You can view the “live” proposed zoning map here
Seattle is ready to finalize a new 20-year growth plan including new “Neighborhood Centers” and “Middle Housing” laws expanding zoning to allow a greater range of housing types in more parts of the city.
The process has played out as Seattle’s twin crises of housing affordability and homelessness have continued to grow. In the meantime, core areas of the city have continued to rise as some of the wealthiest areas in the county, state, and nation.
For all the debate, not much will change. Nearly 70% of new construction expected under the plan would be constrained to “Regional Centers,” the plan’s designation for the city’s most densely populated, high transit areas — Downtown, Lower Queen Anne, South Lake Union, University District, Northgate, Ballard, and First Hill and Capitol Hill —- or less dense but still highly developed areas like 23rd Ave from Union to Jackson.
A public hearing Friday will include 100 proposed amendments to finalize the plan — and a day of some of the last opportunities for public comment after years of debate.
The amendments on the table Friday for Seattle City Council’s comprehensive plan committee chaired by District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth range from large to small, including proposals that would bolster protections for “bees and trees” across the whole of the plan down to a set of amendments that would make final adjustments on select neighborhood boundaries in the plan.
In Hollingsworth’s District 3 in the Madrona area — where there was legal pushback on the effort to spread growth across the city — one amendment up for consideration Friday would shave seven more blocks from the “Madrona Neighborhood Center” set to be upzoned.
Pressured by opposition from some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city, the plan’s core areas have already been downsized. CHS reported this summer on the city’s revisions that reduced nine of the city’s 30 proposed Neighborhood Centers including Montlake, Madison Park, and Madrona.
Groups have pushed back on the growth plan over the creation of the 30 new Neighborhood Centers across the city. The designation will “allow residential and mixed-use buildings up to six stories in the core and four and five-story residential buildings toward the edges.”
The proposed Neighborhood Centers and Zoning Maps for District 3
CHS reported in June as the council passed an interim growth bill designed to meet the state’s minimum requirements under its new “Middle Housing” laws just days before a legal deadline.
Friday’s day of hearings and debate is the beginning of cementing the final long-term changes for growth and development.
Hollingsworth has led the committee in considering elements including the locations of centers related to transit access, concerns about environmentally critical areas, issues around Subdivisions/Lot Splitting, “Setbacks, Amenity Areas, Trees,” design standards, streets, sidewalks, vehicle access, and parking as the final set of proposed amends has taken shape.
Committee members have also brought their platforms to the table including downtown rep Bob Kettle, chair of the public safety committee, who is proposing an amendment to include a crime and safety framework in the already sprawling comprehensive plan.
There is ample opportunity for bloat. West Seattle representative Rob Saka who also chairs the council’s transportation committee, has proposed a “pothole amendment” for the plan.
There are more on-topic — and likely more impactful — amendments to be considered including a set from Hollingsworth asking for rules that would ease development and the creation of new housing like Accessory Dwelling Unit for “legacy homeowners” in neighborhoods at the highest risk of gentrification and displacement.”
A full roster of the proposed amendments is below.
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