Seattle mayor’s plan to double housing capacity sparks debate, concern among city council

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell’s plan to double the city’s housing capacity over the next two decades was the central focus of the latest Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan meeting, with council members acknowledging the need for more housing, debating the internal logistics of the plan and pushing back to its lofty goals.

“I’m a fourth-generation Seattleite, and my brother recently brought home the fifth-generation Seattleite in the home that my grandmother bought in 1947,” Seattle Council member Joy Hollingsworth said at the council meeting Monday. “That Seattle does not exist today.”

Under Harrell’s revised One Seattle plan, 330,000 new housing units, including at least 80,000 homes, are expected to be built by 2044. As of this reporting, Seattle’s housing capacity is approximately 165,000 housing units.

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“We all agree more housing is needed – of all types,” Seattle City Council member Maritza Rivera said in a statement before the Monday meeting. “We have vulnerable populations who need a safe place to live, and we have bus drivers, teachers and young people returning home to Seattle who cannot afford to rent or buy in the city. The need is critical.”

But Rivera also brought up concerns regarding the city’s Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) rushing through certain necessary steps of this plan, citing that OPCD failed to release plans for transportation, utilities and climate resilience needs regarding the massive housing expansion. Under the Washington State Growth Management Act, those documents and statements are required to be delivered before legislation moves forward under state law.

“Many of my constituents have lingering questions about the department’s proposed changes, how they were determined and how OPCD has incorporated their feedback into the plan,” Rivera said.

Rivera also said in the Monday meeting that, based on her conversations with residents living in the district she represents, District 4, they were not heard from in regards to this plan during the initial phases when OPCD was seeking public input.

“I spoke with many, many constituents in District 4 who felt like they were not reached out to. They didn’t feel like the proper outreach was there,” Rivera added. “Why in Phase 1 did (OPCD) not engage with the public broadly? That’s led to people feeling like this process has not been transparent, and that is unfortunate because when people feel like government is transparent, they trust government more.”

Several Seattle residents from all its districts provided similar feedback to OPCD during the public comment section of the Monday meeting.

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“We were blindsided by the lack of outreach and short deadline for comments,” Lily Church, a resident of Madrona and Capitol Hill for more than 40 years, said at the meeting during public comment. “As constituents, we need to be engaged and valued as much as developers and special interest groups have been.”

Seattle City Council member Bob Kettle, representing District 7, echoed Rivera’s concerns, claiming the residents he represents did not have their opinions and concerns heard regarding this two-decade housing plan.

“Our outreach is important because I know there may be some local factors that the Mayor’s Office and OPCD did not take into account in their still-draft comprehensive plan,” Kettle said. “I do believe in densification, and building more housing. But we need varied types of housing and varied zoning. Clearly, skinny townhomes cannot be our future. Everything I see, for the most part, are skinny townhomes.”

The plan itself wants to increase the number of homes allowed per lot in areas zoned for single-standing homes and develop approximately 30 “neighborhood centers” where housing can be created in five-story tall buildings. However, Seattle Council member Cathy Moore isn’t confident this is the correct answer to increase housing. She believes townhouses, similar to Kettle’s thoughts, do not equal affordability or the ability to age in place.

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“Does this, in fact, produce affordable housing? What I’ve seen so far is that it does not,” Moore said. “Simply equating density with affordability is a lie. It’s a myth. There is a little bit of trickle-down that will happen, but not enough to meet our affordability requirements. And I view this as an opportunity to really open the doors to homeownership opportunities. We need to be looking at not just the condo law change in Olympia, but we need to be looking at other ownership models, such as co-ops, and increasing the number of land trust opportunities. I don’t think this model allows us to do that.”

Other criticisms of the plan include debates over the proper amount of square footage per lot, adjusting different parking mandates and the overall sizing of the planned neighborhood centers, alongside several potential environmental impacts this growth in housing could have.

The plan states that most of the yet-to-be-created housing needs to be in the 0-60% range of the area median income (AMI).

OPCD will return to the Seattle City Council on Jan. 15 to present Harrell’s recommended growth strategy that addresses housing needs. The Seattle Times reported the city council needs to finalize density rules by June. Several public comment sessions will be held in the early months of 2025 regarding the most recent edition of Harrell’s One Seattle plan.

Frank Sumrall is a content editor at MyNorthwest and producer of the Seattle Seahawks podcast, The Reset with Gee Scott. You can read his stories here and you can email him here.