CHS is not responsible for this map of Seattle that is not north-south oriented (Image: City of Seattle)
Here’s the joke: Seattle has finally eliminated “single family” zoning. The punchline? It’s only words — for now.
With some 75% or more of the city reportedly restricted under current land use law from multifamily development and housing costs and real estate prices continuing to soar, the City Council this week put an end to use of the “single family” term in Seattle’s municipal code.
Instead, Seattle begin using a new term to describe the zoning designation — Neighborhood Residential, a change that will “touch many elements of the Comprehensive Plan” including the Future Land Use Map, the Land Use, Housing, and Parks and Open Space elements, seventeen neighborhood plans, and the Housing Appendix.
CHS reported on the just-passed legislation here this summer as the council’s Teresa Mosqueda said the city Planning Commission first requested the change in 2018 and the new description would be recognition “that the term ‘single family’ as used in Seattle’s zoning code is a misnomer, inaccurately describes current uses, and has roots in exclusionary practices.”
The change comes as Seattle faces continued pressure to create more housing to address issues ranging from homelessness to affordability. In its most recent overhaul of zoning, the so-called Mandatory Housing Affordability plan altered the city’s zoning to surgically allow taller and more multifamily-packed development in the city’s densest neighborhoods including Capitol Hill and the Central District. The MHA plan tied upzones in 27 of the city’s densest neighborhoods to the creation of affordable units and was planned to transition a reported 6% of Seattle’s single family/Neighborhood Residential-zoned property. Growth advocates say much more is needed.
Meanwhile, advocates for increased density, lower rents, and more affordable paths to ownership are looking toward New Zealand where the nation has instituted sweeping new land use policy that effectively eliminates single family zoning in a bid to address urban sprawl and the country’s housing affordability crisis.
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Single family zoning in Seattle is already gone. If you can take an old single family home, renovate it, add a Mother-in-law unit, and build a separate condominium on the alley, then sell the units separately, then single family zoning is dead. Three units on a lot zoned single family 5000 is not single family. More than one owner in new construction on one single family 5000 lot is not single family. This is what happened several houses down from my home. It’s legal apparently.
Exactly, we have several “condominium” triplex units that have been built near us. It is good to know that those $650K+ 800sqft units are contributing to the much needed affordable housing around here [s/]. The issue isn’t the density but the lack of any plan for it and how to integrate it, we just do things haphazard lot-by-lot scatershot and it is going to be crap in 15 years as these “condo” owners are fighting over maintenance needs. There are plenty of 50s and 60s era small apartment and condo buildings around that are much more practical and actually have enough units for maintenance to not become a mess.
Washington should look at California as an example of how NOT to deal with unsustainable population growth.
How dense, is too dense?
most of these$1.3mil unit, high density lots have no trees or green space.
can we not leverage light-rail to spread instead of pack.
What this article and these urbanite lobbyists avoid talking about is how big Wall Street firms are spending billions buying homes and renting them out in predatory ways and hitting renters with all kinds of fees.
These investment companies like Blackstone and the one owned by the Kushner brothers are snapping affordable homes from first time homebuyers, middle class and working class buyers and small would-be local landlords.
What these predatory companies are doing is making sure Americans become a nation of renters- everything from renting housing, cars, scooters, furnitures, appliances, etc. while at the same time gutting consumer protection laws and forcing people into arbitration.
This is a nationwide problem crossing all political lines. The end result, regardless whether you have Mosqueda or Jared Kushner, is the same whether you are living in progressive Seattle or Lexington, KY. It’s about greed and power. It’s why even with all the “progressive” bills passed, there won’t be enough real affordable housing. This flaw is baked into the process.
Whether it’s due to the city’s mismanagement of affordable housing money/practices (a big problem in the other Washington too) or targeting laws to hamstrung small landlords rather than big real estate investors, the end result is when you don’t own anything, you are always vulnerable to those who do. That plan is working well here.