You can view the “live” proposed zoning map here
Seattle is ready to finalize a new 20-year growth plan including new “Neighborhood Centers” and “Middle Housing” laws expanding zoning to allow a greater range of housing types in more parts of the city.
The process has played out as Seattle’s twin crises of housing affordability and homelessness have continued to grow. In the meantime, core areas of the city have continued to rise as some of the wealthiest areas in the county, state, and nation.
For all the debate, not much will change. Nearly 70% of new construction expected under the plan would be constrained to “Regional Centers,” the plan’s designation for the city’s most densely populated, high transit areas — Downtown, Lower Queen Anne, South Lake Union, University District, Northgate, Ballard, and First Hill and Capitol Hill —- or less dense but still highly developed areas like 23rd Ave from Union to Jackson.
A public hearing Friday will include 100 proposed amendments to finalize the plan — and a day of some of the last opportunities for public comment after years of debate.
The amendments on the table Friday for Seattle City Council’s comprehensive plan committee chaired by District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth range from large to small, including proposals that would bolster protections for “bees and trees” across the whole of the plan down to a set of amendments that would make final adjustments on select neighborhood boundaries in the plan.
In Hollingsworth’s District 3 in the Madrona area — where there was legal pushback on the effort to spread growth across the city — one amendment up for consideration Friday would shave seven more blocks from the “Madrona Neighborhood Center” set to be upzoned.
Pressured by opposition from some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city, the plan’s core areas have already been downsized. CHS reported this summer on the city’s revisions that reduced nine of the city’s 30 proposed Neighborhood Centers including Montlake, Madison Park, and Madrona.
Groups have pushed back on the growth plan over the creation of the 30 new Neighborhood Centers across the city. The designation will “allow residential and mixed-use buildings up to six stories in the core and four and five-story residential buildings toward the edges.”
The proposed Neighborhood Centers and Zoning Maps for District 3
CHS reported in June as the council passed an interim growth bill designed to meet the state’s minimum requirements under its new “Middle Housing” laws just days before a legal deadline.
Friday’s day of hearings and debate is the beginning of cementing the final long-term changes for growth and development.
Hollingsworth has led the committee in considering elements including the locations of centers related to transit access, concerns about environmentally critical areas, issues around Subdivisions/Lot Splitting, “Setbacks, Amenity Areas, Trees,” design standards, streets, sidewalks, vehicle access, and parking as the final set of proposed amends has taken shape.
Committee members have also brought their platforms to the table including downtown rep Bob Kettle, chair of the public safety committee, who is proposing an amendment to include a crime and safety framework in the already sprawling comprehensive plan.
There is ample opportunity for bloat. West Seattle representative Rob Saka who also chairs the council’s transportation committee, has proposed a “pothole amendment” for the plan.
There are more on-topic — and likely more impactful — amendments to be considered including a set from Hollingsworth asking for rules that would ease development and the creation of new housing like Accessory Dwelling Unit for “legacy homeowners” in neighborhoods at the highest risk of gentrification and displacement.”
A full roster of the proposed amendments is below.
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Tired of hearing “homelessness” is being due to capitol hill homes being 1m+ or whatever other nonsense.
Almost none of the homeless in our expensive cities are there because they already work and have income, but houses are too expensive. That may be what is going on in the macro scale, but at home, here, that’s NOT it.
None of these people work. They’re addicts left to rot on the streets.
This is why the most humane, the most sane thing to do is to remove all tent encampments, and put every one who is struggling with addiction in forced rehab paid by government (our) money.
I’m all for paying more taxes (property taxes alone in Capitol Hill for most homes are more than $10,000 a year) – add another $1000 if you need to but CLEAN our streets of addicts, criminals and people who break the social contract.
Involuntary commitment NOW!
You ok, bud?
He seems perfectly normal to me. That’s the rant everyday. If it was different? Than I’d worry.
He’s so tiring with this hatred for homeless
The author shows a lack of empathy for individuals with substance abuse issues.
You on the other hand have bias about the author being male, want to equate being homeless with substance abuse disorders, and are painting the complaint “as hatred” in a dismissive manner.
You might want to check your own biases.
Huh?? Involuntary commitment is not “a lack of empathy”! Letting unhoused, ill people rot on the streets, not giving them necessary care and treatment, letting them steal and commit acts of violence toward each other and on innnocent people, and dismissing their safety and security in favor of maintaining their civil rights is the real lack of empathy. Anyone who tells you otherwise is 100% gaslighting.
