Council votes to keep ignoring Seattle’s housing crisis

The City Council majority looked at this map from Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposal and decided that it needed even more yellow, especially in the wealthier and whiter areas.

Well, we knew this was probably going to happen back in November 2023 when Seattle elected a slate of more conservative candidates for City Council. Even though as candidates most said (video 1 and 2) they supported the comprehensive plan options that would have allowed a lot of new housing, they showed their true colors this week by removing even more areas from the mayor’s already scaled-back growth plan. The result is that the mayor and council have decided to continue enforcing the exact same causes of our current housing crisis. Most growth will still be centered in large apartment buildings with lots of expensive car parking along our busiest roadways and in areas with high risks of displacement to communities of color all so that wealthier and often whiter areas can be spared the horror of having some more neighbors.

Only Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck stood up for allowing more homes in more places and for making it more affordable to build them. She was the lone vote to add eight neighborhood centers to plan, most of which the mayor cut before sending his proposal to Council. She was also the lone vote for removing parking minimums from new housing, which would have dramatically reduced the cost of new housing and supported the city’s stated goals of promoting more walking, biking and transit over car use. And she was on the losing side of a depressing number of votes that reduced housing. Her effort to make it legal again to open corner stores and other businesses in residential areas allow bars and expanded hours for residential businesses also failed (UPDATE: I initially said a measure to allow corner stores failed, but it passed at part of the consent agenda. The amendment that failed would have expanded the allowed types and hours of those businesses).

Councilmembers Bob Kettle, Maritza Rivera and Rob Saka formed a consistent voting block against pretty much all measures that would allow more housing and in favor of measures that would remove areas from the growth plan or add costs and red tape to discourage the building of new housing (if you don’t want to watch the videos yourself, Erica C. Barnett and the Urbanist did their best to cover the votes in real time on Bluesky). Councilmembers Dan Strauss, Debora Juarez and Joy Hollingsworth tried to play it wishy-washy, but by not uniting they gave the consistent block of three NIMBYs the default win on a lot of votes. Sorry, folks, this was the moment to stand up and fight to solve our city’s housing crisis, so you get no points for abstaining or remaining on the fence.

Speaking of abstaining, Council President Sara Nelson made the baffling decision to abstain from a huge number of votes, and she even signed off at one point so that she would miss a particularly controversial vote to add more red tape and restrictions to housing projects under the guise of protecting trees (nobody noticed until they called the roll call vote and she didn’t respond). It passed by one vote. She said she was abstaining so much because she did not feel “well informed” on the issues. Some might argue that learning about these issues is literally her job, but the voters can decide in November to relieve her of this heavy burden since she is incapable of carrying it. Her departure did lead to this wonderful post:

Sara Nelson flees from the job she is campaigning to keep. Via Bluesky.

Perhaps this was part of the carefully calculated political strategy Nelson’s team of brilliant consultants cooked up for her. Voters can’t blame her for the housing crisis if she leaves the room during the votes!

But at least Nelson was in attendance for some of the meeting. Appointed District 2 Councilmember Mark Solomon, Vice-Chair of the Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan, was absent and missed all the votes and discussions. Given how many of these measures were decided by a single vote, this was easily the most important day in Councilmember Solomon’s appointed time. I asked his office about why he was absent, and his Chief of Staff Sarah Mayes replied that he was in Vancouver, Washington, for a previously scheduled Crime Prevention and Community Engagement Conference and that the rest of the Council was aware of this conflict. “CM Solomon was attending in his capacity as President of the Washington State Crime Prevention Association (which organizes and leads the conference),” Mayes wrote in an email:

“In early August, we alerted Chair Joy Hollingsworth to the scheduling conflict as soon as we were aware of it. In addition to being excusing him from the meeting, Chair Hollingsworth worked closely with Solomon and his staff to make sure that the “Chair’s Package” of amendments reflected District 2 priorities. We’re grateful for the Chair’s cooperation, and for the hard work of Council colleagues throughout the week. Councilmember Solomon is back in the office today, and he’ll be joining his colleagues for the final committee votes on the Comp Plan.”

There is still more comprehensive plan voting to go, but Thursday was the big test for whether our City Council was going to make an effort to get our housing crisis under control. They instead mostly chose to do what they could to make it even worse. The only silver lining is that they will be forced by state law to allow more types of housing in all residential areas because it is clear they would also have rejected those changes if they could. UPDATE: Aidan T on Bluesky pushed back on this, saying that the Council went beyond what was mandated by the state on missing middle housing.

