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” Unwittingly, their knee-jerk “Development=Bad” mantra prioritizes car-dependent lifestyles. By stalling new housing development, they are locking pervasive car culture in place, thwarting the density needed to create walkable neighborhoods and expanded transit service. I derisively call it Joni Mitchell Politics.

So, as summer comes to a close, let’s applaud the Seattle Office of Housing and City Councilmember Dionne Foster’s pro-housing politics. Thanks to legislation they passed earlier this summer, OH used $6 million to acquire the site of a former gas station, mini-mart, and parking lot on East Montlake Place E. in the upscale Montlake neighborhood to build 50 below-market-rate condos. There’s currently zero affordable housing in the pricey area.

Under Seattle’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda, adopted in 2015, high-income communities like Montlake that lack affordable housing are known as “high opportunity” neighborhoods.

In her summer wrap-up newsletter, Foster noted the housing win: “Through acquiring property in a high opportunity neighborhood in Montlake we are locking in a future for affordable homeownership in a neighborhood that currently does not have affordable homeownership.”

Josh@publicola.com

housing, Opinion, Transit, Urbanism

Greater Seattle: Bikes, Cars, and Housing

By Josh Feit

First, a quick follow-up to last week’s item about former state house candidate Ron Davis. ICYMI: Despite the fact that the Stranger endorsed a long list of progressives, Davis contended—in a 3,000-word email to his supporters—that because the paper didn’t endorse him, there’s reason to believe a cabal of centrist oligarchs have taken over the paper and are calling the shots on endorsements.

Surprise: It turns out Davis isn’t actually Neo in the Matrix. According to members of the Stranger’s endorsement board, there’s a banal reason he didn’t get the nod from them. I’ll put this as gently as I can: Davis is not a great listener. The SECB wasn’t thrilled with the mansplaining.

Okay. On to this week in X>Y.

No Cars in Pike Place Market > Cars in Pike Place Market

Despite increased business at Pike Place Market and broad public support for the no-cars pilot project that coincides with the bullish numbers, SDOT is looking at opening the Market back up to cars starting this October. Ryan Packer at the Urbanist has been all over the story.

The naive thing about undoing the new pedestrian-only version of  Pike Place Market, which went into effect in April 2025 and tracks to a notable 8.8 percent increase in local visitors who live between 3 and 5 miles away, is that it’s not the only pro-pedestrian upgrade in the area. Have you noticed the new multi-billion-dollar Waterfront Park, including the $70 million Overlook Walk that melds directly into the Market? It’s a whole feng shui down there now. And it started, emphatically enough, when we tore down the car-choked Viaduct.

Pike Place Market is now just one element in a comprehensive waterfront makeover that has embraced pedestrians and de-emphasized cars. It’s one thing Seattle has gotten right.

7 > 69

The Seattle Metro Chamber is trolling me.

Their most recent polling had a stat that made my heart leap: 69 percent of people agreed with the concept that “Building more housing will help slow down Seattle’s increasing housing costs.” This might seem like easy-peasy Econ 101 to you, but as someone who’s been pushing this once-radical urbanist idea since 2004, I was pleasantly surprised to see it’s now conventional wisdom; 58 percent even agreed with the once-anathema notion that “All things considered, growth and development has been a positive for my area.”

Ah, but then, in the same poll, this: Only 7 percent of people think “more density” is among the top one or two things the city should be doing to improve quality of life.

So, nearly everyone supports the idea of growth and building more, but only a smidgen actually think it’s something we should prioritize? Isn’t there a term for that dysfunctional way of thinking. Oh, right. NIMBY.

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2026 > 2019

According to SDOT’s Fremont Bridge tracker, Seattle bike and scooter commuting hit its highest count in Seattle history last month. The previous high was set pre-pandemic in August 2019.

Tom Fucoloro at Seattle Bike Blog, who reported on the data last week with a headline that used the word “obliterated,” writes: “The 153,238 trips was near 11,000 trips more than the previous high-water mark set in August 2019, and total counts for 2026 through July are up more than 18% year-over-year.”

This is excellent news for anyone who supports investing more in multimodal transportation.

And I’ll add another stat: As of July, combined bike and scooter trips are nearly two million higher than last year at this time: 7.2 million versus 5.4 million.

I’m comparing 2026 to 2025 rather than the pre-pandemic 2019 baseline that city planners seem obsessed with these days because all these record-setting bike and scooter numbers exist in a post-pandemic reality that looks nothing like the pre-pandemic world. Fucoloro hints at this in his own analysis by pointing out that return-to-office requirements have generally only gotten downtown office workers back three days a week.

I’d contend the reason we’re lapping pre-pandemic ridership, and doing so when just three days a week is the new RTO norm, has to do with a disproportionate increase in commuting in the so-called off-hours.

For example, another telling 2025 to 2026 comparison: Off-traditional-peak bike and scooter ridership is growing at a faster rate than traditional peak-hour bike and scooter commuting. Ridership at 9 am has grown 21.4 percent while 11 am ridership has grown 23.3 percent. And after work? Ridership at 5 pm has grown 23.7 percent while ridership at 7 pm has grown 27.8 percent. At 8 pm it’s even more pronounced. Ridership has grown 29.8 percent..

