House Bill 1175 requires local governments to allow corner stores and cafes, but gives them wide latitude to regulate them. A nearly unanimous floor vote early in session signals momentum for the bill, which is less prescriptive than a similar bill that died in the Washington Senate in 2024.
Sammamish will study increasing the upper limit on housing in its Town Center to 4,000 units, after nearly two decades of anemic growth under a previous growth framework. The 6-1 vote came after a significant amount of community opposition and misinformation.
Bothell becomes the first city in either King or Snohomish County to fully eliminate off-street parking mandates in order to reduce costs for homebuilding. The move clearly solidifies the city as a leader on housing and land use reform.
Alexis Mercedes Rinck’s new “Roots to Roofs” bill would provide zoning bonuses for community-based organizations to build housing and other cultural spaces, building on the rejected Connected Communities pilot. It already has the support of Land Use Chair Mark Solomon.
Friends of Little Saigon is launching an effort called Phố Đẹp or Beautiful Neighborhood to break the cycle of disinvestment and neglect and create true community safety. For Seattle’s Vietnamese community, the intersection of home and hope is Little Saigon.
The theory was that opportunity zone tax incentives would spur the revitalization of underserved neighborhoods. But in practice, they have often failed to produce meaningful benefits for long-time residents. In cities across America — from Baltimore to Oakland, Cleveland to Atlanta — the pattern is
Extensions for permit applications submitted under prior building codes could impact more than 3,000 distinct projects across the city, but the direct target of the legislation is around a dozen high-profile projects downtown that could spring back to life.
After weathering a budget scare, Seattle’s Equitable Development Initiative is growing, with $22 million in new awards aimed at combating displacement and anchoring communities of color.
The Urbanist unveils top advocacy priorities for 2025 and offers some ways to get involved.
Diego Batres joins The Urbanist as its third paid staff member, with a goal of connecting the reporting we publish with actions you can take to build community power.
Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority (SCIDpda) is seeking to anchor communities of color in place in and around the CID, with Beacon Pacific Village its latest housing project.
Sound Transit’s 2 Line stations in Redmond are not just commuting stops. There’s a lot for an adventurous urbanist to discover around the stations.
Moves to cut the minimum wage for gig workers and squeeze Equitable Development Initiative projects for funding will have to wait for a future Seattle City Council meeting after their sponsors tabled the votes.
Washington State could see more small neighborhood cafes opening up within short walking distances of homes, under a proposal advancing at the state legislature. If enacted, the change would represent a significant inroad in the rolling-back of strict zoning laws that have been in place for decades segregating commercial and
How a proposed (and now permitted) large industrial development intersects with plans to engage South Tacoma Way in community-led planning. Residents of South Tacoma who oppose industrial development in their neighborhood received unwanted news in April of this year when the City of Tacoma announced its decision to approve plans
The City is working to implement resilience hubs, which advocates have pushed to be community-led. Anticipating climate change’s impact on residents, the City of Seattle is planning the implementation of resilience hubs in various neighborhoods around town. With priorities set for overburdened communities, the creation of these new community
Councilmember Nelson abstained, citing cost worries On Tuesday, the Seattle City Council passed a resolution supporting the development of freeway lids in the city. Passage of Resolution 32100 marks an important moment in the growing movement to reconnect neighborhoods that have been divided by freeways in Seattle. It also arrives
38 million people are expected to participate this year in cities nationwide. This Tuesday people might notice something special going on where they live. As part of National Night Out, neighbors will be gathering for block parties in cities across the U.S. on August 1. According to the Seattle
The Urbanist does a lot of work with the data of cities. From tunnel budgets to climate impacts to new developments, there’s numbers all over Seattle. Unfortunately, we rarely get to calculate the productivity of a piece of land, figuring how much the development of a parcel brings in
People seldom associate Copenhagen with urban strife, but before Superkilen was completed in 2012, Nørrebro was known as one of the most dangerous areas of Copenhagen. Gangs made up of people from different ethnicities and backgrounds would often clash there, giving the area the reputation of being unsafe and violent.
