Search Results
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Oregon Just Voted to Legalize Duplexes on Almost Every City Lot
Oregon legislators took a historic leap toward greener, fairer, less expensive cities Sunday by passing the first law of its kind in the United States or Canada: A state-level legalization of so-called “missing middle” housing. If signed by Gov. Kate Brown in the next month, House Bill 2001 will strike down local bans on duplexes for every low-density residential lot in all cities with more than 10,000 residents and all...Read more » -
How Seattle Can Reduce Demolitions and Invite Affordable Home Choices
Which sounds better for affordability? Tear down an older, modest home and replace it with a “McMansion,” or… Take that same house, preserve it, and add an in-law apartment and backyard cottage? Seattle residents and policymakers have spoken: They’d prefer more modest home choices instead of the massive, flashy houses popping up across the city. To act on that preference, Seattle is on the verge of adopting a set of...Read more » -
Lower Columbia River Critical Front on the Thin Green Line
In all the Pacific Northwest, the Lower Columbia River is the most vulnerable to the threat of fossil fuel expansion. In one 50-mile stretch along the region’s biggest hydrological artery, there are no fewer than seven active proposals to bring, refine or handle coal, oil, gas, or other fuels before shipping them to markets elsewhere. The Northwest’s opposition movement to fossil fuels—the Thin Green Line—has turned back dozens of proposals...Read more » -
A Duplex, a Triplex and a Fourplex Can Cut a Block’s Carbon Impact 20%
To understand why housing policy is climate policy, consider two city blocks with 18 homes each. On one of those blocks, suppose something happens that’s currently legal almost everywhere: Three relatively old, disintegrating homes are torn down and replaced by three 3,400-square-foot homes. Let’s call this the McMansion Block. But on the other block, suppose we do something that’s currently illegal on most of the land in most cities, but...Read more » -
Despite Inslee’s Opposition, Gas Industry Still Plans Big Expansion in the PNW
When Washington Governor Jay Inslee reversed course last month to oppose two big gas infrastructure projects, it may have marked the turning of the tide against an industry that has enjoyed seemingly unfettered growth in the Northwest. And it isn’t a moment too soon. Even as climate scientists’ warnings become more urgent and our understanding of the harmfulness of fracked gas sharpens, the industry continues to bank on big expansions....Read more » -
The End of Seattle’s Backyard Cottage Marathon
How long does it take for a major US city with home prices off the charts to fix ill-conceived rules that hold back the construction of granny flats and backyard cottages? In Seattle’s case, four long years. The good news, though, is that Seattle is poised to enact policy for these accessory dwellings that sets the gold standard for Cascadia and beyond. In 2015, Seattle unveiled a housing plan that...Read more » -
Why Did Fraser Surrey Docks Fail?
At the end of January, a coal export project died a quiet death. With little more than a blandly worded notice on its website, the Port of Vancouver, BC officially rescinded the permit for the proposed coal terminal at Fraser Surrey Docks (FSD) just a few miles outside the city of Vancouver. The decision seemed like a mystery, considering that the Port had long acted as a cheerleader for the...Read more » -
How Americans Really Feel About Taxes
Press, pundits, and elected officials—Left and Right—drum a message into our heads: “Americans hate taxes.” Look! I’ve just done it again! (Note to self: Refuting and repeating a negative frame simply serves to reinforce the frame.) But Vanessa Williamson, fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and author of the book Read My Lips: Why Americans Are Proud to Pay Taxes, says that the notion that Americans hate taxes...Read more » -
The Trump Administration Is Using Faulty Logic on Oil Trains
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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 »