There’s a new shape to city life that’s not only about punching the clock. Our infrastructure and planning should adjust to this 21st-century lifestyle rather than looking backward to the old one.

Josh@PubliCola.com

City Council, Density, housing

On Narrow Vote, Council Gets Rid of Local Appeal Process that Delays Land Use Legislation

 

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.

City Council, housing, Mayor Wilson

With Major Reforms Years Away, City Could Make Temporary Changes to Housing Fees Next Year
Downward trend: Permits to build new housing have continued to plummet, exacerbating Seattle’s housing shortage.

By Erica C. Barnett

Although a proposal to temporarily slash the Mandatory Housing Affordability fees paid by developers in most residential zones appears dead for this year, the City Council’s land use chair, Eddie Lin, said to expect legislation early next year that will address what housing developers have identified as a critical problem:  The fees, which pay for affordable housing, have become make-or-break for new housing projects thanks to the skyrocketing price of construction since MHA passed seven years ago.

As we’ve reported, developers sought a two-year, 80 percent reduction in MHA fees earlier this year, arguing that the development “pipeline” in Seattle is drying up; without the temporary cut, they argue, they won’t be paying any MHA fees because new housing simply won’t get built.

Mayor Katie Wilson had planned to propose a bill backed by the Housing Development Consortium, a large coalition of affordable housing developers and advocates, when the deal fell apart. Groups like the Seattle Renters Commission argued that cutting MHA fees would eliminate a key source of funds for affordable apartments, and council support for the bill also seemed on the verge of evaporating when Wilson pulled the bill.

Lin, who supported Wilson’s proposal in principle, said he supports both short-term MHA. fee relief and long-term reform. “MHA was never supposed to be a completely static thing. … It should be more responsive to updates in our zoning, updates into the housing ecosystem.” But, Lin added, “that’s going to take years, and we need to do something in the short term. And I think the pressure for that is only going to continue to build as permits continue to plummet.”

So far this year, according to the city’s housing dashboard, developers have filed permits have been filed to build just 1,137 new housing units citywide, down from 8,600 during the same period in 2020, when new permits were at their peak.

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“Hopefully we’ll be able to do something in early 2027” to provide a short-term solution to MHA fee pressure, Lin said.

In a bit of positive news, the latest report on MHA, from the city’s Office of Housing, shows that fees brought in about $47 million last year, reversing what appeared to be a long-term decline. But the gains are likely short-term, for a couple of reasons. First, more than half of last year’s MHA fees, around $24 million, came from just four large apartment buildings, according to the report—and nearly half of that amount, $10.6 million, came from a bond-financed senior housing project for the nonprofit Horizon House, a large windfall from an unusual type of project.

The second reason next year’s MHA fees are likely to drop off is that most of the remaining 2025 money, more than $20 million, comes from new housing (generally townhouses) in areas zoned for low-density developments. These low-rise (or LR) zones are almost certain to see a major drop-off in new housing permits thanks to legislation, passed last December. that allows up to eight apartments per lot in former single-family areas, which are not subject to MHA fees.

The Office of Housing report acknowledges this new reality, noting that “MHA-applicable townhome development could fall off going forward,” as developers start building in neighborhood residential areas to spare themselves the expense of MHA fees.

“Until we update MHA, especially in the LR zone, we’re going to see development in neighborhood residential, for better or worse,” Lin said. “Because why would you build an LR if you can build the same thing in neighborhood residential?”

City Council, Density, housing, Utilities

Seattle May Actually Limit Anti-Housing Land Use Appeals; More People Will be Eligible for Utility Discounts

 

1. The Seattle City Council’s land use committee will vote tomorrow on a proposal, from Councilmember Eddie Lin, to eliminate an appeals process that allows activists to halt pro-density legislation before it becomes law. Currently, anyone can stop or delay city land use decisions by filing an appeal with the city hearing examiner under the State Environmental Policy Act, arguing that the city hasn’t done enough environmental review before proposing legislation that would change city land use law.

Speaking to PubliCola on Tuesday, Lin said the vast majority of appeals are filed by a relatively small group of activists and attorneys with long experience appealing  complicated land use laws.

“The fact that we often see the same people appeal  again and again shows that 99 percent of Seattleites, if not 99.9 percent, do not find [hearing examiner appeals] a way to engage” on land use issues, Lin said. “This is a small number of people engagnig who have the resources” to file complex legal appeals.

Lin’s legislation would remove the right to appeal land use decisions to a hearing examiner, requiring opponents of land use legislation to appeal directly to the state Growth Management Hearings Board or King County Superior Court. Eliminating the local appeals process allows legislation to go into effect while the activists and lawyers appeal through the other two available avenues. Had the legislation been in place when the council took up the remaining parts of the long-overdue Comprehensive Plan update, the council would have spent the last few months meeting to discuss important amendments to the plan; instead, it’s stalled until next year at the earliest.

