Ahead of the December 20th public comment deadline to weigh in on the latest draft of Mayor Bruce Harrell’s “One Seattle” Comprehensive Plan update, the Seattle Planning Commission is calling out the plan’s shortcomings and pushing for more housing. The commission approved a new letter Tuesday morning praising a number of the changes since the proposal’s first iteration this spring, but also criticizing a long list of ways it still reinforces the status quo.
Building on changes required by state law that will allow fourplexes on all residential lots across the city, the mayor’s draft One Seattle plan includes clusters of additional density focused around existing business districts. Within those 29 new “Neighborhood Centers,” in places like Tangletown, Madison Park and High Point, five- to six-story apartment buildings would be allowed, but only on a small number of parcels in each neighborhood, with additional allowed density scaling down from there on the surrounding blocks.
Parking mandates remain
Medium-sized apartment buildings would also be allowed along the city’s most frequent bus routes, but only on the parcels that directly front busy arterial streets, leaving out quieter side streets with just as easy access to transit. Outside of areas close to light rail, and near RapidRide bus stops, requirements to build parking would remain in place, but drop to one stall for every two units.
That bucks a nationwide trend of letting builders decide how much parking to include, a step aimed at reducing housing costs in places like San Francisco, Portland, and Spokane. Just this week Shoreline, Seattle’s neighbor city to the north, updated its Comprehensive Plan to pave the way for dropping mandates there citywide as well.
By a 6-1 vote, the Shoreline Council voted to include language dropping parking mandates within their Comp Plan, but to update city code to reflect that change within the first 6 months of 2025, rather than as soon as possible. This was framed as a compromise to allow more time for public comment.
— Ryan Packer (@typewriteralley.bsky.social) December 16, 2024 at 8:23 PM
“The Commission is disappointed that this plan does not reach much beyond the minimum changes required by state mandates,” the letter states. “Seattle typically leads the state in progressive ideas and implementation of policies but, in this comprehensive planning cycle, other jurisdictions have pushed further in areas such as promoting new housing and eliminating parking minimums. We would like to see the Plan and its implementation through zoning be bolder as appropriate for a 20-year horizon.”
Planning Commissions wants more, bigger Neighborhood Centers
The Seattle Planning Commission is pushing for the number of Neighborhood Centers to be expanded, and for their geographic scope to be widened.
“The Plan does not adequately increase the ability of all residents in Seattle to live in the neighborhood of their choice,” the commission writes. “Many renters, low-income households, and people with disabilities will still be unable to access housing in many of Seattle’s neighborhoods near amenities like parks, schools, and low-traffic, slower-speed tree-lined streets. In our comments on Neighborhood Centers below, we offer suggestions for making affordable development in these areas more feasible, and we would like to see this type of development allowed in more neighborhoods throughout the city.”
Records obtained by The Urbanist earlier this year revealed that Mayor Bruce Harrell’s policy team scaled back the number of proposed Neighborhood Centers, from nearly 50 in an early draft developed by the Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) in mid-2023, to just 24 this spring, before adding back another five this fall after a round of outreach. Those records also reveal that the Mayor’s Office vetoed the idea of moving forward without parking mandates.
The commission’s recommendations to improve the Neighborhood Center zoning include increasing the prevalence of Midrise 1 (MR1) zones over low-rise zones, to allow buildings up to six stories which have the greatest likelihood of including affordable units. Commissioners are also pushing for the expansion of commercial zoning inside neighborhood centers to reduce displacement pressures on existing anchor businesses.
Furthermore, the commission is asking the City to fill in conspicuous gaps between Neighborhood Centers and denser neighborhoods nearby, using the Wallingford Urban Center and the planned Tangletown Neighborhood Center as an example. “These gaps are a missed opportunity to create connected corridors of increased density and amenities between centers,” the letter notes.
Meanwhile, groups of residents in neighborhoods ranging from Maple Leaf to Fauntleroy and Whittier are pushing for the Harrell Administration to remove their local proposed Neighborhood Center from the plan, using a litany of arguments ranging from lack of infrastructure to potential salmon runoff to push for a downgrade to Neighborhood Residential zoning. While the final map released by OPCD may not reflect these changes, those groups will have another opportunity to lobby for a rollback when the proposal heads to the Seattle City Council next year.
Harrell resists broader transit corridor upzones
The planning commission is highly critical of the narrow focus of the proposed upzones along transit corridors as reinforcing the long-prevalent pattern of focusing development directly along Seattle’s loudest, busiest, and most dangerous roadways.
“We would like to see a balance between additional housing in proximity to transit and allowing for the choice to not have to live on loud, dangerous arterials with poor air quality, noise pollution, and vibrations from traffic,” they write. “We support expanding the proposed upzones beyond one parcel on either side of an arterial to move further into the blocks away from the arterial. We recommend using a four-minute walk from the arterial to expand denser housing and commercial opportunities.”
On top of the suggested tweaks to the land use code, the planning commission also faults the One Seattle plan for not being forward-looking enough, building on the outdated “Urban Village” strategy from the 1990s without thinking about what comes next.
“The Plan should look further ahead and strategically seed growth for future development patterns that benefit the city,” the letter states, asking city leaders to contemplate how the plan can address a series of questions about its future vision. “How can the City lay the groundwork for adding more Neighborhood Centers in the future? Can we get the ball rolling now for future centers that are built near our major parks and schools? What about cultivating small centers along neighborhood greenways?”
The path through city council
Though a complete overhaul of the plan at this stage — months behind schedule — isn’t likely, the commission’s recommendations offer a potential framework for tweaks as it is finalized and heads toward review by the Seattle City Council.
This week, Council President Sara Nelson announced that District 3 Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth will be taking over as chair of the council’s select committee tasked with reviewing the One Seattle plan and its associated code updates, following the departure of current land use chair Tammy Morales from the council in early January. Council’s work reviewing and amending the plan is expected to take up most of 2025.
The City split the plan into two phases; the proposed changes to Neighborhood Residential zoning are set for adoption before the updates to Neighborhood and Urban Centers, which is now Phase 2.
OPCD is aiming to transmit Phase 1 legislation to Council in March and implement it before the state-mandated deadline of July 2025, but the department plans to introduce Phase 2 legislation in May 2025, with likely action around September, OPCD spokesperson Seferiana Day said. The City has yet to determine the effective date for implementing the Phase 2 changes, with pushing to early 2026 appearing a possibility.
Comments on the One Seattle zoning map are being accepted through December 20.
Ryan Packer lives in the Summit Slope neighborhood of Capitol Hill and has been writing for the The Urbanist since 2015. They report on multimodal transportation issues, #VisionZero, preservation, and local politics. They believe in using Seattle's history to help attain the vibrant, diverse city that we all wish to inhabit. Ryan's writing has appeared in Capitol Hill Seattle Blog, Bike Portland, and Seattle Bike Blog, where they also did a four-month stint as temporary editor.