I thought that perhaps the resounding vote results from the social housing initiative or the primary election would have shaken some of the sitting councilmembers awake. The public has made it clear consistently that housing affordability is a top concern and that we expect action from city leaders, yet most councilmembers chose to defy them. I don’t see how anyone other than Councilmember Rinck will be able to shake this week’s acts of Council cowardice. Everyone else is complicit and on the record now against making housing more affordable and plentiful in our city. Councilmember Nelson seems likely to lose in November (support Dionne Foster for City Council!) and Councilmember Solomon is not running to keep the District 2 seat he was appointed to. Debora Juarez was also appointed, but her District 5 seat is not up for a vote until next year. Everyone else is up for a vote in 2027. I don’t know how they make this up to the city, but they better have some good ideas. Otherwise the ongoing housing crisis, a top issue among Seattle voters, will fall squarely on them. Maybe they’ve all decided they don’t want to run again?

In the meantime, we will not stop fighting for a Seattle that is welcoming and has a place for everyone.

#SEAbikes #Seattle

Mayor Harrell’s growth plan for Seattle is inadequate, but Council has a chance to make it better

Mayor Bruce Harrell’s plan would add very little housing to the yellow areas and would orient most of the new growth along our busiest roadways like Aurora and MLK Jr Way. The City Council has an opportunity to fix it.

Seattle’s horrific housing crisis continues to destabilize individuals and families who struggle to keep up with rising costs of living. Many continue to get priced out of housing entirely, pushing them into a deadly life trying to survive on the streets. For a city as great as Seattle, failing to meet this challenge over the past two decades is our biggest shame.

Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed One Seattle Plan, his update to the city’s comprehensive plan guiding growth and new housing, would continue our city’s insufficient effort to get housing prices and availability under control. It keeps the vast majority of our city off-limits to the types of dense housing common (and beloved) in parts of our city and in cities across the world, like small apartment buildings and “stacked flats.” It continues the city’s problematic strategy of locating the majority of new housing in giant and expensive apartment buildings along our busiest, loudest, most polluting and more dangerous roadways. The mayor’s plan even continues to prioritize housing cars over housing people by maintaining most parking requirements for new residential buildings, which force builders to either sacrifice precious lot space that could be used for more homes or build expensive underground garages that drive up unit prices. The plan effectively ignores that Seattle’s car ownership rate has fallen dramatically and consistently over the past decade since the previous comprehensive plan update.

The City Council will hold a public hearing tomorrow (September 12) starting at 9:30 a.m. for remote comments and 3 p.m. for in-person comments in Council Chambers at City Hall. You can also submit comments via email to [email protected]. Seattle Neighborhood Greenways also has an online petition supporting amendments for “a more affordable, equitable, and walkable Seattle.”

The Council has the opportunity to make some significant corrections in the right direction, and they will consider 110 amendments to the plan (PDF). They can, for example, add up to eight more neighborhood centers to the plan, which would increase the number of places where significant new housing could go (Amendment 34). They can also eliminate parking mandates citywide (Amendment 7) or at least near frequent transit (Amendment 86). They can allow stacked flats citywide (Amendment 89). They can legalize corner stores on all lots (Amendment 66). They can even encourage builders to protect mature trees by allowing them to build higher structures if they preserve a qualifying tree (Amendment 91). There are also a bunch of amendments to modify or expand the boundaries of various neighborhood centers, and the Urbanist has a good rundown of those.

The Urbanist also put together a cheat sheet for those who don’t have the time to read through hundreds of pages of documents packed with indecipherable zoning jargon:

For those that just want to cut to the case, here is a cheat seat for amendments to support and to oppose:

SUPPORT AMENDMENTS

• RINCK – 1, 2, 7, 34, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 66, 69, 72, 76, 84, 95, 98
• STRAUSS – 5, 6, 8, 25, 29, 30, 33, 42-C, 43, 46-A, 47, 48-C, 49-C, 64, 73, 92
• SAKA – 11, 13, 23, 36, 77
• HOLLINGSWORTH – 19, 68, 78, 79, 80, 107, 108, 109
• NELSON – 52, 60, 63, 65, 74, 86, 89, 91
• KETTLE – 50, 61, 70, 90, 94, 96
• SOLOMON – 83

OPPOSE AMENDMENTS

• SAKA – 35, 37,
• HOLLINGSWORTH – 38
• RIVERA – 39, 40, 41, 81 93, 102
• KETTLE – 51, 97

It’s remarkable that Councilmember Maritza Rivera managed zero good amendments and six bad ones. Her District 4 includes the University District, one of the city’s densest and fastest-growing neighborhoods. To be on the wrong side of so many of these growth decisions is troubling. Our city, including people in her district, are in a housing crisis, and her only contributions to the conversation are to try reducing new housing boundaries in the wealthiest parts of her district and add even more regulatory red tape to new home construction. She does not propose a single measure that would improve housing affordability for any her constituents. What an absolute shame.

I encourage our City Councilmembers to vote yes on every measure that would allow for more housing and more affordability while voting no on all measures that would reduce neighborhood centers and add regulatory hurdles to building new homes. I love trees, too, but don’t fall for anti-housing advocacy disguised as supporting trees. We can encourage the protection of trees through incentives without effectively kneecapping the finances for new housing on lots across the city just because those lots have a tree. People are dying on our streets because we don’t have enough homes. Approach these votes with the seriousness necessary to make the right calls for our city’s future.

