Seattle councilmember: City, county must address microhousing concerns

It started with a series of flyers complaining about a new apartment building in Seattle’s Eastlake neighborhood where each apartment, or “a-pod-ment,” would be 125 square-feet.

There would be 39 of them in one building, wedged in next to single-family homes, with no additional parking.

Supporters of “microhousing” say it provides affordable places to live; opponents say it’s ruining the neighborhood and they want it regulated.

After listening to both sides of the issue, Seattle City Councilman Mike O’Brien spent Friday touring five of the city’s microhousing projects, including the one in Eastlake.

“I believe that this type of housing is filling a real need out there. The unit we walked through on Franklin, from the outside the units are obviously small, but they’re clean. They seem livable. I mean, me with a wife and two kids – it would never work,” said O’Brien.

He said he continues to hear from the microhousing builders that when someone moves, someone else is ready to move in within a day, and there are waiting lists.

“I talked to people that live in them,” O’Brien said, “They say, ‘I’d like some space, but for what I can afford, this is the best alternative I got.'”

Eastlake is zoned for multi-family housing and he said while the change can be managed, it can’t be stopped.

“Obviously, people bought single family homes long ago and it still feels single-family on some streets, but at some point it’s probably going to go, on certain streets at least,” said O’Brien. “That’s something that’s really hard, that I feel from residents. I’m hearing about it in Ballard, too. People say, ‘I know this was a multi-family neighborhood, I’ve only been here five years, but I didn’t think it was going to be this bad.'”

So the process to make the transition more manageable will start with a meeting to define what “microhousing” is.

Since the city never anticipated that this form of housing would happen, O’Brien said it needs a definition and rules.

“We have legislation that’s coming over to council that in the next three months we’ll be having in-depth discussions about the definition of microhousing, what are the rules around it, how big can they be, how small they can be, what’s required,” he said.

It sounds like he thinks the neighbors should have input.

“The conversations I look forward to having are like, look, we understand our neighborhoods are changing, but we would like some say in what that change looks like,” said O’Brien. “And I want to engage in a conversation with that. Let’s talk about what the appropriate height is, let’s think about what this block would like. Where is appropriate? And those are all legitimate concerns that the city or the county has to address.”