I have physical and mental issue that render me disabled. Everything I get is govt. provided.
I’m all for it. If you need help, you need help. But, in the context of this conversation, what is the point you are making?
I see your terminology has expanded to include a relatively subjective term- define ‘social contract’ please
My taxes should go towards protecting the most vulnerable, including FORCED treatment.
In turn, they don’t get to occupy public spaces, do hard drugs, and shit on the streets.
Very simple contract.
except it is not that simple.
I tend to agree with you. My brother is an addict and the only thing that has helped him get clean and allowed him to be sober enough for long enough to know he wanted a better life, is a mandatory, court ordered drug treatment program. It lasts for 18 months including 4 months of intensive in treatment rehab. He then gets out, goes into a half way house and then he is expected to get a job and learn to support himself. He will continue to go to the treatment program for 14 more months as an outpatient. Yes, there are some folks who have drug addiction and mental health issues but there are LOTS of people in the state with mental health issues who aren’t living in tents, shooting up in public etc. etc. etc.. We can solve this issue but continuing to do the same thing we’ve been doing i.e. building more homeless shelters, is NOT fixing the root of the problem. People need drug treatment, mental health treatment and expectations from us, as a society, that they can turn themselves around. Currently, we are just enabling the same behavior and it clearly doesn’t work. It’s time to try something new.
Ok, you’re tired of hearing that there’s overwhelming evidence that the strongest correlation with homelessness is housing costs, not drug addiction, not mental illness, not unemployment. Where’s the evidence to support your rebuttal? Why should anyone trust you? Even your solution of involuntary commitment, would require a massive amount of building, because even the forced institutional solution (that doesn’t have evidence of being effective) still requires building a lot more housing, just in a different form.
the half naked guy yelling at the stars surrounded by blackened aluminum foil squares and sitting in his own shit? that seems like decent evidence.
Thank you, E15 resident. Needed to be said.
I agree, and we already pay huge amounts of tax dollars to non profits that are not effective. Id much rather pay taxes to institutions that keep addicts from rotting in the street than shady non profits with no oversight. For example JustCare costs 10 million/year for only 150 shelter beds
Lmao awww… someone has never done any research on homelessness. That’s so cute that you think your opinion is somehow valid when we’re talking about facts!
Talk about a lack of empathy. Sheesh.
That’s complete horse dung.
I work with homeless kids who fall under the McKinney-Vento Act. How many kids do you see in those junkie tent villages? I see zero. That’s because the majority of the homeless you don’t see with your eyes because they’re homeless, not unsheltered, they’re couch surfing or staying with relatives. So yes, affordable housing is a major issue. Almost all of them work, some of them are only temporarily homeless (i.e. new apartment owners displace parent(s) who needs a few months to save enough to get into a new place). That’s the majority of the homeless, that’s what they’re talking about.
As for the homeless junkies, let’s once again review everything wrong with these kinds of suggestions.
Now right wingers who are probably only here because they reached the KOMO website’s daily limit on slurs in their comments section, jump the General Lee over those issues with your brilliant plans and get back to me and do please come up with some witless remark about how your eyes are superior to you know, actual data that shows you’re wrong. Mandatory treatment is not a bad idea, I’m for it, but….you’re the ones who oppose all new taxes. You’re the ones who oppose building this stuff where it can only logically be built. You’re the ones who clearly don’t have a handle on the scale of the problem if you think the junkies in tents are both the only homeless and the only junkies, you’re wrong on both counts (do some research, I don’t believe in welfare for those who oppose welfare programs). You’re the ones who oppose expanding health care access. You’re the ones who oppose affordable housing measures (even if they were ALL the homeless, after treatment do you think they’re going to step into jobs as Boeing engineers or something? They will need cheap housing to get back on their feet).
Can anyone who is not a right wing keyboard warrior refugee from the KOMO website tell me: are they getting dumber or just louder? I can’t tell.
Joy, if development wasn’t as concentrated in certain neighborhoods, like the CD, and say for example was spread more across the city in more neighborhood centers (novel idea I know)…wouldn’t that be an argument for pressuring the mayor to stop selectively shaving down the wealthier neighborhood centers that clearly hold the life of his campaign in their wallet? Just pragmatically speaking, if you want density but also worry about gentrification and the resulting displacement, the more various places across the city that can be upzoned to handle increased population density as it inevitably comes, the less pressure there will be for increasing the density and development in your own neighborhood, which has indeed taken a large share of the development burden thus far and experiences the large upward pressure on housing prices and rent…which then displaces the folks you claim to represent.
