Today, with Mayor Harrell’s direction, we released Housing Opportunities Legislation designed to bring more housing supply, affordable housing, and cutting-edge sustainable construction to Seattle neighborhoods immediately. Housing Opportunities is a package of zoning changes and development incentives that will unlock construction of new homes on vacant or underused opportunity sites that are ripe for redevelopment but currently face barriers or constraints. The bill clears the path for more of this construction to be sustainable mass timber or passive house designs. Housing Opportunities is projected to generate an additional 3,900 new homes plus affordable housing proceeds totaling $62 million from the City’s Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) requirements in the next several years.
Housing Opportunities Zoning Amendments:
Housing is a priority for Mayor Harrell and his administration continues to address the challenges many community members face finding a home that is affordable and available to them. His focus on affordable housing over the last four years has featured many actions including the passage of the City’s largest ever $970 million Housing Levy in 2023.
The City is working to dramatically expand future housing production through the One Seattle Comprehensive Plan update. While the One Seattle Plan continues to make its way through the process, Mayor Harrell is advancing Housing Opportunities to make an immediate impact. The proposed legislation is focused on opportunity areas that have advantages to receive new housing without causing any displacement pressure. All of the proposed changes would include affordable housing through application of the MHA requirements.
This proposed legislation has six components:
- Fremont / Stone Way: Upzone land at the southern end of the Stone Way corridor to unlock infill housing adjacent to a cluster of major Seattle-based employers.
- Downtown: Rezone to allow residential towers along Union St. where they are not allowed today and increase height limits for residential towers in select locations in Belltown for a 3-year time period, to spur building on vacant sites and parking lots. The changes also incentivize conversion of underused historic office structures to homes.
- Sites with community-based uses. Change zoning to support revitalized community facilities with dense housing above them, on sites owned by non-profit agencies such as the YMCA and Seattle Goodwill. The City will demonstrate this approach when it rebuilds the Lake City Community Center next year with six stories of affordable family-sized housing above the community center space.
- Promote sustainable construction. Remove code barriers that currently make it difficult to build using cutting edge sustainable methods, including renewable mass timber materials (, and highly energy-efficient passive house designs.
- Conversion of more commercial spaces to housing. Expand on recent actions by the City to incentivize conversion of existing commercial structures to housing in more places outside of downtown.
- Lake City – Incentivize grocery store retention and housing. To encourage inclusion of grocery and pharmacy space in new developments in Lake City, the proposed legislation would provide extra height and floor area allowances for development that includes a grocery and/or pharmacy, on-site open space, and moderate-income housing.
For more information, email Geoff Wentlandt at geoffrey.wentlandt@seattle.gov.