Search Results
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How Community Groups Can Shape Alaska’s Success on Ranked Choice Voting
Community groups in Alaska working to educate voters face a daunting, but doable, task in 2022. For the first time, Alaskans will use top-four open primaries and ranked choice voting to pick the winners in statewide races. Hundreds of thousands of voters across this vast state will need guidance on the new ways of choosing candidates. Turnout and results will hinge on the quality of the information they’re given. If enough Alaskans like the process, other states...Read more » -
Washington Bill Would Legalize Hundreds of Thousands More Homes
UPDATE: The House declined to give HB 1782 a floor vote by the February 15 deadline and the bill is dead. Previously,the bill had passed out of the Appropriations and Local Government Committees. UPDATE: Senate companion SB 5670 passed out of the Senate Housing & Local Government Committee but did not receive a hearing in the Senate Ways & Means Committee, which means HB 1782 is now the sole vehicle. ...Read more » -
Backyard Homes Are Great for Owners of Small Homes
Here’s one way cities can help the owners of small homes: allow more building in backyards. In fast-growing areas like the cities of the Pacific Northwest, small detached homes are no longer cheap. But they’ve always been the least expensive detached houses in the neighborhood. And as National Public Radio illustrated in a striking feature story last week, a foothold in the housing market can be a precious lifeline to the middle class. “Fast-rising home prices in much of the US can raise a big...Read more » -
18 Reasons Why Washington Should Legalize Middle Housing
UPDATE: Washington’s middle housing bill didn’t pass in 2022, but we anticipate a follow up in 2023, sign up here for updates. New polling finds finds 61% of voters across Washington state support legalizing middle housing, with 41% strongly supporting. Download a condensed version of this article here. Washington’s worsening housing crisis calls for an all-hands-on-deck response from the state. The core reason more and more Washingtonians cannot find...Read more » -
Projects and Features
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Fairer Elections in Portland
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Yes, Other Countries Are Making More Progress on Housing, Case 4: The United Kingdom and New Zealand
Last time, I chronicled France’s success at boosting homebuilding in greater Paris. This time, I look at the industrial world’s laggards in abundant housing. Might the boldest new examples of leadership for abundant, low-carbon housing come from two of the worst places in the world at providing it—and from opposite ends of the political spectrum? By one measure, the United Kingdom and its former colony New Zealand have the worst...Read more » -
Washington’s Shortage of Homes is Squeezing Communities Throughout the State
Soaring home prices in the tech-booming Seattle metro have been the stuff of headlines for decades. But recently, cities of all sizes throughout Washington state are feeling the pain of a statewide shortage of homes. Over the past few years, price increases in Seattle have been dwarfed by those in smaller cities near and far. The state’s current runaway price champ? Spokane, where from 2017 to 2021, home values rose...Read more » -
Five Lessons from California’s Big Zoning Reform
Update 9/16: Senate Bill 9 is now law. Urban housing shortages aren’t just a cause of climate change. They’re a lot like climate change—it’s very hard to fix them unless you can get many different governments to act. That’s what we told the New York Times this week when they asked for Sightline’s take on California’s proposed state-level legalization of duplexes and lot splits on most low-density residential lots. Cities...Read more » -
Eight Ingredients for a State-Level Zoning Reform
In 2019, Oregon passed a first-of-its-kind state law that ordered larger cities and the Portland metro area to rapidly legalize duplexes on all residential lots and fourplexes, triplexes, townhomes, and cottage clusters on more than half of lots. This is a short, reported history of how that law was passed in the face of fierce opposition. It was created in partnership with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, its first...Read more »