Keeping Seattle's 78 Neighborhoods Affordable and Distinctive

By Jean Godden

Before the end of the year, the Seattle City Council will need to approve a new Comprehensive Plan for the City. Voted on every 10 years, the comp plan defines where growth will occur in Seattle. The plan serves to guide the city for the next 20 years and even beyond.

Last March, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell announced his comp plan proposal, calling it “The One Seattle Plan.” Denouncement of that plan came quickly from those who said it didn’t begin to provide sufficient density. Criticism also came from Rep. Jessica Bateman (D-Olympia) prime sponsor of HB1110, the bill passed by the Legislature that calls for much greater development to meet the state’s affordable housing crisis. By contrast, neighborhood advocates were taking an opposite view, saying the increased density would turn the city’s districts into apartment ghettos.

Since his earlier announcement, Harrell’s One Seattle Plan has been considerably redrawn. His most recent version, announced Oct. 16, more than doubles increased capacity to 330,000 units of new housing. The update is a far bolder approach to providing “middle housing.” When announcing his revision, Harrell was accompanied by advocates from the city’s housing development consortium, commercial real estate interests, the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, and Futurewise, a nonprofit that champions land use issues.

Harrell sold his updated plan as fully implementing HB-1110. In addition to greater upzoning, more duplexes, triplexes, and quadruplexes, the mayor is also advocating corner stores throughout the city, planting larger trees, waived parking requirements, added accessory dwellings, and an incentive for stacked flats.

https://www.postalley.org/2024/12/05/keeping-seattles-78-neighborhoods-affordable-and-distinctive/