“I’ve never been a big fan of our SEPA appeals process,” Lin said. “I’ve seen the decades-long delays [it caused] to Fort Lawton housing and the Burke-Gilman Trail,” two projects that have been stalled for years by a seemingly endless series of environmental appeals. (Opponents argue that it’s better for the environment to move cyclists next to a busy arterial roadway rather than the current path where, it just so happens, a lot of industrial businesses like to drive their trucks.)

Activists lined up earlier this month to denounce the legislation as a reckless giveaway to developers that would allow them to “clearcut” Seattle, sacrificing trees, orcas and birds to apartments in Seattle’s suburban-style single-family neighborhoods. The land use committee will discuss Lin’s proposal tomorrow at 9:30; so far, there’s just one amendment, from Council President Joy Hollingsworth. It would add a 30-day public comment period to every land use decision that would be exempted from hearing examiner appeals by Lin’s legislation.

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2. On Tuesday, the council approved legislation PubliCola covered last month that aims to increase participation in the city’s Utility Discount Program by increasing the threshold for eligibility from 70 percent of the state median income to 60 percent of Seattle’s muchhigher median income next year, with two more bumps—to 70 percent  of Seattle median in 2027 and 80 percent in 2028. Both those increases will require separate legislation.

The bill’s sponsor, Dan Strauss, initially seemed surprised at the lack of controversy surrounding the proposal, which would result in slight utility rate increases and would make UDP one of the easiest income-based programs to apply for. A press availability to discuss the bill (and other topics) enticed just one reporter (me), and the vote on Tuesday was unanimous—and even followed by a rare burst of applause for every council member.

One challenge the program has faced is getting more eligible people to sign up; at the end of last year, only about 36 percent of eligible Seattle residents were participating in the program. To apply, visit the city’s Utility Discount Program page.

homelessness, housing, Mayor Wilson, Police, public disclosure, Transit

This Week on PubliCola: July 12, 2026

A wide-ranging interview with the mayor, a proposal to replace universal free meals at school with means-tested vouchers, serious questions about public disclosure at the homelessness author, and more.

By Erica C. Barnett

Monday, July 6

Sound Transit’s Bespoke Wayfinding System Is Unnecessarily Baffling

The regional light-rail agency has made significant changes to its wayfinding signage over the past few years, in what the agency calls an effort to make the signs easier to understand. But many of the new features, such as the removal of location information from station exits, are more confusing than clarifying.

Tuesday, July 7

Wilson Turns Off Stadium Surveillance Cameras

Mayor Katie Wilson kept her word on surveillance cameras in the stadium district, cutting power to the cameras immediately after the World Cup games ended. But the future of police camera surveillance in Seattle still hangs in the balance as the city waits for a security audit by the NYU Policing Project to wrap up later this year.

Homeless Authority Director Tells Staff Not to Trust the Media

After the city and county announced they were taking control of the region’s homeless service contracts, a process that will lead to layoffs at the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, KCRHA’s director Kelly Kinnison sent an all-staff email telling her employees not to believe what they read in the media, “especially outlets with low journalistic standards with a history of one-sided, agenda-driven, or incorrect reporting.”

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Thursday, July 9

Mayor Katie Wilson at Six Months In: “Incredibly Proud of What We’re Accomplishing”

In part one of my interview with Mayor Wilson, she discussed the accomplishments she’s proudest of in her first six months; why the city is still sweeping encampments without providing shelter or services; the prognosis for her plan to add 1,000 new shelter beds in her first year, and much more.

Council Proposal Would Delay Universal School Lunch Program, Fund Means-Tested Food Vouchers Instead

A proposal from City Council President Joy Hollingsworth would undo one of the items Wilson ticked off on her list of signature achievements, by replacing a plan to use the city’s families and education levy to fund universal school meals with one that would provide vouchers for meals on weekends and holidays to low-income kids. Hollingsworth said her proposal was more fair because it would largely benefit low-income Black kids in places with more food insecurity, as opposed to helping all kids, including some whose parents could afford to pay for school lunches.

Mayor Katie Wilson Says She’s “Doing a Reset” on Housing Agenda, “Very Hopeful” About Police Chief

In part 2 of our interview, Mayor Wilson talked about some of the pushback she’s gotten on her affordability agenda. We also discussed the $175 million budget deficit the city is facing next year, and whether the police department will face cuts or if other city departments, as usual, will have to take bigger cuts to keep SPD’s budget growing.

Friday, July 10

KCRHA CEO Sought to Shield Records From Public Disclosure, Emails Suggest

Emails between KCRHA CEO Kinnison and agency staff suggest that Kinnison sought to exempt many of her emails from public disclosure through a number of methods, including “sensitivity labels” designed to ensure some emails wouldn’t show up in records request searches. Kinnison also appears to have put an IT manager, rather than a certified public disclosure officer, in charge of doing initial searches for records. Kinnison’s decisions raise questions about whether the agency has withheld records from disclosure that it is legally required to produce.