In the spring of 2020, downtown Seattle sat empty. A once bustling and growing core of tower cranes, thriving businesses, and active neighborhoods was now silent. Office workers were gone, and in the interim worked remotely, which soon became long-term preference. During the slow recovery, restaurants, retail, and transit all
There is no spine. There is no Ballard to West Seattle extension. There is no one coming to save us. By 2042, Seattle should have four Link light rail lines covering downtown and branching out to Redmond, Issaquah, Everett, and Tacoma. Though some opening dates are decades away, a lot
Have you ever dreamt of owning a business in a walkable urban neighborhood? You might find that opportunity awaits you in Renton, where the Downtown Renton Partnership is hosting the Main Street Entrepreneur Workshop and Pitch Competition, which kicks off next Tuesday, February 21st from 6-8pm. Over six sessions, participants
In Chinese zodiac tradition, 2023 will be the year of the Water Rabbit. The sign for the Rabbit is associated with longevity, peace, and prosperity, making many followers look out to 2023 as a year of hope. This includes members of the small business community in Seattle’s historic Chinatown-International
Nimbys, Yimbys, and How Toxic Waste Kicked Off Both Movements. For years, I’ve identified as a fervent Yimby advocate — an acronym which means “Yes, in my backyard.” It is often understood to mean not allowing slow bureaucracy and antagonistic old cranks to stop the construction of apartments and light
At the junction of SR 520 and Montlake Boulevard in Seattle, construction crews are busy at work laying the foundation for the Montlake lid, the first roof built over a freeway in Seattle since the completion of the I-90 lid in the 1990s. When completed, the Montlake lid will bring
Fall calls for nighttime things, Halloween doubly so. Therefore, a pre-holiday trip to the Georgetown Morgue fit the bill. Terrifying in all the best ways, it’s one of the city’s best autumn attractions. A colonic of terror for a tightly clenched Northwest. Getting home is not nearly as
Third Avenue in downtown Seattle is a place where many a plan goes to die, and yet the planning efforts keep stacking up. The Seattle City Council recently recommitted to taking another look at how to redesign the street, but the specifics are still being ironed out. A 2019 study
On September 27th, the Seattle City Council, which serves as the Metropolitan Park District Board, passed its funding plan for 2023-2028 in a 8-1 vote, with Councilmember Alex Pedersen (District 4) casting the lone dissenting vote. While a few new amendments were approved before passage, the spending plan as a
Thursday, September 29th, 3-7pm, at Capitol Hill Station Plaza There are many things that make Capitol Hill stand out not only among Seattle’s neighborhoods, but also among other major American cities’ marquee neighborhoods as well. Few places in the U.S. offer the same access to walkable streets, shops,
As Sound Transit lays out 90 miles of new track, 57 new stations, and three new light rail lines over the next 20 years, the Chinatown-International District (CID) station is set to become the region’s key transit hub. There will be over 30,000 riders passing through the station
This edition of housing notes will explore two major project proposals in Seattle, the Port of Everett’s ambitious residential and commercial waterfront development plan, and an eight-story apartment building advancing in Bellevue’s Bel-Red neighborhood. Transit oriented development in Seattle’s Roosevelt neighborhood Located near Roosevelt Station in North
Liveable Kirkland would like to invite you to join us on Saturday, October 1, 2022 for a short walk through Park Lane (Downtown Kirkland) and the surrounding areas. Event details are available on Meetup and Facebook. We’ll gather at Kirkland’s Marina Park Pavilion at 5:15pm for a
The Spring District started as an ambitious plan to transform 36 acres of warehouses and surface level parking in Bellevue’s BelRed neighborhood into a thriving urban village anchored on transit. Expected to unfold over a 15-year period, Seattle-based developer Wright Runstad and Company and Shorestein Properties of San Francisco
What is your least favorite thing about Paris? I bet it is either the traffic or the people. And what makes Lisbon so great (besides the pastries)? The people, right? The behavior of residents has a major influence on tourists’ view of the city, the likelihood they will return, and
Planning for aging communities is increasingly important. Vox visits Weesp, a small city in The Netherlands, to understand how the “dementia village” model works through the lens of De Hogeweyk. These communities seem to perform much better for residents than the traditional dementia housing model.