#SEAbikes #Seattle

Seattle Council members again point out how they are incapable of understanding how government funding works in our city. Incompetence demands crisis management raiding of cooky jar funds to appear they know what they’re doing. Only council member Rinck has put forth a sensible proposal in “Seattle Shield” to protect city services funding, yet they want to throw those resources in the general fund.
#SeattleCouncil #SeattleShield #generalfund #MaritzaRivera
https://open.substack.com/pub/ericacbarnett/p/council-broaches-using-housing-levy?r=ct3l&utm_medium=ios

Seattle City Council, time to wake up: An open letter to our first-year councilmembers

Yesterday needs to be this City Council’s worst day if 8 out of 9 of them want a chance at another term. They pulled one of the most chickenshit moves I’ve ever witnessed from my years covering city politics when they decided to hold an expensive special election for the voters’ initiative 137 rather than put it on November’s high-turnout general election ballot. They did this for the sole purpose of weakening its chances because they know the more Seattleites who vote on the initiative, the more likely it will be to pass.

The Seattle City Council (minus Tammy Morales) is admitting that their opinion on the initiative is unpopular among the people they are elected to represent, and they are pulling a chickenshit procedural trick in order to circumvent the people’s will. Not only are they wrong to do this, they should stop and think for a moment about the implications for their political prospects in this city.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C-WSKGco9F_/

It didn’t help that they then retreated to their offices to remotely approve a contract for more jail cells to imprison low-level offenders because the outcry of public opposition in the council chambers was too loud. It also didn’t help that they somehow didn’t anticipate last week how unpopular it would be to roll back the minimum wage law. Not sure how many more signs folks will need before realizing they are making deeply unpopular decisions.

Here’s what I think is going to happen. Councilmember Woo will be toast in November, losing her second City Council election in the span of a year. It won’t be close. One down. At the same time, the voters of Washington House District 43 (entirely within the bounds of Seattle) will elect Shaun Scott despite a majority of the City Council endorsing Republican Andrea Suarez (who pretends she’s a Democrat because she thinks her voters aren’t paying attention). Suarez may not even make it into the general election depending on how late primary ballots turn out, that’s how out of touch this City Council is with the people they represent (Full disclosure: My family recently hosted a fundraiser house party for Scott’s campaign because he’s great). Seattle will then hold a special election, and we will pass I-137. But even worse for this Council, they decided through their action yesterday to turn the I-137 vote into a referendum of the city’s support for investing in affordable housing (spoiler, we want more) as well as a symbolic referendum on this City Council. Not a smart move, y’all.

Is it too late for them to save themselves? For Tanya Woo, yeah it’s too late. I also doubt Sara Nelson can reform her image, either, since she’s the leader of it all and she’s up for election next year (she’s welcome to try). But most of the others are still in the first years of their first terms. They get to use the “I was new and didn’t know better” card one time, and this is a great time to deploy it because that card expires soon. They are clearly getting advice from the wrong people right now, but there is no law that says they must continue following them into the abyss. They were elected by the people, and the office belongs solely to them and their constituents. It doesn’t matter how much corporate PAC money was spent to get them into office, they don’t owe those funders anything.

Kick your cynical bad faith advisors to the curb and go out into your community in search of real problems to solve to make our city a better place. Untie from the sinking ship that is Council President Nelson and be your own leader. Seattle is still a big small town, and elections are still usually won based on community support.

If councilmembers don’t turn things around fast, they may not even make it to 2027. Coucilmember Tammy Morales suggested during yesterday’s meeting that by not prioritizing their consideration of I-137, they likely ran afoul of the City’s Charter and could face recall elections. I personally do not like recall elections and hope it doesn’t come to that, but that’s the path this Council is walking (running?) down. Once you start taking actions to defy the will of the people, recall is the people’s recourse.

I love Seattle, and I believe in our city’s potential to be the city the rest of the nation looks to when trying to solve big problems. That’s why I love writing Seattle Bike Blog. This is my love letter to our city. We don’t always rise to our potential, but folks here never give up. Then every once in a while, we do something extraordinary. We are due for something extraordinary.

None of what I said above will happen on its own, but I believe the people of our city will put in the organizing and volunteer work to make it happen. Seattleites are desperate to make housing more affordable, and we are beyond sick of being told by elected leaders year after year that for some reason we can’t do it. That’s the energy behind I-137. If you all won’t do it, then we will. We’re not going to continue sitting on our hands pretending like there’s nothing more we can do while more and more people get priced out of our city’s cheapest apartments and forced to sleep in the fucking rain.

As our elected leaders, you can join us in an extraordinary victory as we create social housing that people can afford, or you can fight us. But if you fight us, you will lose. You made a big mistake yesterday, now you gotta figure out how to make it right. Which side of Seattle history do you want to be on?

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#SEAbikes #Seattle