Support budget to study new housing types in Seattle!
Seattle City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda is sponsoring a $500,000 budget action that would require the City to produce an Environmental Impact Statement studying land use in our city. The EIS study would be initiated in 2020 and would explore additional housing capacity and diversity—including duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and row homes—in areas currently zoned exclusively for single-family houses, as well as strategies to minimize displacement of low-income residents and communities of color.
According to the Seattle Planning Commission’s Neighborhoods for All report, 75% of
Seattle's residential land is currently zoned for single family homes. While the city faces unprecedented population growth and rising housing costs, Only 5% of new housing units between 2010 and 2017 were built in these single-family zones. Our single-family zones include many of our wealthiest neighborhoods and some of our best parks, schools, and public amenities. Legalizing more types of housing could have numerous benefits:
- We can reduce emissions by allowing more people to live where they work, reducing car trips.
- It helps more people get access to our parks, schools, and public amenities.
- It's a step that could help address the history of redlining in Seattle.
- We can welcome more neighbors into our wonderful city!
Zoning reform alone will not solve our housing crisis, but it is one step in a journey towards a truly equitable city. The crisis we face has deep roots in systemic racial discrimination, redlining, exclusionary zoning policies that guard the legacy of racist policies and decades-long disinvestments in public housing.
Councilmember Mosqueda's proposal is a first step towards creating a tool to address this issue. If you believe in affordable, welcoming communities, please send a letter in support!
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