Plans and Policy

Housing advocates are pushing back after Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell proposed $1.8 million in cuts to rental assistance and tenant services next year. They hope city council will restore the funding, or even double it.

An updated version of Seattle's 20-year growth plan includes additional opportunities for housing density, but mostly retains the city's longstanding pattern of walling off lower-density areas of the city.

King County Metro is projecting a significant budget shortfall by 2028 if its current spending plan is maintained, thanks to lagging sales tax revenue, increased costs, and ambitious fleet electrification plans.

Mayor Bruce Harrell’s 2025 budget would cut elsewhere to fund a 16% increase to the Seattle Police Department. The cuts to affordable housing and social services could backfire, undermining public safety and homelessness response.

Seattle service workers are set to get a major wage hike, unless restaurant lobbyists get their way. But policymakers can support the restaurant industry in better ways than simply cutting worker pay.

City officials have insisted that the staff cuts for SDCI in next year's budget will not impact permit approval times. Staff are not convinced.

Under the budget for the next two years proposed by Mayor Bruce Harrell, around half of the JumpStart funding originally earmarked for affordable housing and other investments would instead fund Harrell Administration priorities.

At least half of Seattle's apartments are priced using algorithms like RealPage, which is facing a federal lawsuit for illegal price fixing. The Seattle City Council should ban such algorithms, Katie Wilson argues.