How updating a few musty housing laws can promote the smart, affordable housing options we need across fast-growing Northwest towns and cities.
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Affordable housing is lacking across the Northwest, with housing policy here effectively excluding from the market many lower-cost options for low-income families and individuals. A raft of outdated laws bans the types of residential arrangements that once housed most of the North American working class and prohibits modest home options near jobs, transit, schools, and neighborhood centers—from mother-in-law apartments and triplexes to rooms that were safe, comfortable, and convenient but small and basic.
As a result, families may scrimp on food or heat to be sure they can pay rent each month; they may opt for black-market housing; or they may even go homeless. Everyone deserves a clean, safe place to live; but beyond safety regulations, the floor plans mandated by current housing rules aren’t affordable for everyone. In this series, Sightline researchers explore the key laws that prevent smart, affordable housing arrangements of the past from getting to market today, and look to a Northwest revival of inexpensive housing options.
Housing solutions had a good year. With some noticeable shifts in attitudes and conversations, 2019 marked a turning point. Even if the sun has yet to rise on a newly abundant urban housing market, the future looks bright. As Sightline research associate Nisma Gabobe wrote recently, abundant housing successes, especially those relegalizing granny flats, “in … Read more
Courtney Freeman met me this month at her front door, on which she’s hung a little wreath tied with a red ribbon. Then she led me past photos of her niece and nephew and into her little living room, where she offered me a bottle of water and started talking about sharing. “I really worked … Read more
Across the Pacific Northwest—Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia—only 37 percent of households consist of more than two people. But fully 59 percent of Cascadia’s current housing stock has three or more bedrooms. Even in the city of Portland, it’s 49 percent of homes with three or more bedrooms despite only 34 percent of households … Read more
Local bans on attached homes in cities are driving up energy use and helping cook the climate, the United Nations Environment Program wrote in a report published Tuesday. “In some locations, spatial planning prevents the construction of multifamily residences and locks in suburban forms at high social and environmental costs,” the report’s authors wrote. They … Read more
As the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment wrote in a powerful report Thursday, Californians suffer from an unprecedented housing crisis. California’s colossal housing shortage is made worse, ACCE said, by the fact that several hundred thousand units are empty and currently unavailable for sale or rental. In at least some cases, that’s probably because … Read more
A who’s-who of Seattle environmental non-profits—350 Seattle, Sierra Club, Climate Solutions, Futurewise, Transportation Choices Coalition, and Sightline—all backed the city council’s recent 8-0 vote to limit environmental review of homebuilding and the rules that govern it. Why would groups with the mission of creating a sustainable future want to rein in environmental oversight? Call it: … Read more
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 … Read more
Seattle City Council took a big step Monday toward creating a more sustainable city, voting unanimously to enact legislation that will make it easier for homeowners to build in-law suites, garage apartments, and backyard cottages—modest homes the wonks call accessory dwelling units (ADUs). The vote caps an epic process during which obstructionists abused state environmental … Read more
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 … Read more
How do you say, again, something that ought to be obvious: That if people want to, they should be allowed to build little homes in the backyards of a beautiful city? After four years of navigating seemingly endless legal appeals from a handful of anti-housing homeowners, Seattle’s housing advocates showed up again this month to … Read more
