Mayor Bruce Harrell has recently released proposed rezoning maps as part of the Comprehensive Plan updates. Interactive zoning maps can be found here, so you can look up what is specific to your block (that’s what we all want to know, right?). These draft maps are currently open for public comment before being up for review by the City Council in early 2025. Many of these zoning changes are required to be in compliance with Housing Bill 1110 (HB 1110), often referred to as the Middle Housing Bill, which was passed by the state legislature in 2023.
Wallingford’s “urban center” (formerly known as an “urban village”) does not have any new zoning changes under the Mayor’s current proposal. But there are changes that will affect those large portions of Wallingford outside the urban center that are currently zoned Neighborhood Residential 3 “NR3” (formerly known as “Single Family”). Currently these residential lots in NR3 zones allow three units (a main house, an attached dwelling unit, and a detached dwelling unit).
A major tenant of HB 1110 is that zoning for all residential lots must now allow at least four housing units. They can have up to six units if they are within a quarter mile of major transit stops such as light rail and bus rapid transit. They may also have six units if two of the six units are income-restricted affordable housing. The new zoning would be simply called Neighborhood Residential “NR.” Since this is required under the new state law, there is little legal leeway to oppose these changes.
Additional upzones, which again are all outside of the urban center, are primarily focused around arterials with frequent transit service and Tangletown which would be designated a “neighborhood center.” In the center of Tangletown, building heights currently set at 40 feet (about four stories) would increase to 55 and 65 feet depending on the area. The arterials slated for upzones include parts of Meridian Avenue N, N 40th Street, Wallingford Avenue N, and N 35th Street. Most of these arterial zoning changes would be to Low Rise 3 (LR3) that would allow multifamily developments up to five stories with some isolated blocks that would change to Neighborhood Commercial 1 (NC1-55) allowing mixed use buildings up to 55 ft.
One proposed change I’m excited about is the potential return of corner stores to neighborhood residential streets. According to city documents, the proposal would “allow limited commercial uses, such as retail and food and beverage services, on corner lots in Neighborhood Residential zones.” Think cafes such as Irwin’s but on the corners of interior neighborhood streets.
My take on all of this? As far as the zoning changes go, they could have been worse. Walking only a block or two to have coffee with a neighbor sounds great. But for the big picture, fixing the housing crisis and getting our unhoused neighbors off the streets, I doubt this will do much. I think zoning changes are popular with legislatures to show they are doing something to address the housing crisis, but let’s face it, it doesn’t cost much to change zoning.
In my opinion, we need to put real money into permanently affordable housing and emergency rental assistance. We need to address the root causes of poverty by raising wages, bridging the gap for young people aging out of foster care, and investing money in mental health and addiction services. We need meaningful changes not show boating.
And we need to stop changing the names of all the zones all the time, please. I can’t keep up.
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You seem skeptical that zoning changes will help housing affordability, but they are in fact critical to solving the problem. Seattle is many tens of thousands of housing units short of demand today and projected to need over 150,000 new housing units over the next 20 years. People like to blame developers and corporations for housing affordability, but the fundamental problem is badly mismatched supply and demand since the mid-00s. Around 80% of the city has been zoned single family residential (yeah, I know, we have ADU zoning now, but that's slow, piece-meal densification).
HB1110 is a big step in the right direction, allowing substantial density increases (It's not really 3->4/6 as advertised, it's more like 1.3->4/6). The only realistic way to get housing prices down is to dramatically increase supply. Build, baby, build. Townhomes, apartments, du/triplexes. Having enough housing to satisfy demand will stop or at least slow the insane bidding wars and restrictive RE inventory that keep driving them up. It's worked for Austin , a city that's growing even faster than Seattle.
A couple of things:
1. we have been +2 with ADUs since 1994 across the city.
2. we have been +3 since 2018 across the city.
Also it's shocking to realize per your statistic that all of seattle's commercial sky scrapers and commercial buildings, light industrial, roads, schools, public transit stations and universities, and parks fit into just 20% of our total city. Amazing.
Cities don't build housing, developers do.. the bulk of it. Yes there are some Public-Private partnerships that put in affordable, but for the most part, developers haven't done it unless they can game the system. They do purchase naturally-affordable housing and dump the renters, and put in luxury. Those people are a large part of our homeless population. We have lost 10s of thousands of naturally affordable units over the past 3 decades.
Developers could get out of building required affordable prior to MHA for $22 a sf (that is ridiculously criminally low — they should have to pay $300 a sf to get out of affordable and donate land to boot). Once MHA happened, the in-lieu fee went to $5. Less than a coffee. Geez.
