An updated version of Seattle's 20-year growth plan includes additional opportunities for housing density, but mostly retains the city's longstanding pattern of walling off lower-density areas of the city.

Seattle's 20-year growth plan doesn't do enough to ensure that lower income residents will be able to access the vast majority of the city's residential neighborhoods, according to King County's Affordable Housing Committee.

Seattle's single family areas have seen their Black population plummet by 9,126 since 1990. Meanwhile, "urban village" neighborhood have added more than 8,000 Black residents in that span. Why then is low-density zoning expected to blunt displacement?

Seattle needs to allow more housing in today's single family zones if it's serious about its housing crisis. Strict multiplex size restrictions need to go from the Mayor's growth plan.

The path forward is clear: a revised and ambitious Comprehensive Plan that should reform zoning rules and housing policies to allow more homes of all shapes and sizes; and incentivize affordable housing and homeownership.

Comment on the draft Seattle Comprehensive Plan by May 20. Housing advocates have urged the City to adopt the "Housing Abundance Map" rather than keep exclusionary zoning.

Seattle's proposed 20-year growth strategy could certainly use improvement. Here are suggestions to promote housing abundance, fight exclusion, and curb climate pollution.

A paper trail from fall 2023 shows that Mayor Harrell's office overruled his planning department and cut transit corridor upzones and halved the number of proposed "neighborhood centers" before release of the growth strategy.