Op-Ed: Queen Anne Must Embrace New Neighbors Rather than Fear Housing

Seattle must embrace bold zoning changes in Queen Anne and similar neighborhoods now to preserve our city’s promise for future generations. 

We need a lot more housing. All kinds. And we need it in all parts of Seattle. Seattle isn’t full. Queen Anne isn’t full. 

We need to make more room. People keep moving here and they will keep moving here for our temperate climate and high quality of life —  as the planet warms.

We must create space, through new zoning, for newcomers to thrive here. 

The maps that Mayor Bruce Harrell’s planning department have proposed are a necessary step in that direction. This once-a-decade “One Seattle” Comprehensive Plan designates allowed housing types for the next 20 years.

The comprehensive plan, though an important step forward, isn’t perfect. We acknowledge that past zoning decisions have often disadvantaged marginalized communities, and this plan doesn’t fully address these historical inequities. 

“Queen Anne is full. It’s tapped out. There are other places close to downtown (Rainier Valley, White Center) and density can go there instead.” [applause]

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— Qagggy! (@qagggy.bsky.social) December 4, 2024 at 8:19 PM

Under the proposal, the “Upper Queen Anne Urban Village” would get expanded boundaries and housing capacity, which means a few more blocks with the potential to add apartment buildings with first-floor storefronts. Such an expansion has been proposed before, but was shot down by vocal resistance. We cannot let that happen this time. 

Recent community meetings have surfaced concerns about traffic and parking — and even more hyperbolic opposition comparing the plan to “martial law” — these reactions shouldn’t deter the City Council and Mayor from embracing necessary change. In fact, our neighbors’ strong opposition has inspired us to spend our weekend writing this rebuttal. This is a generational opportunity for Queen Anne to take a different approach to land use planning.

Three decades later, the basic idea still holds true: we need more homes in our growing city. It’s not a new idea, but it remains a good idea to make room for more people to call Seattle home.

Here’s the City’s website for accepting public comments on the One Seattle Plan, which are due by December 20. (More on how to comment below.)

Here are the perspectives of three renters who are glad there’s room for them in Queen Anne.

My wife, my son, and I have lived in Queen Anne for two and a half years where we rent one half of a duplex. We love living in Queen Anne and how most everything we need is in the neighborhood – three different grocery stores, parks for our son and our dog, restaurants, shops, and even our son’s pediatrician. I love being able to walk or take the bus to work in Fremont and that my wife’s commute downtown is so easy.

My favorite thing to do in all of Seattle is to walk around Queen Anne with my family, especially to Kerry Park to check if the mountain is out. We do so almost every day and I’ve walked all 100 plus stairs in Queen Anne. Like my neighbors I love Queen Anne. But I don’t think that zoning that allows for more neighbors over time will ruin the neighborhood. That’s why it was so distressing to hear testimony from last week’s Queen Anne Community Council Meeting saying that allowing new neighbors to enjoy the same things that I do would ruin the neighborhood. Not that long ago my wife and I were new to Queen Anne, too.

Queen Anne benefits from being at the heart of a growing Seattle. The restaurants, doctors offices, and shops at the heart of the neighborhood would not all be here if Queen Anne was exclusively single family homes. I’d like Queen Anne to share in the responsibility of accommodating more neighbors as it reaps the benefits. Not to insist that all growth happens only elsewhere. Especially not to insist that all new Seattleites move into neighborhoods that have already accommodated most of Seattle’s growth while being underinvested in. At the end of the day, I believe having more, not less, neighbors will be what ensures Queen Anne is an amazing place to live for many years to come.

Chris Clarizio

We rent a single-family home about four blocks from Safeway, and have lived in Seattle since 2017. While we empathize with residents’ concerns about neighborhood changes, we were dismayed to see the discussion focus on parking spaces and tree preservation rather than the importance of creating a more inclusive community for people of all economic backgrounds.

