May 8, 2023
MEDIA CONTACT: Dan Bertolet, Director, Housing and Urbanism Program, Sightline Institute, dan@sightline.org
SEATTLE, WA – Today, Governor Inslee signs into law a landmark suite of housing bills to create more homes, at more affordable prices, in communities all across the state. They include HB 1110, to legalize middle housing, and HB 1337, for accessory dwelling units (ADUs, or basement, backyard, and in-law apartments), as well as building code reforms, streamlined permitting, and $570 million in investments for affordable housing.
“This is the dam bursting to fix the state housing shortage,” says Dan Bertolet, Director of the Housing and Urbanism program for Sightline Institute. “This is our leaders hearing Washingtonians loud and clear—hearing about the housing affordability and homelessness crises, caused by decades of under-building and over-zoning. They are hearing us and they are doing something about it.”
Read Bertolet’s analysis of the wins, including the factors that made 2023 “the year of housing,” the impact the measures will have, and what comes next:
The Housing Abundance Dam Bursts in Washington
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Dan Bertolet is Director of Sightline Institute’s Housing and Urbanism program. View his latest research, and follow him at @DanBertolet. (Last name pronounced “BER-də-lay.”)
Sightline Institute is an independent, nonprofit think tank providing leading original analysis of housing, democracy, forests, and energy policy in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, British Columbia, and beyond.
