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Can Washington Pass the Country’s Most Ambitious Statewide ADU Reform?
This morning, Washington House Representatives Mia Gregerson (D-SeaTac) and Andrew Barkis (R-Olympia) introduced the most progressive accessory dwelling unit (ADU) bill legislators from any state have ever had the opportunity to vote on. For Washington cities of 2,500 people or more, and within urban growth areas, the bill would: Permit two ADUs per lot wherever there is a single-family home, duplex, triplex, or townhome Eliminate off-street parking, owner-occupancy, and minimum...Read more » -
How to Reduce Emissions and Congestion While Preparing for a Just Transition to Self-Driving Cars
Cascadia’s cities could benefit immensely from electric robo-taxi service someday if we get the public policies right but we don’t know exactly when autonomous car service will arrive. In the meantime, we need an action agenda to address our current transportation problems that also enables a just transition to self-driving cars. To kick off 2019, I propose the following slate of sensible reforms that would reduce transportation emissions and congestion...Read more » -
19 Questions That 2019 Will Answer about Cascadian Housing Reform
Predictions are for suckers. Here at Sightline, we prefer pointed questions. As our little housing policy team waited this week for our calendars to flip, I cornered each of my colleagues and we cooked up a list of 19 intriguing questions about housing whose answers will be revealed over the course of the next year. Price trends Will median home prices in Cascadia’s big urban hubs keep slipping as their...Read more » -
2018 in Review: Progress toward Re-legalizing Multiple-Dwelling Homes
The Sightline Housing and Urbanism team’s foremost theme of 2018 was Cascadia’s slow but sure progress toward re-legalizing modest multiple-dwelling homes on land previously locked away for suburban-style houses on big grassy lots. I add the “re” to “legalize” because historically in North American cities, duplexes, triplexes, courtyard homes, rowhouses and small apartments were sprinkled in with stand-alone houses. Starting in the 1920s, cities began ratcheting down zoning restrictions on...Read more » -
Cascadia’s Five Most Important ADU Victories of 2018
Editor’s note, 1/11/19: We updated this article to add information about 2018 code changes in Anchorage, Alaska. Cascadians are hungry for housing choices. One way they showed it in 2018 was by loosening restrictions on accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in cities across the region—from Bellingham to Yakima, Florence to Portland. In all, at least 37 Cascadian cities—across Alaska, Oregon, and Washington—updated rules in 2017 and 2018 to make it easier...Read more » -
Minneapolis Takes Big Step toward Legalizing Triplexes on All Single-Family Lots
As Cascadia’s three biggest cities—Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, BC—each grind toward re-legalizing modest multifamily homes across their vast swaths of land reserved for detached houses, a major city outside the region just took a big first step toward that same end: Minneapolis. Last week, Minneapolis approved a new plan that formally sets it on course to permitting triplexes throughout the half of the city currently restricted by zoning laws to...Read more » -
Cascadia’s Three Huge Urbanism Wins of 2018
The winter blanket of clouds finally slid over the Pacific Northwest this week, and as we head indoors this year, it’s worth lighting a candle for some of the good news that Cascadia’s cities continue to deliver themselves—and hopefully shine out into the rest of the world. As urban policy wonks may have noticed, we’ve been doing quite a lot. 1. Portland just approved one of North America’s biggest-ever shifts...Read more » -
Bike-Share Programs in Cascadia: How Are They Faring?
Editor’s note: Uber announced Monday, Nov. 19, plans to launch its bike-share service after receiving its operating permit from the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) last Friday. The announcement was made after this article was originally published. Electric scooter rentals may be getting all the buzz of late, but bike-share growth is still sizzling in Cascadia as cities work to find low-carbon solutions for the proverbial “last mile” from transit...Read more » -
Olympia Moves to Further Loosen the Stranglehold of Single-Family Zoning Laws
We can add Olympia, Washington, to the growing list of Cascadian cities moving to loosen zoning laws that ban all but detached houses from most of their residential land. Washington’s state capitol (pop. 52,000) adopted on Monday new rules that would relax restrictions and legalize more types of modest multifamily dwellings citywide. The intention is bold: in most US cities, tampering with single-family zoning laws has been a political third...Read more » -
Why’s the Rent So High for New Apartments in Seattle?
The notion of the “greedy developer” is alive and well in North America. A recent UCLA study found that the most powerful catalyst of opposition to the construction of new homes is the conviction that developers pocket too much profit. And in booming Cascadian cities such as Seattle, that belief creates a political environment hostile to homebuilding, which worsens an affordability crisis caused by a shortage of homes. When people...Read more »