It’s time to get ready for the 12th annual Seattle Design Festival, which will be held August 20-26 at locations across the city. This year’s theme is connection and it will be explored through a variety of interactive exhibits, events, and workshops intended to “unleash the design thinker
Street-end plazas would create space for trees, community, and safety on one of Seattle’s hottest, and most dangerous, streets for pedestrians. Last week was hot. Walking down the street or visiting a park, it’s challenging to stay in the shade. In Seattle, the Emerald City, we’re proud
Downtown Bothell is a growing city center with a unique history that defies many suburban stereotypes, while still running up against the challenges of cohabitating with a major highway, SR 522. This Friday, July 29th, The Urbanist will be hosting a social event on Bothell’s pedestrianized Main Street with
Dr. Jeremy Hess saw burns on the legs of paramedics who kneeled to care for heatstroke patients during last year’s deadly heatwave in Seattle. He’s working in the emergency department again this week at Harborview Medical Center as high temperatures peak during an excessive heat warning. “I expect
The Urbanist has reported on the rezoning concepts unveiled for Seattle’s 2024 Major Comprehensive Plan Update, which will guide growth in the city for decades to come. We’ve also published an op-ed by contributor Ryan DiRaimo arguing that the City of Seattle should be setting higher housing growth
Last summer I signed my daughter up for a 15 minute private swim lesson at Little Fish Swim School. After a 45 minute bike ride, I locked up our cargo bike and we headed behind the house towards the pool area. It is quite lovely, the pool is covered by
Do you think that cities provide unique opportunities for addressing society’s difficult problems from the climate emergency to the housing affordability dilemma? Do you want to help a young scrappy organization grow and become more sustainable and effective? Do you have a commitment to anti-racism and a strong desire
Last summer, we started organizing block parties. We applied for a permit from the city, and blocked off either end of our street to through traffic, setting up folding tables and chairs on the street for weekly BBQs. The kids on the block loved it, and barreled up and down
Early Tuesday morning, over 150 people packed into a fourth floor ballroom of Meydenbauer Center to attend Bellevue’s annual State of the City address — in-person for the first time in three years. The event, hosted by the Bellevue Downtown Association (BDA), was an opportunity for people to hear directly
The first Juneteenth may have been celebrated in 1866, but the holiday memorializing the liberation of America’s last enslaved people after the end of the Civil War, is finally beginning to rise into the prominence it deserves with the federal government and an increasing number of cities and states
On July 9, 2022, HB 1769 sunsets the Houghton and East Bellevue Community Councils, which existed for more than five decades. We detailed the inequity problems caused by these “community municipal corporations” (CMCs) in our December 2021 article in The Urbanist, Time to Immediately Sunset Houghton and East Bellevue Community
In 2020, King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay initiated the King County Guaranteed Basic Income Pilot program, which was funded by community service operating grant allocations and repurposed office funds. These funds were administered to the Rainier Beach Action Coalition, and Urban Family, two community-based organizations (CBOs) based in South King
Ballot initiative would put the South King County city on par with Seattle and SeaTac Seeking to address regional gaps in the minimum wage, a coalition of organizations – including the Transit Riders Union, Puget Sound Sage, ReWA, and local labor unions – is gathering signatures to put an initiative on the
Transforming Broadway into a plaza would create a world-class pedestrian space in the heart of Downtown Tacoma. Urban explorers, or really any attentive pedestrians, are bound to discover glimpses of the past that we tragically destroyed in pursuit of a city designed around automobiles. One such example with an ironic
