The more density the better. Just means my land will be more valuable. Higher land value, higher property tax assessment, higher property tax assessment, the higher the rent I will charge. Be weary of what you wish for, Mr. Baume. The law of unintended consequences has a way of giving you the exact opposite of what you wanted.

I think what you people really want is just stuff for free, and who can blame you. I want stuff for free too!

Right, developers are just kicking themselves: “we want to build affordable housing, we just can’t find the zoning” - not. Zoning changes do not magically create supply for affordable housing, though they do typically create piles of money for developers. We cannot develop our way out of this mess, we must build the housing ourselves and fund housing for the poor! Some of these bills require set asides for those making 120% of AMI?? LOLOL. I qualify for this making $150k, and the rent for that is $50k/yr, more than I currently pay. Progressives falling all over themselves to appear woke by calling it “exclusionary housing,” but it’s just delivering more cash to deep pockets. No wonder Democrats losing.

See if you just don't incentivize housing, the free market will create it.

...

...

On freeway exit ramps

Developers don't build "affordable housing" because it isn't profitable.

@5:

Poppycock. Depending on the location and the general market, building high-density affordable housing can be as profitable, if not more so, than building stand-alone luxury housing. But, there's still huge resistance here to increasing density in relatively low-density residential neighborhoods, which is why property values in some parts of the city remain astronomically high: with fewer plots available to developers combined with high demand for those plots, the land costs increase accordingly, which in turn drives up the overall cost of new housing.

Rooting for that beefier one. Surprised how many people think having zoning laws that don't severely restrict density on 75% of the city's land doesn't contribute to increasing density in a city. Seems obvious.

@6 Opportunity cost. If it were profitable for developers to build "affordable housing" there would be some. It's more profitable to build something else.

Looks like any more density of any price range made legal throughout WA would be better to slow down the appreciation of all kinds of housing than not allowing any more density. Last I checked, while I didn't make time to check if it's dicta or not, there are some attempts in this legislation to prevent displacement besides known housing filtering effects. This isn't trickle down economics with credit. This is space for housing, and less justified space for parking which can allow more housing at a cheaper price and build pressure to make walkable and bikeable communities, and grow better carpool app, not rideshare app, and delivery services as parking becomes less available. This would also increase the property tax revenue per block, which is nice if things get worse at the state and federal level.

1) The research is there:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/so-many-people-so-little-housing/?fbclid=IwAR3NcrXoQZzI5gTWIhfU2sfcSKyaLsGXwAQySPB-3x5Sxoh8IOpb2R4PsxA)

2)The apartment vacancy rate of downtown Seattle last summer went right back down from the pandemic to 3 %: https://www.rsir.com/blog/spotlight-seattle-the-condominium-comeback/?fbclid=IwAR20I5VfLxDqX8aS7bCu-Hht2nHdfoDBs6Dxy88jokJAjm2GCdHnFVk5QRY#. I can't imagine housing filtering not working.

3) Dan Bertolet of Sightline has observed evictions by price appreciations alone in Seattle have been far higher than renovictions. As density increases, the renovictions may increase, and the evictions by rent hikes may decrease, but I would be very surprised if overall displacement of any class would increase across WA compared to not allowing this to pass.

I guess the other option is to pass a UBI progressive taxation like what Berry and Frame have in the works to export much of the job market out of WA, but stuff like that didn't even get out of committee last year.

There's could also be much better car and vanshare services as the market is created for it. Like Holland, not an American airport.

It's no longer racism. It's parking. New apartment developments make things a pain in the ass for the people who are already there. If you want people to stop opposing apartments in their neighborhoods, then make the developers include parking. Yes, we'd all like to have better transit so people don't have to drive. Yes, cars are a major problem. Yes, having to build parking spaces makes construction more expensive (but so does litigation because the neighbors oppose you). All of these things are true. But what is also true is that if you allow 80 apartment units to go in with five parking spaces (I've seen this), the neighbors are going to envision 40 or so more cars crammed onto the street in front of their house, and they are going to oppose it. You are not going to make people sell their cars because parking is hard. You are going to get people to sell their cars when they don't need them, which is not where we are at yet, nor will we be for some years to come. And you know who feels like they really need the car? Low-income people who are gong back and forth to more than one job and don't necessarily know where they'll be working next year.

So perhaps we should make decisions in the real world, not the world we want to be in 20 years from now.

One more thing: if mixed use zoning becomes legal in more areas, I see this as a benefit to getting off coal and natural gas. Electricity prices can change as utility and government policy changes, but the physics will always be there: if tenants won't use electricity or energy for heat or cooking from the solar energy above them, I guess there's a good chance and business below them could use it. And every tenant, residential or commercial, may pay the same person at the end of the month.

@14, it’s a little creepy how the Stranger is delivering up zones to developers with race baiting. I’ll wait to hear from actual BIPOC community on what they want.

@8:

The key words in there are "profitable" and "more profitable". Developers CAN make a profit building affordable housing, but they don't prefer to because it's not as MUCH profit as they can make building luxury housing, which, from what I've seen in my neighborhood over the past few years, is still pretty cheaply made, given how frequently new owners are having to make major repairs to homes they purchased only three or four years ago at-most.

Seattle's dysfunctional zoning has finally caught up with itself... along with its overly burdensome and complex regulations, fees, nimby bent and restrictions.

Low income housing isn't viable because of the base costs of trying to get a permit thru the People's Republic of Seattle and being hen pecked with fees, costs and burdensome requirement. (so lower income housing is exported outside the city to crap-tastic back water areas... where trailer parks and poor housing reigns supreme... aptly supported by mass transit so we have a proper "bridge and tunnel' crowd.)

Add to the mix, a very hostile anti-landlord attitude .....and a lot of equity will look elsewhere to invest and build.

Who would be a landlord in this wicked city?

The city is pushing developers to build only high end units ...which creates a predominately white zone....

You got to give the City of Seattle credit, they have done what the NAZI and White power half wits could never have achieved... a white classist society in Seattle and they did it while appearing to be liberal, socialist and pay lip service to minorities.