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YIMBYtown 2020: Fair and Sustainable Cities Is around the Corner
Editor’s note: The YIMBYtown 2020 conference has been postponed due to precautionary measures instated to protect Oregonians—and everyone—from COVID-19 exposure. Stay tuned for updates about rescheduling and interim programming online. Sightline Institute’s mission is to make the Northwest a global model of sustainability—strong communities, a green economy, and a healthy environment. As we’ve grown our housing and urbanism program, it has become increasingly clear that housing policy is, in fact,...Read more » -
It Shouldn’t Take a Decade to Re-legalize Duplexes
This month, Seattle city council will take a vote that illustrates how ludicrously difficult it is for cities to change their own rules to welcome more new neighbors. The vote is one tiny but important step in the dragged-out bureaucratic grind Seattle will have to go through to loosen the stranglehold of zoning that locks up three quarters of the city’s residential land for expensive stand-alone houses with big yards. ...Read more » -
Seattle’s Latest Housing Reform Shows How Environmentalists Are Rethinking Cities
A who’s-who of Seattle environmental non-profits—350 Seattle, Sierra Club, Climate Solutions, Futurewise, Transportation Choices Coalition, and Sightline—all backed the city council’s recent 8-0 vote to limit environmental review of homebuilding and the rules that govern it. Why would groups with the mission of creating a sustainable future want to rein in environmental oversight? Call it: environmentalists against environmental regulations that can hurt the environment. On paper, the policy tweaks Seattle...Read more » -
Did Segregation Cause Your Traffic Jam?
Many North American cities are oddly un-city-like compared to their peers in Asia, Europe, Africa and even South America. Our cities are weirdly spread out and the damage to our environment and economy is colossal. Why did this happen? The New York Times‘s “1619 Project,” launched in print over the weekend, sets out to explain various distinctly American characteristics with a decoder ring: chattel slavery. Understand the ways multigenerational slavery...Read more » -
Exclusive Zoning Puts Up Invisible Walls Around Our Cities
Zoning that prohibits everything but the biggest, most expensive housing, drives prices up and builds invisible walls around neighborhoods, pushing people out, creating economically segregated communities, which exclude all but the most affluent from the promise and opportunity of our cities. Exclusionary zoning limits affordable home choices close to work, school, friends, parks, and transit. Commutes get longer and we get more traffic and pollution. Upzoning to allow more modest-sized...Read more » -
Tearing Down McMansion-Sized Housing Myths
Last week, one of the leading housing obstructionists in Cascadia’s biggest city took to the Seattle Times op-ed page to make a case against the city’s two most consequential pro-housing affordability reforms—and efforts in the state legislature to bring affordable home choices to communities across Washington. That case, published in the largest-circulation periodical in the region, is a fire hose of misinformation, a masterpiece of gish gallop, a pack—as Kurt...Read more » -
FAQ About I-5 Rose Quarter Expansion and Decongestion Pricing in Portland
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Here’s What Oregon’s Huge New Transit Housing Bill Would Legalize
One of North America’s biggest new ideas for greener transportation is spreading north. A year after a pair of California state senators drew national attention with a proposal to lift apartment bans from all residential land within a quarter mile of frequent transit, Oregon has a similar bill of its own. Senate Bill 10, which was introduced last week, had its first public hearing Monday, February 25. This isn’t the...Read more » -
Impact Fees Are ADU Busters
If you’re lucky enough to be a Cascadian homeowner, you’ve probably toyed with the idea of installing a mother-in-law apartment or backyard cottage at your place. If you’ve gone as far as to explore what would be required, you may have slammed straight into an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) buster: your city’s fees. In Washington, for example, depending on what city you live in, so-called impact fees alone might total...Read more » -
Washington’s ADU bills can create modest, affordable home choices
Washington state legislators in the House and Senate are sponsoring a bill (HB 1797 / SB 5812), giving homeowners more freedom and flexibility across the state to add Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)—backyard cottages, granny flats, basement apartments, and mother-in-law suites. In cities of 2,500 people or more, and within urban growth areas, the bill would permit: Two ADUs wherever there is a single, detached house, duplex, triplex, or townhome; Eliminate off-street parking, owner-occupancy,...Read more »