Situated on the central west coast of France, La Rochelle is one of the country’s most popular domestic tourist destinations because of its proximity to Île de de Ré and Île de Oléron, islands best known for their windswept beaches, sea salt production, and pajama-wearing donkeys. However, La Rochelle
Home in Tacoma aims to overhaul Tacoma’s housing rules to allow greater flexibility in building practices. It will allow denser housing to be built to house our city’s ever growing population. The initial framework passed in December 2021 bringing Tacoma are one step closer to that goal. Though
Seattle is in the midst of preparing for a major updated to its Comprehensive Plan, the document that will guide the city’s growth and development through 2035. The significance of what policies will be included in this update has spurred some Seattleites into action, and among them is Ari
American cities can glean many policy pointers from this highly livable French city, which has a delegation visiting. This week delegates from Nantes, France, have been visiting Seattle to celebrate the two cities’ 42nd anniversary as sister cities. The delegates, Deputy Mayors Pierre-Emmanuel Marais and Mahaut Bertu, met with Seattle
With the official passage of Home in Tacoma in December 2021, the City of Tacoma is finally making moves towards Phase Two: implementation. This phase of the initiative aims to engage the communities of the city more to move off paper and figure out exactly how this plan to increase
If you sit on the Seattle waterfront on a sunny spring day you can hear a rumble in the distance. No, it’s not the new waterfront highway built where the old highway Viaduct used to be — and on top of the old-new highway buried deep underground in a tunnel.
At RM Transit, Reece Martin takes a dive into Montréal’s planned elevated metro line. The line will use elevated segments that fit neatly into neighborhoods and bring positive attributes to communities beyond just the transit function. For modern elevated rail in North America, Montréal could be setting the bar
As we emerge from pandemic and look towards returning to offices, a question starts to come up. “What’s for lunch?” A recent impromptu survey of several downtown Seattle restaurants suggests it’s very difficult to get out without forking over around $20 a person. The overloaded half pastrami and
Covering development for a city like Seattle gives The Urbanist a unique view into the spots where development concentrates. Even so, it’s useful once in a while to step back and ask what this means for a neighborhood. When does a bunch of houses turn into a unique place?
Close your eyes for a moment and think of downtown Tacoma. What do you see? Where do you like to go? Chances are, most of us would think of the museums, bars and breweries, or UW Tacoma. Now for a tougher question, where do people gather? Where’s the life
There’s a spot just inside Seattle’s Gilman Park where the scent of turned earth and new asphalt mingles with that of cooking grains coming out of West Woodland’s Brewery Row. At this rare moment, the scent of construction is stronger. Surprisingly for the neighborhood, there are currently
The tragic military attack on Ukraine by Russia has upended the world, making us think differently about things we took for granted even a couple weeks ago. But the new tension and uncertainty we are experiencing is something that influenced government policies in the United States for 40 years. One
Beginning with my great grandmother, three generations of women in my family lived in a craftsman home that has since been flattened into the public parking lot next to the Trader Joe’s in the University District. My grandparents met on that very doorstep. And you know what? That the
For a long time, Washington’s digital divide worried many groups of people who saw its harmful and inequitable effects: librarians, teachers, tribal governments, and community-based organizations that help workers struggling to feed their families, to name several. And then the COVID-19 pandemic happened. All of a sudden people were
Later this year, Bellevue City Council will complete a years-long process to rezone the Wilburton neighborhood east of I-405. Historically a commercial and office corridor, the city has identified the neighborhood as a key area to absorb new growth to best take advantage of light rail’s opening next year.
