Plans and Policy

There are two important housing fights coming up next week. Public hearings are scheduled on Monday and Wednesday, and advocates need to ensure Seattle's plan for middle housing keeps advancing and long-promised affordable housing gets built at Fort Lawton, despite pushback.

Want a deep dive on the latest in Seattle housing policy? The Urbanist has you covered. Check out this recording and transcript of our April housing panel with experts.

Senate Bill 5148, signed into law Tuesday, sets up a brand new framework of accountability around state housing law. The bill includes a so-called "builder's remedy" that is intended to force local governments to stay in compliance or see their zoning laws overridden.

Once plentiful across the city, small apartment buildings with flats stacked on top of one another are incredibly rare in new construction. The reasons behind that are multifaceted, and stemming the tide will take a push on multiple levels of government.

The final state budget approved by the legislature left many lawmakers disappointed, and eager to start to work on ways to restore painful cuts and reform the state's broken tax code.

With the Seattle City Council set to consider amendments to required zoning changes this week, the city's planning commission highlighted the danger of adding on additional requirements including affordable housing mandates and changing thresholds for infrastructure upgrades.

The way cities conduct public outreach and local elections stacks the deck against homebuilding, tenants, and people of color, research shows. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Nat Henry maps out Mayor Harrell's growth plan and finds his transit corridor plan would would upzone fewer than 1 in 10 parcels within a five-minute walk of transit stops. That forces renters onto dangerous, polluted arterial roads, where apartments would be narrowly focused.