Mayor Harrell’s growth plan for Seattle is inadequate, but Council has a chance to make it better

Mayor Bruce Harrell's plan would add very little housing to the yellow areas and would orient most of the new growth along our busiest roadways like Aurora and MLK Jr Way. The City Council has an opportunity to fix it.

Seattle's horrific housing crisis continues to destabilize individuals and families who struggle to keep up with rising costs of living. Many continue to get priced out of housing entirely, pushing them into a deadly life trying to survive on the streets. For a city as great as Seattle, failing to meet this challenge over the past two decades is our biggest shame.

Mayor Bruce Harrell's proposed One Seattle Plan, his update to the city's comprehensive plan guiding growth and new housing, would continue our city's insufficient effort to get housing prices and availability under control. It keeps the vast majority of our city off-limits to the types of dense housing common (and beloved) in parts of our city and in cities across the world, like small apartment buildings and stacked flats." It continues the city's problematic strategy of locating the majority of new housing in giant and expensive apartment buildings along our busiest, loudest, most polluting and more dangerous roadways. The mayor's plan even continues to prioritize housing cars over housing people by maintaining most parking requirements for new residential buildings, which force builders to either sacrifice precious lot space that could be used for more homes or build expensive underground garages that drive up unit prices. The plan effectively ignores that Seattle's car ownership rate has fallen dramatically and consistently over the past decade since the previous comprehensive plan update.

The City Council will hold a public hearing tomorrow (September 12) starting at 9:30 a.m. for remote comments and 3 p.m. for in-person comments in Council Chambers at City Hall. You can also submit comments via email to council@seattle.gov. Seattle Neighborhood Greenways also has an online petition supporting amendments for a more affordable, equitable, and walkable Seattle."

The Council has the opportunity to make some significant corrections in the right direction, and they will consider 110 amendments to the plan (PDF). They can, for example, add up to eight more neighborhood centers to the plan, which would increase the number of places where significant new housing could go (Amendment 34). They can also eliminate parking mandates citywide (Amendment 7) or at least near frequent transit (Amendment 86). They can allow stacked flats citywide (Amendment 89). They can legalize corner stores on all lots (Amendment 66). They can even encourage builders to protect mature trees by allowing them to build higher structures if they preserve a qualifying tree (Amendment 91). There are also a bunch of amendments to modify or expand the boundaries of various neighborhood centers, and the Urbanist has a good rundown of those.

The Urbanist also put together a cheat sheet for those who don't have the time to read through hundreds of pages of documents packed with indecipherable zoning jargon:

For those that just want to cut to the case, here is a cheat seat for amendments to support and to oppose:

SUPPORT AMENDMENTS

• RINCK - 1, 2, 7, 34, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 66, 69, 72, 76, 84, 95, 98
• STRAUSS - 5, 6, 8, 25, 29, 30, 33, 42-C, 43, 46-A, 47, 48-C, 49-C, 64, 73, 92
• SAKA - 11, 13, 23, 36, 77
• HOLLINGSWORTH - 19, 68, 78, 79, 80, 107, 108, 109
• NELSON - 52, 60, 63, 65, 74, 86, 89, 91
• KETTLE - 50, 61, 70, 90, 94, 96
• SOLOMON - 83

OPPOSE AMENDMENTS

• SAKA - 35, 37,
• HOLLINGSWORTH - 38
• RIVERA - 39, 40, 41, 81 93, 102
• KETTLE - 51, 97

It's remarkable that Councilmember Maritza Rivera managed zero good amendments and six bad ones. Her District 4 includes the University District, one of the city's densest and fastest-growing neighborhoods. To be on the wrong side of so many of these growth decisions is troubling. Our city, including people in her district, are in a housing crisis, and her only contributions to the conversation are to try reducing new housing boundaries in the wealthiest parts of her district and add even more regulatory red tape to new home construction. She does not propose a single measure that would improve housing affordability for any her constituents. What an absolute shame.

I encourage our City Councilmembers to vote yes on every measure that would allow for more housing and more affordability while voting no on all measures that would reduce neighborhood centers and add regulatory hurdles to building new homes. I love trees, too, but don't fall for anti-housing advocacy disguised as supporting trees. We can encourage the protection of trees through incentives without effectively kneecapping the finances for new housing on lots across the city just because those lots have a tree. People are dying on our streets because we don't have enough homes. Approach these votes with the seriousness necessary to make the right calls for our city's future.