Complete Communities Coalition Letter on Draft One Seattle Plan - Revised Growth Strategy

December 19, 2024

Dear Mayor Bruce Harrell:

We, the Complete Communities Coalition and the undersigned organizations, commend your administration's responsiveness to community input and appreciate the bold steps forward in the latest One Seattle Plan draft. The revised plan demonstrates your commitment to creating a more affordable, equitable, and sustainable Seattle and will bring positive, transformational change. We are particularly encouraged by several major improvements in the new draft:

• The allowance of fourplexes and other middle housing citywide, with increased Floor Area Ratio (FAR) to accommodate family-sized homes.

• The innovative stacked flat bonus to incentivize accessible housing options beyond townhomes.

• The creation of 30 Neighborhood Centers across Seattle, including five additional centers in North Magnolia, High Point, Mid-Beacon Hill, Upper Fremont, and Hillman City.

• The expansion of Urban Centers around light rail and frequent bus stops, including NE 130th St, Upper Queen Anne, Greenwood, West Seattle Junction, and the Admiral District.

These changes align with our shared vision for Seattle's future. They will help address our housing affordability challenges and create more vibrant, walkable communities.

To build upon this strong foundation and fully realize the One Seattle Plan's potential, as we move into the Council process, we respectfully suggest the following enhancements for the final plan:

1. Expand Stacked Flats for Accessible Middle Housing: Allow stacked flats to be built on all lots near frequent transit, regardless of lot size, to maximize accessible housing opportunities in high-opportunity and transit-rich areas. Restricting stacked flats to lots larger than 6,000 square feet will limit this housing type in many of Seattle’s older and most desirable neighborhoods.

2. Add Neighborhood Centers Near Major Parks: Create new neighborhood centers in low-displacement risk and high-opportunity areas, including North Broadway, Seward Park, Alki, Gas Works, and Loyal Heights. This would create more housing options near some of Seattle’s most cherished parks and let more people meet their daily needs by walking or biking.

3. Expand Neighborhood Centers: Expand the boundaries of proposed neighborhood centers to ensure their scale can support essential amenities like grocery stores. We suggest expanding these boundaries to encompass the area within a five-minute walk around a central point, as was studied in the Draft Environmental Impact Study.

4. Allow for Mixed-Uses More Broadly: Allow for mixed use development along transit arterials, to create space for childcare, grocery stores, and small businesses. Build on the proposal to allow corner stores in neighborhood residential areas, by creating flexibility for small commercial spaces on all residential lots.

5. Allow Transit-Oriented Homes Off Arterials: Extend multifamily zoning along transit corridors from the arterials themselves to blocks within a five-minute walk of transit stops. This gives people convenient transportation options alongside the opportunity to live in quiet, low-pollution, and car-light neighborhoods.

6. Expand the Affordable Housing Density Bonus: Allow the affordable housing density bonus to be used citywide, without parking mandates. Additionally, ensure the bonus can be used by a broad range of developers—including private, nonprofit, and social housing developers—to build mixed-income housing without relying on scarce public funding.

We believe these recommendations will strengthen the One Seattle Plan's ability to meet our shared goals of creating a more affordable, equitable, and sustainable city. These changes would help ensure all Seattleites can access the opportunities and amenities that make our city great, while promoting development that supports our climate goals and creates complete communities where people can meet their daily needs close to home.

We appreciate your continued leadership and commitment to addressing Seattle's housing challenges. The One Seattle Plan is a historic step forward for our city, and we look forward to collaborating with you and the City Council to create a final plan that fully delivers on its promise of a more inclusive and vibrant Seattle for all.

Sincerely,

The Complete Communities Coalition