One Seattle Comprehensive Plan

There are two important housing fights coming up next week. Public hearings are scheduled on Monday and Wednesday, and advocates need to ensure Seattle's plan for middle housing keeps advancing and long-promised affordable housing gets built at Fort Lawton, despite pushback.

Want a deep dive on the latest in Seattle housing policy? The Urbanist has you covered. Check out this recording and transcript of our April housing panel with experts.

Once plentiful across the city, small apartment buildings with flats stacked on top of one another are incredibly rare in new construction. The reasons behind that are multifaceted, and stemming the tide will take a push on multiple levels of government.

With the Seattle City Council set to consider amendments to required zoning changes this week, the city's planning commission highlighted the danger of adding on additional requirements including affordable housing mandates and changing thresholds for infrastructure upgrades.

The way cities conduct public outreach and local elections stacks the deck against homebuilding, tenants, and people of color, research shows. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Nat Henry maps out Mayor Harrell's growth plan and finds his transit corridor plan would would upzone fewer than 1 in 10 parcels within a five-minute walk of transit stops. That forces renters onto dangerous, polluted arterial roads, where apartments would be narrowly focused.

Phase two of the One Seattle Plan had included additional housing density around 30 existing commercial centers like Tangletown and Madrona, but now those changes won't be discussed until after this fall's elections, pushing key housing actions into 2026.

Hearing Examiner Ryan Vancil dismissed all appeals of Seattle's growth plan. Despite a myriad of issues raised by six appellants, the proposal will move forward thanks to a recently passed state law intended to prevent predatory delay of housing plans.