Council votes to keep ignoring Seattle’s housing crisis

The City Council majority looked at this map from Mayor Bruce Harrell's proposal and decided that it needed even more yellow, especially in the wealthier and whiter areas.

Well, we knew this was probably going to happen back in November 2023 when Seattle elected a slate of more conservative candidates for City Council. Even though as candidates most said (video 1 and 2) they supported the comprehensive plan options that would have allowed a lot of new housing, they showed their true colors this week by removing even more areas from the mayor's already scaled-back growth plan. The result is that the mayor and council have decided to continue enforcing the exact same causes of our current housing crisis. Most growth will still be centered in large apartment buildings with lots of expensive car parking along our busiest roadways and in areas with high risks of displacement to communities of color all so that wealthier and often whiter areas can be spared the horror of having some more neighbors.

Only Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck stood up for allowing more homes in more places and for making it more affordable to build them. She was the lone vote to add eight neighborhood centers to plan, most of which the mayor cut before sending his proposal to Council. She was also the lone vote for removing parking minimums from new housing, which would have dramatically reduced the cost of new housing and supported the city's stated goals of promoting more walking, biking and transit over car use. And she was on the losing side of a depressing number of votes that reduced housing. Her effort to make it legal again to open corner stores and other businesses in residential areas allow bars and expanded hours for residential businesses also failed (UPDATE: I initially said a measure to allow corner stores failed, but it passed at part of the consent agenda. The amendment that failed would have expanded the allowed types and hours of those businesses).

Councilmembers Bob Kettle, Maritza Rivera and Rob Saka formed a consistent voting block against pretty much all measures that would allow more housing and in favor of measures that would remove areas from the growth plan or add costs and red tape to discourage the building of new housing (if you don't want to watch the videos yourself, Erica C. Barnett and the Urbanist did their best to cover the votes in real time on Bluesky). Councilmembers Dan Strauss, Debora Juarez and Joy Hollingsworth tried to play it wishy-washy, but by not uniting they gave the consistent block of three NIMBYs the default win on a lot of votes. Sorry, folks, this was the moment to stand up and fight to solve our city's housing crisis, so you get no points for abstaining or remaining on the fence.

Speaking of abstaining, Council President Sara Nelson made the baffling decision to abstain from a huge number of votes, and she even signed off at one point so that she would miss a particularly controversial vote to add more red tape and restrictions to housing projects under the guise of protecting trees (nobody noticed until they called the roll call vote and she didn't respond). It passed by one vote. She said she was abstaining so much because she did not feel well informed" on the issues. Some might argue that learning about these issues is literally her job, but the voters can decide in November to relieve her of this heavy burden since she is incapable of carrying it. Her departure did lead to this wonderful post:

Sara Nelson flees from the job she is campaigning to keep. Via Bluesky.

Perhaps this was part of the carefully calculated political strategy Nelson's team of brilliant consultants cooked up for her. Voters can't blame her for the housing crisis if she leaves the room during the votes!

But at least Nelson was in attendance for some of the meeting. Appointed District 2 Councilmember Mark Solomon, Vice-Chair of the Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan, was absent and missed all the votes and discussions. Given how many of these measures were decided by a single vote, this was easily the most important day in Councilmember Solomon's appointed time. I asked his office about why he was absent, and his Chief of Staff Sarah Mayes replied that he was in Vancouver, Washington, for a previously scheduled Crime Prevention and Community Engagement Conference and that the rest of the Council was aware of this conflict. CM Solomon was attending in his capacity as President of the Washington State Crime Prevention Association (which organizes and leads the conference)," Mayes wrote in an email:

In early August, we alerted Chair Joy Hollingsworth to the scheduling conflict as soon as we were aware of it. In addition to being excusing him from the meeting, Chair Hollingsworth worked closely with Solomon and his staff to make sure that the Chair's Package" of amendments reflected District 2 priorities. We're grateful for the Chair's cooperation, and for the hard work of Council colleagues throughout the week. Councilmember Solomon is back in the office today, and he'll be joining his colleagues for the final committee votes on the Comp Plan."

There is still more comprehensive plan voting to go, but Thursday was the big test for whether our City Council was going to make an effort to get our housing crisis under control. They instead mostly chose to do what they could to make it even worse. The only silver lining is that they will be forced by state law to allow more types of housing in all residential areas because it is clear they would also have rejected those changes if they could. UPDATE: Aidan T on Bluesky pushed back on this, saying that the Council went beyond what was mandated by the state on missing middle housing.

I thought that perhaps the resounding vote results from the social housing initiative or the primary election would have shaken some of the sitting councilmembers awake. The public has made it clear consistently that housing affordability is a top concern and that we expect action from city leaders, yet most councilmembers chose to defy them. I don't see how anyone other than Councilmember Rinck will be able to shake this week's acts of Council cowardice. Everyone else is complicit and on the record now against making housing more affordable and plentiful in our city. Councilmember Nelson seems likely to lose in November (support Dionne Foster for City Council!) and Councilmember Solomon is not running to keep the District 2 seat he was appointed to. Debora Juarez was also appointed, but her District 5 seat is not up for a vote until next year. Everyone else is up for a vote in 2027. I don't know how they make this up to the city, but they better have some good ideas. Otherwise the ongoing housing crisis, a top issue among Seattle voters, will fall squarely on them. Maybe they've all decided they don't want to run again?

In the meantime, we will not stop fighting for a Seattle that is welcoming and has a place for everyone.