As we have built thousands of luxury units, rents have never come down. Developers constrain building and supply to keep their profits up. They aren't in the charity business (except when they give money annually to the YIMBY party to do their bidding).
We have zoning now that would put in 15,000 luxury units a year now.. for 20 years, until UW Population Dept says WA state will stop growing (they estimate 12% growth over the next 15y or 873,000 more people across the state, and then flatline after that).
But developers run this town. The tax model, the in-lieu fees for required affordable, the fact that they never have to share their spreadsheet about what "pencils out" or how much profit they make and we should support with tax-free policies… it's all in their favor. Renters and owners get screwed by them every day.
Ask a renter in luxury about how they like their 2BR, 2BA 600sf unit for $6k a month, plus $500 a month for a parking space, and their $500 a month "amenities fee" for water, sewer and garbage? They report they hate them.. and cannot wait to get out as quickly as possible.. and they all say they cannot wait to buy or rent a real house. Houses are what everyone wants. Not Townhouses, which turn over every year because the buyers realize they aren't using the top floors and at $1000a sf to buy, what a waste! So they don't get into the community .. they bug out and go get a house somewhere.
HB1110 lets a developer put in 6 anywhere, if two are affordable units. At that point they can go up to 45' in the neighborhoods, anywhere in Seattle. So.. if you want to game the system, you put in two 150sf units, stacked, and then immediately sell them to a non-profit affordable housing group at cost, $150k. Then you get 4 units at 45' high, at 50% lot coverage, only windows required in the front, small set backs, at 2000sf each, that will sell for $2million each. Condos..
No worries that the neighbors all put in solar and you've just blocked it and their sunlight 7 mo out of the year. No worries the units are so tall the new owners cannot maintain the upper levels and will just get out in a year, and year over year they all turn over. That's excise tax for the city! Right? Council has no interest in making housing people will stay in and developers build so cheap they heaps of junk are falling apart within 2-3 years. But the buyers who sell in a year aren't going to talk about what they have realized living there. They just want to get their $2m and get out to a real house that is enjoyable with a yard.
These policies are undermining our need for trees and solar energy, and cohesive neighborhoods that can work together to deal with climate change, disasters and generally interact. The city has told the disaster groups: you are on your own if anything happens.. so better prepare together as you are all you've got, in each neighborhood.
Destroying the cohesive neighborhoods in order to make developers money without any concern for climate and people is wrong.
WE ONLY have a SHORTAGE of affordable. Developers only build affordable if they can do 150 sf units, they rent for $10 a sf, which is NOT affordable. Or dump to non-profits but get more height and lot coverage. And they do not have to pay property taxes on those luxury $10 a sf rents that are "affordable" because they are so tiny / inhumane.
If this upzoning from One Seattle cared about getting affordable, they would not upzone anything unless it was 100% affordable for the additional, and require it be at $2.50 a sf which is an affordable rent, with a minimum of 300 sf per person.
But that wouldn't delight developers would it?
Everyone wants more housing. MORE AFFORDABLE HOUSING. What we don't want a massive give aways to developers that result in no housing that is truly affordable, takes away solar and trees, and makes a mess of neighborhoods.
Developers shouldn't be accommodated. Public Private partnerships with federal, state and local funds are the only way out of this — to get truly affordable housing which will drive down rents.
But that's not fun for developers, is it?
Affordable is defined how? If I buy an iPhone for $1000 it is affordable since I chose to pay for it. No one forces me to rent an apartment for $6000 a month. If you can’t find a place to rent for less than that, you either aren’t trying or you can’t make good choices with your available resources. I’m hopeful that developers make a profit since that is the incentive to choose to build.
If you were truly committed to making housing less expensive for anyone other than yourself you would give some of your income to someone of your choice and stop trying to force others to do so, and vilifying capitalism.
With strong zoning and licensing control, what we have is massive giveaway to existing homeowners by restricting housing supply to stimulate the housing price. All homeowners would look at their Zillow estimates going up and feel happy about it. I know because that's what I got, enjoying wealth gain from this without doing anything at the expense of renters.
The need of tree is a lie for anybody who support low density zones really. I kept advocating for converting 90% of Wallingford to forest and having all the population moved to high density housing in 10% of the land, and nobody ever supports the idea. Or how about converting most of King County to forest and move all population into high density housing in Seattle? Wouldn't that be better for the environment?