As one of the few places in Seattle where industry rubs elbows with homes and small businesses, Georgetown is one of city’s most distinctive neighborhoods, a place for makers — people who dream up, design, build, and fix things. The neighborhood has long attracted people drawn to its industrial grit,
Having attended a number of community meetings around Seattle, I can say that there are few things worse than watching a newcomer with ideas get shut down for not having done the reading. Oh, you didn’t know that there was prerequisite reading necessary to attend community meetings? Yes, in
Details are emerging on plans to replace the suburban-style Safeway grocery story adjacent to University Village Mall with an eight-story mixed-use development. The plans follow projects in the works to restyle Safeway stores in other urban Seattle locations, notably Queen Anne and Capitol Hill. Early Design Guidance (EDG) plans filed
Walking among the gleaming towers in Seattle’s South Lake Union, there is a buzz in the air. The aroma of tantalizing restaurants, the din of construction noise, the waves of traffic, and the bustle of commerce are the fruits and frustrations of a fast-growing neighborhood. What’s not obvious
This installment of housing notes contains mix of high and low notes, but we’ll kick things off with story that hits the upper octaves. After years of hardwork, Africatown Community Land Trust and partner Community Roots Housing broke ground on their plaza project at 23rd and Spring in Seattle
The Seattle City Council is considering a bill to extend cafe street and outdoor dining permits until January 2023. The popular program arose during the pandemic to accommodate outdoor dining and shopping through the lockdowns. While Seattle has always permitted use of sidewalk and parking spaces, the high costs were
South Korea’s capital city of Seoul recently unveiled plans to become the first major city government with a solid foothold in the metaverse. Both a result of increased natural telecommunication due to social distancing and solution to combat bureaucratic red-tape in the highly populated city, Mayor Oh-See Hoon hopes
An Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) sounds like a highly technical and complex mechanism of governance. They take years, spiral into hundreds of pages with massive appendices, and get fought over in court. The truth is that EIS are a simple concept with plenty of spots that you can influence the
On a day-to-day basis, we are confronted with a million different challenges: maybe you dropped your coffee on the carpet, maybe you just cannot find that missing sock, or maybe a new light rail station was announced in your neighborhood. “Wait a second!” I hear you saying. “Light rail stations
From a bird’s eye view, Seattle’s South Park neighborhood is cut in half by SR-99, divided diagonally from one end to another. The highway, which brings in noise and vehicle pollution, is just one of many issues that burdens the isolated neighborhood. But South Park residents, known for
Recast Your City is subtitled “How to save your downtown with small-scale manufacturing,” which gives the impression that it’s a one trick book. But its author Ilana Preuss calls it a “community development self help book,” and it actually pulls off this feat. To do so, the book takes
Snotrac Coalition worries the plan won’t put enough growth equitably near high-capacity transit. Snohomish County planning authorities have all but signed off on new growth targets. Early this month, the county’s regional planning body took final action in adopting specific jobs and population targets by jurisdiction. These targets
In November, Seattle’s Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) released their draft Crown Hill Urban Action Plan. The scope of this plan is small, short-term, and focused on community, sustainability, livability, and equity. You’ve come to the wrong place if you’re in search of a much
Like many suburban American cities that saw major growth in the second half of the 20th century, Lynnwood lacks a defined central commercial area. Businesses are grouped instead as strip malls along busy thoroughfares like 196th Street SW and Alderwood Mall Boulevard, which is a frontage road for Interstate 5.
As a child, I watched a documentary at school about Arcosanti, a utopian city in the desert founded on the idea that environmental sustainability and community life should be the top priorities in a city’s design. While Arcosanti made a big impression on me at the time, to call
Two surplus lots are up for redevelopment at the future Kent/Des Moines Station. Sound Transit has about four acres of land that it wants to infill with transit-oriented development (TOD), but how that will happen is still up for a debate. The agency is sharing some development concepts and
Neighborhood advocates, however, want the Belltown site to be more than a vacant lot during the interim period. Mayor Jenny Durkan and Seattle Public School (SPS) Interim Superintendent Brent Jones have signed a letter of intent (LOI) opening up the opportunity for SPS to build an elementary school and park
In an era of tight city budgets, legal limits on taxing authority, and expensive problems, it is time for Seattle to get creative. We can’t tackle issues like homelessness, crumbling infrastructure, and overreliance on cars if we stick with our current leadership’s go-small planning. We should start by
Awards up to $100,000 will be distributed to community-led projects aimed at reigniting the local economy during the Covid recovery. Have you ever dreamt of organizing a public art installation, social media platform, or small business marketplace for your corner of Seattle? Or maybe you have another, more bolder