Additionally, while we understand concerns about neighborhood evolution, opposing development solely to prevent new neighbors is problematic. Trying to preserve Queen Anne as an exclusive, unchanging neighborhood is a privilege that comes at a significant social cost. Suggesting development should be redirected to less affluent neighborhoods effectively asks those communities to bear the burden of growth while wealthy areas remain untouched. This approach perpetuates inequality in ways similar to exclusionary suburban policies.

Queen Anne cannot act as if it exists in isolation while simultaneously benefiting from Seattle’s growth and diversity. If we want to enjoy the advantages of being part of a vibrant, growing city, we must also embrace our responsibility to help house its residents.

Wesley and Shelby Hoffman

Please say YES to new neighbors in all neighborhoods. 

I’ve rented in Queen Anne for six years, and in Seattle for 15, and I’d like to stay in Queen Anne for many more years. In 2015, because of community meetings like the recent one in Queen Anne, I quit grad school and used the money I had saved to advocate as a volunteer for more neighbors in Seattle. This grew into Share The Cities, which is now an all-volunteer organization. (Turns out there wasn’t a lot of “developer paychecks” for a pro-housing organization that also wanted to tax the rich, fund social housing, and stop homeless sweeps.)

Each hyperlocal community, like ours saying “not right now,” or “not on this block” or “we already have enough housing here” or “why can’t it just be somewhere else” adds up to a lot less housing in every community in North America. My heart hurts when I hear community members pushing for less housing because it means many of my friends and coworkers will be pushed out of the city they love, with some left without housing at all.

Laura Loe

Neighborhood Centers: A Closer Look

Due to recently-passed state standards for middle housing, the whole city is going to have the opportunity for new fourplex homes, at minimum. This is a fair approach to making room for more neighbors. In contrast, “Neighborhood Centers” adding multifamily zoning were not evenly distributed across the city.

This will limit the location of social housing, preventing it from being embedded in the most wealthy neighborhoods and quiet residential streets across the city. When Prop 1A passes in February, the state-mandated fourplex zoning won’t allow for social housing near our most beloved parks and walking distance to many of our schools. Without strong advocacy, the “One Seattle” Plan might further entrench two Seattles, not one. 

For example, areas in Laurelhurst, Broadview, West Woodland, and Seward Park were cut from plans for Neighborhood Centers, which once numbered 50 in an earlier internal draft of the plan that the mayor quietly reduced. Even after a few recent additions, Neighborhood Centers only number 30 in current plans, leaving significant areas of the city lacking adequate opportunities for new housing and amenities. We need to keep all the Neighborhood Centers in the plan and advocate for restoring more from the cuts.

The City of Seattle nearly created dozens of Neighborhood Centers or “Anchors” back in 1994 when today’s “Urban Villages” were drawn, but City leaders scrapped the proposal due to a vocal minority of residents.

While zoning changes passed in 2025 will take years to translate into new housing, they’re essential groundwork for our city’s future. Additionally, while new market-rate apartments may have high rents, they’re preferable to no housing at all.

It is an absolutely jam packed room.

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— Qagggy! (@qagggy.bsky.social) December 4, 2024 at 7:05 PM

The local community council (claiming to act in our name as neighbors) has a history of blocking a lot of new housing. They continue to push back on proposed zoning changes, reducing housing opportunities, shrinking the maps, and hurting the next generation of Seattleites. Being welcoming can start here, in Queen Anne. We ask Queen Anne residents to show up differently and be part of the solution, rather than pushing people out of the city.

Call To Action

Here’s the City’s website for accepting public comments on the One Seattle Plan. Comments are due by December 20, 2024. There will be several months of public hearings at City Council in 2025. 

If you’d like help shaping your comment, Alternative6.org developed by Share The Cities volunteers, provides a form to generate an authentic public comment. It demystifies a confusing process and should take you about five minutes to engage in the One Seattle Plan. 

There’s an upcoming public meeting in-person on December 10, 2024. If you attend, please go with a buddy, as these meetings can be contentious and emotionally exhausting.

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