NOW that Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has killed his proposal to allow more units on single-family lots, city leaders can focus on policies that will work.
Murray blamed his hasty reversal on local media for sensationalizing the issue and turning it into a distraction. Right, it’s the media’s fault.
Actually, the proposal was misguided and unnecessary. Seattle’s current zoning allows for 224,000 more units than already exist without disfiguring single-family neighborhoods. Capacity for more housing is more than triple what’s needed to meet growth projections for the next 20 years.
The single-family upzone proposal was just one of 65 recommendations from the mayor’s Housing Affordability and Livability Advisory (HALA) Committee.