Gross

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No policy I can imagine would do more to drive up prices of single family homes.

What this mean?

Haven’t they already killed it?

Read the article.

They killed it last year

This is a new legislative session or whatever

This may not be the bill Seattle wants, but it's what they so greatly deserve, right in their entitled multi-million-dollar nimby faces.

Everywhere else in the State... carry on.

Hopefully this means more mixed use and not more apartment complexes...

This article only mentions 4-6 unit buildings in residential areas. no mixed use, but also no giant complexes (maybe complex has an exact minimum number somewhere but it feels like alot more than 6 to me)

I for one support the removal of these onerous regulation on housing. Free market baby.

Developers: it won’t.

Damn liberals and their... wanting to reform antiquated zoning laws.

Much better to have the govt tell you what you can and can’t do with your land /s

Look at what happened in Kirkland if you think this will fix the issue. The Cottage housing inventory was passed to allow homes to be able to build multiple homes on a lot in order to increase housing and make it more affordable. What’s been happening (1) starter home are being torn down for McMansions. I’ve seen a perfectly fine move in rambler bought for $1.25. The developers split the lot in half, built a McMansion on one half with no yard for $3.2 mil and trying to sell other lot for $1.35. (2) home continuously being built on smaller and smaller lots. The homes have virtually no yard and start at $1.2mil +. (3) homes being built in crazy space where they should be built. I literally saw a home for sale for $1.4mil with a home literally in its front year that’s $1.2mil.

So developers are just squishing more and more homes into smaller lots and causing land values to go through the roof so an average family can’t afford anything in the area, even fixer upper starter homes.

I just applied for a place like this in Tacoma, it’s brand new and sensible.

From what I gather, some areas have too many houses, but not enough livable area to meet demand. So instead of building houses (single family residence), they would build a small apartment that could home four- to- six families in a similar footprint. That's the ELI5 of it

That...sounds good? Having a yard is fine, but there are so many people that don't need one and are willing to give it up for other things.

Free market? And I’d love to see your equation of how this will “drive up the prices of single family homes” ?

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My adhd, dyslexia, and covid brain fog make it a challenge. Reall helps if I can get my fellow Reddit users to help out by doing a brief description for me.

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if it passes, that sounds like a whole lot of condos and apartment buildings for cities, and a whole lot of people moving out further and further to get the single family housing they want...

Link social security numbers to homes, 1 per until we get shit figured out.

Thank you for helping me out! Wonder if this might lead to slowing down housing inflation a bit.

it's really unclear that this would pass. It's an attempt to force higher density new constructions in urban environments.

I haven't heard of state-wide mandates for higher housing density.

In my opinion, densifying is not a bad thing, but the infrastructure isn't necessarily made to support it, so this could cause a lot of really bad traffic jams.

I can also see that people will go further and further out to get the single family homes they crave causing more exoburbs and suburban sprawl.

so, I applaud the sentiment, but I doubt that the measure will pass, and, if it does, that this won't generate a lot of problems.

Nope! It’s been heard in committee and is eligible to be voted on in committee.

yeah, that's precisely it, except no McMansions, but condos or apartment buildings instead. In order to make a profit, the developers will have to up the prices. Nothing comes in cheap. That much sudden density will cause traffic jams on roads not designed to take in that many cars, but maybe, decades later, the public transit infrastructure will become developed enough to help.

​

At best, I see this as a heavy-handed attempt to force the cities and suburbs to densify, but it'll come with a lot of pain for the next 15, 20 years.

Anyone know the orgs behind this push that got it considered to being pushed into a bill?

Why can’t we have both…?

We honestly need more density in the cities, especially for people who can’t drive and who can’t live in the multi-story townhomes currently being built.

I agree with the principle. not sure that a state-wide mandate is the way to go about it. feels... ham-fisted.

Restricting the supply of new single family homes, assuming no change in demand, will absolutely drive up prices.

Maybe some people will be content living in a multi-family home instead. Others will continue to want single-family homes.

I think the biggest issue was that expectations was that yard sale was smaller, that homes would be priced lower to compensate. That they would provide affordable options. Instead developers are driving up the prices and not building anything “affordable.”

Good, there’s no reason why upper Queen Anne Hill should be zoned single family. Condo and apartment that place up.

Oregon passed legislation very similar to this in 2019. It probably hasn't been long enough to determine whether or not it has been worth it, but I don't really see the downsides. Yes, it could make traffic worse, parking worse, etc... but the idea is that you eventually reach a density where that is less important as transit becomes more feasible. They more or less needed to enact this since they have very strict land use laws and the urban growth boundary system (not a bad thing, but if you can't build out, you must build up).

As for applying it to the whole state, I think that's good as well. There are plenty of smaller communities that are in dire need of housing. Being able to build duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes is a good thing since it is impractical to buy several houses and try to put up a larger apartment complex. There is reason to believe there's less pushback from neighbors when we pursue infill projects like this.

Banning single family exclusive zoning doesn't mean single family homes don't get built, it just means landowners are free to pursue building more dense units per plot. It won't be without its problems, but housing costs are not sustainable now and it won't get better until we can build more. On balance I think it will be a positive for the state.

