Search Results
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Washington Takes a Stand for Granny Flats
Granny flats won in Olympia this session. Yesterday, Washington lawmakers took action to address the state’s housing shortage, leading cities in a unified effort to curb home prices and congestion by allowing more homes of all shapes and sizes. Lawmakers passed SB 6617, waiving off-street parking requirements for backyard cottages, granny flats, and daylight basement apartments near frequent transit. Legislators haven’t required cities to legalize more housing so explicitly since...Read more » -
One of North America’s Boldest Housing Initiatives Has Reached Its End: Did It Work?
Last time, I mapped the political battleground of metropolitan housing shortages. This time, I draw lessons from an attempt to unleash abundant housing by assembling a different coalition. In the summer of 2015, long before the US national media noticed that something called the YIMBY movement had been born, before Minneapolis’s bold move allowing triplexes in its tree-lined neighborhoods of detached houses with yards and driveways, and before US presidential...Read more » -
Housing Policy Is… Salmon Policy?
Across the Pacific Northwest, urban sprawl is decimating salmon habitat. Fish scientists who study the effects of urbanization on salmon, steelhead and orcas are unanimous: To save these iconic and vital species we must prevent sprawling development from ruining the sensitive watersheds they depend on. And this realization leads to an inescapable conclusion: Limiting further sprawl means we must provide more homes for more people in already-developed parts of our...Read more » -
Updated: Housing Bill Tracker for 2020 Washington Legislative Session
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5 Reasons Portland’s Fourplex Legalization Would Be a Big Deal
Why should it be illegal in most of our cities? Photo by Sightline Institute: Missing Middle Homes Photo Library, used under CC BY 2.0.
Through five years of deliberation, Portland’s residential infill project has remained a simple concept: an anti-McMansion compromise that simultaneously lowers the maximum size of new buildings in low-density areas and allows buildings to contain more homes. As the proposal finally arrives at Portland’s city council today for the first of two high-stakes public hearings, it’s also the most significant zoning reform project in the United States or Canada. Over the...Read more » -
Washington Takes Another Shot at Ambitious Statewide ADU Reform
Washington state representatives Mia Gregerson (D-SeaTac) and Andrew Barkis (R-Olympia) introduced a new bill in Olympia yesterday evening that would lift barriers to backyard cottages and mother-in-law apartments across the state. And it probably looks familiar. These modest homes—which urban planners call accessory dwelling units (ADUs)—provide low-impact infill housing options in existing neighborhoods, cutting commutes and increasing access to parks, schools, shops, and transit. Their flexible design and smaller size...Read more » -
A One-Stop Shop for Our Affordability Messaging Resources
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California Looks to a Future beyond Single-Detached House Zoning
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The Boeing 737 MAX Fiasco and the Future of Autonomous Vehicles
On the one-year anniversary of the first 737 MAX crash, senators and representatives grilled CEO Dennis Muilenburg for nine hours at public hearings on Capitol Hill about how Boeing’s mistakes contributed to 346 deaths. As they forced Muilenburg to concede to design and management errors, policymakers built a case for more regulation of Boeing’s advanced airplanes, not less. Yet in the same month that Muilenburg appeared before Congress, Waymo began...Read more » -
It’s Official: DC Politicians Have Woken Up to Housing Abundance
Mark it down: It was in late 2019 that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced parking reform to the halls of Congress. The New York Congresswoman’s call to withhold federal transportation funding from any jurisdiction that bans car-free homes by requiring on-site parking, unveiled Sept. 25 as part of a large and ambitious housing bill, is the latest thump in an accelerating riff of new pro-housing proposals that is starting to rattle mainstream...Read more »