Hey Mary- we live in one of those townhouses you say no one really wants…we love it and have for years. We also like the the walkability and diversity the higher density of our part of the neighborhood has created–lower income renters and families next to higher-end old homes with adjacent condos and townhomes–somehow we all get along and are very content 🙂
Yes the funny thing about the frequent bashing of townhomes here in Seattle is that a great many people like the form so much there are literally house p**n books written about them…!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2bba082cc7798e1157bd23f7033802464e19ee27750e825b7bd7b11501ab72db.jpg
One of the most disappointing and un-serious things on the map is keeping the tiny strip of urban village running tightly along 45th between Wallingford and the U District. It's a super duper transit route: it should be 1/4 mile wide on either side (the standard walkshed assumption).
It always should have been that way but to put forth a new plan without fixing it is just absurd.
🙁
Zoning changes definitely will help housing affordability, just neither fast nor specifically mean having cheap housing in Wallingford. The Fre-Wall area is now obviously a successful mid density area with lots of foot traffic and crowded restaurants in the evening, due to all the shiny new apartments. Those are people who would have lived in Shoreline or further in the past, displacing people there to Marysville. Some of these apartments will become cheaper in 20 or more years when they age, and these buildings are helping to make older apartments cheaper already. To keep the housing price manageable, what you do is to zone up as much as possible, and reduce burden for new building licenses, so over time people keep building new apartments here and there. You'll always have good mix of new ( expensive) and old ( cheaper) apartments in the neighborhood allowing a mix of income level in the same community. Permanent affordable housing issue can be solved this way.
Ideas like raising wage would make affordability worse by the way. That doesn't increase housing stock, just giving people more money. What do you think would be the reasonable result?
Sorry, but zoning changes look productive on paper, but housing is not an elastic market. Developers slow building once prices (returns) start to drop which adjusts supply to keep demand (and prices) high.
It also makes zero sense to allow the same number of units on a parcel irregardless of size (essentially a density limit of infinity). Adverse impacts to neighboring properties increase as density rises. Most cities address this by applying a density limit, say, of 1 unit per 1300 sq ft of lot area (what Chicago adopted). Doing so tapers the number of units to match the space available – a 4000 sq ft parcel = 3 units; a 10,000 sq ft parcel = 6 units. Doing so allows for at least a thought about vegetation and open space! Our homes should be integral with our environment. That is how one saves energy and mitigates impacts.
You might be relieved to find out that the proposed rule generally is what you wish it would be. The newly revised Neighborhood Residential zoning would allow one home per 1,250 square feet of lot area. To comply with the state's new "middle housing" law any currently-existing small lots would be allowed four homes (six if close to certain major transit lines). Newly-subdivided lots would not qualify for this rule.
Even if you do have one of these old small lots you'd be subject to the same overall lot coverage/height/setback/floor area limits as any other lot, resulting in a smaller building than what is allowed on a larger lot. When redeveloping the property you'd be allowed to split the building 4-6 ways but the apartments would be fairly small. Equally possible you'd decide to allocate the given space into fewer, larger homes.
Also I'll say you seem to be laser-focused on negative impacts of new development. What about the positive impacts? More density means the neighborhood can support more businesses within walking distance, plus higher-frequency transit connecting to other parts of the city. In a neighborhood as close to downtown and UW as we are, more homes also give more people the opportunity to get to their jobs without long energy-intensive commutes. On balance I personally think these positive impacts outweigh any negative ones.
It's exactly because housing isn't elastic enough, so if you intend to achieve density of 10, you actually cannot have a limit of 10. You may need to have a limit of 50. Vast majority of the units won't change simply because of zoning change.
"Adverse impacts to neighboring properties" really should not be considered that important. What has been much worse is "adverse impacts to the whole environment" by having endless low density housing that decreases the efficiency of pretty much everything. Why not keep more vegetation in Marysville, instead of building more houses there and having people commute to Seattle from there? Why not have more apartments in Wallingford instead? You save energy and mitigate impacts by building up in Wallingford obviously.
And really, just look at Wallingford, it's very obvious that the Fre-Wall area is now becoming a vibrant area with higher density and more attractive than the 45th street. Wallingford has become better with density.
"it's very obvious that the Fre-Wall area is now becoming a vibrant area with higher density and more attractive than the 45th street. Wallingford has become better with density"
100% It's easy to take for granted, but the Stone Way corridor from Green Lake down to Lake Union is night and day / head and shoulders above and beyond what it was when we moved here 20 years ago. "More people" have made it massively better.