Oregon SFH Ban

It’s not a mandate to change existing single family housing. Just allowing the option to. You can choose not to.

Recent transactions; old house on 1/4 acre lot purchased for $1.4M. 6 months later, older fixed up house on now 1/8 acre is sold for $1.3M. The other half (1/8 acre) will get a decently sized house, likely to sell for $2.3M (even in this market once construction completed).

Kirkland is to a large part (expensive) single family houses on decently sized lots, and that’s unlikely to change, as long as people love the area (views, lake, parks, close to everything, good neighbors, etc) and willing to pay for it.

Legislature would be making a grave mistake if nixing single family zoning.

oh ok, thanks. I understand better. I'll look up Oregon's case.

I agree but that also should mean building up, like 26 stories. That's not happening.

1/4 acre would sell for $1.4mil+ and they’d probably squeeze in 3 homes minimum if city allowed. The homes they are building on 8k-10k lots are usually around $3.2mil still. Decent sized lots are pretty much gone from most of the area unless you are in a $2mil+ home. Developers went bonkers during Covid.

I understand they want to make money, but the city has to put some limits. The developers have a ton of buildings sitting empty as they are waiting to build and bought up the area not only last year, but years prior. My friend had rats come into her house because a developer has left the building behind her house empty for years. She’s tried to get it condemned with no luck. The small town feel of Kirkland is quickly disappearing and not the same anymore.

I’d support this.

Did we figured how all those people in the newly created super dense areas are going to poo and enjoy things like electricity and water? Or are we going to worry about that after the fact?

Kirkland used to be nice, but all this density is ruining it. Redmond is even worse.

No longer a small town when it’s not uncommon for houses to sell in the $5M to $10M range. Still truly an awesome town though.

But yes, with cottage zoning, there is a change to squeeze in three ~1,400 sqf houses on something close to 1/4 acre (driving up the purchase price for that lot vs if only two houses, etc).

Kirkland went from cozy and quaint to overbuilt and cramped.

Yes, in a matter of a few years.

I really hate those modern McMansions. We toured on during an open house - so sterile and unfriendly. I honestly do not understand why people like them.

I’m not sure what the solution is. I just know that this was passed last year and probably talked about for years as a solution. The intention was to come up with a solution for more housing (and hence more affordable housing), but made the problem worse. 🙁 I will admit I thought it would help, but I was under impression that they would build up to $1mil 1600 square ft homes on 1/8 acre lots. Oh how I was wrong. I could never have thought of ways to squeeze in homes like they do.

You don’t think turning Seattle into the hottest realestate investment opportunity on the west coast would increase demand from buyers with infinite cash thereby increasing the cost of houses?

This isn't restricting supply any more than it already is, nothing about this says anyone has to build foulrplexes. If they will its because the demand for dense housing is higher than demand for single family homes

We should do that with children too. It would reduce school class sizes and stress on teachers. And we should also do this with vehicles. Only one vehicle per SSN. That would help with climate change and reduce roadway wear and tear right? Then we should limit food, and travel, and vacations, and plane trips and other purchases too!!! Communist much?

You are at a level of stupid I cannot comprehend. You know what regulation and zoning is right? We would still be a capatilaist country with this change.

Building houses in further out suburbs will also require people to drive and add traffic to the region's roads

I must have misunderstood. I assumed it meant it would become harder to build single family homes.

I definitely support relaxing the restriction on multi family development and letting the market decide what kind of housing is built.

This won’t get under thought and rushed through. WA never does that with legislation /S

I hope this goes through this year. It's a good first start.

It makes sense for seattle. There’s no reason why anyone should be banned from buying a single family home there, tearing it down and building multifamily developments with the demand for homes we have here.

Adding that I’m a homeowner here and a lot of the city looks like Shoreline or Edmonds

it wont, it will be more apartment complexes to feed the tax machine

In all fairness the Venn diagram of people who can get by without a car because they can walk on errands, take transit or bike but also can’t live in a multi story house is pretty small.

Why would developers be opposed to mixed use?

It’ll probably increase the cost of houses in Seattle but decrease the costs of apartments and condos. Not really a bad thing unless you reeeeeally want to buy a house in Seattle.

Yes we should never do anything

Wouldn’t this be the developers’ problem? Doesn’t seem like something the state needs to worry about

Why do you think that people are going to build apartment complexes that don’t get rented out? That’s not how things generally work. They develop these things because they are in demand and make money.

It’s highly in demand to have more, cheaper, rentals available in cities, to provide for more people. There will be 5 people moving in for every person moving out because they just really wanted a single family home.

Single family zoning is literally just government authoritarianism. Let markets decide how they want to build housing. If you don’t want to live in an apartment you don’t have to, but you also don’t get to dictate how other people use the land beyond reasonable health and safety restrictions (I.e. limiting pollution and heavy industry). That’s how it should be.

I feel like a lot of people have a misconception about this headline.

It’s not banning single family homes.

It’s banning exclusionary zoning. You can still have single family homes, but you will also be able to build other things as well on that land you own.

