The Seattle City Council will step away from 2026 budgets Friday as its land use committee takes up legislation seeked to help the city further rein in State’s Environmental Policy Act review in hopes of speeding more development of housing.
The bill sponsored by council member Mark Solomon would exempt “infill” residential development from SEPA review except in areas near shorelines, environmentally critical areas, or “historic locations.” The proposed exemption would be in place “until citywide planned-for growth is achieved,” a presentation (PDF) on the legislation explains.
According to the presentation, the legislation would align the city with “state guidance for streamlining SEPA environmental review” while also doing more to “speed housing production and encourage transit-oriented development.”
Expensive, timely, and sometimes unpredictable review processes have been consistently eroded in the city over recent years as economic factors have bogged down the development of new housing. One example, Seattle’s “design review” program is on hold as officials look to streamline the system.
CHS reported here in October 2019 on growing calls to pare back SEPA review. Washington’s SEPA, passed in 1971, has come under fire from reform supporters who see it as an outdated form of environmental protection. “It’s rooted in the 1970s-era conception of environmentalism,” one advocate told us six years ago.
Now with a new 20-year growth plan taking shape hoped to spread more residential development into more areas of the city, the council is considering reining in SEPA.
According to the presentation, the proposed SEPA exemption legislation would measure growth at the citywide level according to the final comprehensive growth plan. If those growth totals are met, the exemptions would be lifted and any development with 200 or more residential units or 30,000 square feet of non-residential use would again be subject to the costly reviews.
The legislation also includes protections for historical research, updating Seattle’s rules to match state standards around archaeological assessments to include evaluations as part of “pre-development assessments.”
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But there are no proposals to exempt developers from buying and sitting on as many homes as they want, locking out families who could buy one. And nothing to stop mutual funds and REITs to stop buying up homes. If this were a true emergency lawmakers would make them divest of the homes they are holding and you would see an immediate price drop.
This myth only has legs because no one wants to fact check a story about how it’s all the rich corporations’ fault. What fraction of the housing market do you think is being bought and sat on by REITs like this?
Developers should not be allowed to sit on empty homes. If they don’t want to develop on the land right away, they should at least be required to rent the homes out until they are.
“transit oriented development” is the biggest fucking scam. It’s so single family homeowners can build a wall to arterials and force tenants to live there.
To be fair, living on those arterials wouldn’t be nearly as bad if we actually implemented robust transit and got serious about removing cars from the city, whether near single family residences or multi-tenant buildings. But for the do-nothing liberals and in our current situation, yes, it is as you described. Speed bumps wouldn’t hurt for a start.
Personally, I think the only real solution is fully publicly built housing to offset the market and lower the average price, because any time private interests are involved with the building process, profit incentive becomes a factor and momentum halts. We need houses NOW, not private developers only building what suits their bottom line when they feel like it…
I agree with your solution. We need a diverse array of housing options, ranging from tiny homes to large single family dwellings, built as soon as possible to ease our region’s housing shortage. We should not be at the mercy of developers who are only focused on how much money they can make. That isn’t to say that there isn’t a role for them to play in building housing. They just shouldn’t be the only ones doing it.
Why is that a scam? It allows construction of bustling areas like Queen Anne which are the best parts of town to live in if you want walkability… businesses on the ground floor with guaranteed foot traffic from the 4-5 floors above and around, while preserving areas with homes and yards if you want a safe place for children to play.
And the buildings along the arterials block noise from traffic and businesses. Yet those SFHs get to enjoy the businesses too, with just a short walk.
Throw in some townhomes and backyard 1 bedroom places and you have a nice mix.
just remove them with no date to bring them back – worthless rules that just make everything more expensive
“70s-era conception of environmentalism” vs progressive anti-environmental policies where the “green” is the color of the money being passed directly, or indirectly, to developers and special-interest group pop-ups?
Less trees and more poop in the Sound.
Red-lining is now done by directing the homeless, the city has attacked immigrant communities by flooding drugs into the International District, and by building out transit so that it bisects communities in Columbia City.
All that low-income housing has delivered on is a glut of housing that is forcing real-estate from the hands of families and mom-pop landlords; further reducing the number of families in the city as well as further defunding the city’s public schools.
This is just another giveaway to out-of-town corporate developers that mine Seattle for profit at the expense of neighborhoods
i got mine, screw new people moving in, amiright?
What are the rules reformers want suspended, eliminated or modified? I appreciate the writer giving us a heads-up about this effort, but there is nothing in the article to help us evaluate whether it’s a good idea or not, except that critics say the rules are outdated “environmentalism” (whatever that means) and “expensive”, which is left undefined.