Also, not sure if designating “legacy homeowners” as some kind of protected class speaks to as many people as you think, if you were going for some kind of populist message at least lol. Does being a landlord really cloud your judgement that much?
If you want to help people in need directly in your district, why don’t you find a way to re-house the residents of the two tiny home villages into the new apartment building at 23rd and Cherry? Could a portion not be designated as permanent supportive housing with this big new development coming to their neighborhood? Are they supposed to just stay living in tuff sheds forever as the neighborhood develops around their clearly temporary band-aid shelter solution? One is three blocks away, and the other is directly across the street and behind a gas station for god sake…
“Hollingsworth asking for rules that would ease development and the creation of new housing like Accessory Dwelling Unit for “legacy homeowners” in neighborhoods at the highest risk of gentrification and displacement.””
One surefire idea to reduce displacement pressure in lower income parts of Seattle would be to increase the ability to add homes in our wealthiest and most privileged neighborhoods. Oh wait…
“CHS reported this summer on the city’s revisions that reduced nine of the city’s 30 proposed Neighborhood Centers including Montlake, Madison Park, and Madrona.”
Yeah…they are all full of shit except for the progressives. The rest are strictly political driven. Clout chasers.
I wish there was an extra 10 stories for L2 and L3
Can we finally stop with the b*shit narrative that the unsheltered homeless population setting up encampments on our streets and in our parks is there because of housing affordability? They are living in encampments because they are drug addicts and Seattle coddles drug addicts and attracts them from all over the country.
It’s not BS, literal data supporting it. You are the one who is full of BS!
totes sis – i was chatting with my lovely neighborhood addict last night after he took a shit on my porch and before he passed out from his 17th fentanyl hit of the day, and he was like “yo, i gots nine hundy a month for rent but they want a grand! so i’ve got no choice but to smoke the whole nine hundy and slowly kill myself on the street. life’s hard yo”
Supply dara please.
“Data”
You keep saying this, yet you’re not providing any data or facts. You’re gaslighting, and it shows.
Nah, go outside hoss.
That’s what I said.
Anyone who thinks it’s because rent is $2500 not $2000 or whatever they think the rate should be are at best wrong, at worst are actively hurting any potential improvement.
NONE of the people in tents are working – none are on path to recovery. They’re just rotting on the streets and some of our less-smart neighbors are cheering for them.
The “twin crises” trope needs to be put out with the trash. You don’t have crises that last 10 or more years. They are now the status quo. I think if it we lose the crisis frame, we might get more traction.
The fact is that cities with wealth (lie Seattle, NYC, SF) also have poor people, some homegrown, some who go to the cities to find opportunity, but since capital accrues wealth faster than labor does (fellow named Piketty wrote a whole book on this), property/asset owners get rich while the workers who don’t own anything get left behind. A guy named Henry George wrote a whole book about how land increases in value the more people compete for access to it, either to live on or start some business.
Seattle is 84 sq miles and has increased in population from 600k to 750k in the past 25 years. Is it any surprise that the cost of property (land and houses) has increased so much, and with it rents as well as sale prices? Density is the easiest solution. Paris has 3 times as many people in half the area, so 6x the density. Not a lot of houses with yards there. But they seem to manage OK.
The joke is really on the mossbacks who have blocked mixed use/multifamily development. Now they will have to move away from everything they know, all their connections and relationships, when they finally have to sell that 2500 sq ft rambler. They could still live nearby in a smaller place, but they have voted and lobbied against that for years.
On the money, heh heh. But yeah, pretty much it isn’t a crisis so much as the status quo where people really want to cheap out, flake out, delegate it to somebody else’s, and then things somehow become remarkably improved in short order…and it’s like…noooo…we go through cycles collectively while avoiding the larger issue that this racket can’t possibly deliver any better on any time horizon, with any sustainment and it isn’t just some marginal changes on the edges. It’s a system that doesn’t break itself to complete non functioning, but it will never actually resolve the larger hole where a societal heart should be.
it’s a hole they want to maintain, so people can fall through it, never to be thought of again (by anyone with Money). It’s the core motivation of hustle mentality- tread water, don’t make a mistake, please your masters, don’t complain, don’t rise up ’cause the hole’s always right there (fear of hell only works on children so they had to make a highly visible one that keeps adults hustling)
Spot on, you’re my kinda thinker.