Your home isn’t getting fucking outlawed dude.

Probably the space.

Urban growth boundaries. The metro cannot expand, so as the suburbs are flipped for 4/6plexes - it goes away.

Yeah, developers love building cheap apartments /s

They can't move further out. There is an urban growth boundary. Long term, this is the end of SFHs.

There is nothing stopping Seattle upzoning itself like Spokane did. About 5 cities in WA have significantly upzoned already.

They'll try every year until it passes.

If many developers build apartments, the price comes down. It doesn’t matter what the developers want lol

There is literally NOTHING stopping Seattle upzoning itself. Spokane did. Seattle CC could hold a vote and zone the entire city SM500 (seattle mixed 500 foot) today.

I doubt it would pass though. Lots of nimbys out here

You would think, but there have been too many new people moving into Washington over the past 15 years and construction just did not keep up. I think we are way behind. I joke, but we really just need large scale Soviet era apartments built (and rented at fair rates) just to offer affordable housing and to our citizens.

Law allow 1 big house become 6 small house. Some 1 big house owners no want 6 small house next door and it makes them cry.

They have adhd, dyslexia and covid how tf are they going to read all of that

And what's wrong with that? What's wrong with regulating to ensure that everyone has the ability to live?

>Only one vehicle per SSN. That would help with climate change and reduce roadway wear and tear right?

Why does it matter how many vehicles a single person owns? Only one of those vehicles can be on the road at a time.

Given the choice, I wouldn't want to live in a single-family home next to a stack box multi-family home. All of a sudden my 6' privacy fence needs to be 30' tall and the street is littered with fights over tight on-street parking. No thanks.

Charge them out the yin-yang and when things back-up at the treatment plant, just dump the effluent directly into Puget Sound. In other words, business as usual.

Location. Location. Location.

You clearly don't follow Olympia politics closely. WA is notorious for sloooooow ass rule making. The state Supreme Court mandated that education be fully funded a few years ago and the legislature still hasn't done it.

Spokane is ahead of the west side. We already reformed the bullshit zoning laws. Time for the state to step it up

Not true. I can own 3 cars and let my children drive them right? Because they may be to young to buy one, or cant afford one. My sarcastic point is that in a free country, we don't need permission from the government to buy anything. If I want and can afford 5 houses, thats between me and my bank. If it's OK for the government to tell you where, when, and how many houses you can buy then what is next?

Legalize tall buildings

Bad idea.

There are a lot of families who can't afford (even if the prices dropped) or don't want to own a home.

The majority of houses (not apartments) rented out are by every day people, not corporations. If we got rid of that, you would have a group of people who would not have a place or crammed into apartments.

Many families would get fucked with this.

Isn't letting the person decide what you do with your land like... Peak capitalism?

Less government, more freedom?

This is actually an issue and shouldnt be down voted.

Ballard has had to put in a poop tank due to having more poo than it can move.

Seattle will need to build more waste treatment plants for denser living.

Electricity and water is no issue though.

On the right track, but now let's allow mixed use.

We should model after Japan where you can business and residential are almost always allowed together. If you own the land and want to sell just 1000 sqft of it, go ahead. If the market wants it, someone will buy it and do something with it.

You often get some cool architecture this way as well. People designing places based on the land instead of cookie cutter houses all built at once.

The TLDR from the article:

A bill at the state Capitol would require cities with at least 6,000 residents to allow quadplex housing on all residential blocks, as well as buildings with six units — also known as sixplexes — in areas close to major transit stops.

It will probably drive up prices for single family homes, but it will also likely mean that more people will have places to live. That's the problem they are trying to solve with this.

I'm curious how Spokane reformed their zoning laws.

https://my.spokanecity.org/news/releases/2022/06/23/pilot-program-proposed-to-accelerate-housing/

Washington state in particular has a crisis of middle housing. Spokanes solution is far from perfect and we need to fix a lot more in our city. And the state of Washington needs to pass statewide legislature as well

Thank you. I agree with your assessment of middle housing. Both the city I live in and the city I work for are starting comprehensive plans this year and are required to address that gap.

As the value of a single family home skyrockets in response

Please please please make this happen. I'd love to see my SFH neighborhood have duplexes and such. We have huge lots and prices have doubled in 6 years. Townhomes would be lovely. I know they don't have to build pretty, but I think they would anyways. All these custom homes are going in selling for 2mil, so even with townhomes, it's all going to be expensive. But it could be medium high income instead of extremely high income.

They already have to move out because prices are insane. There's no option that houses people that doesn't increase density. And this measure would mean things like duplexes which are pretty close to SFH. There's no reason SFH couldn't continue to be built, it would just adjust based on demand.

So? All housing adds to supply. If someone moves into that expensive home they are not competing for the cheaper ones anymore and driving up prices.

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Supply goes up, demand stays the same. How exactly would this turn out bad?

Obviously it's closing the barn doors after the horses have left.

Which is good.

Won't the kids have their own SSN? I think your argument is flawed.

>My sarcastic point is that in a free country, we don't need permission from the government to buy anything.

We don't live in a free country. If you've ever tried to buy a firearm, you'd know this.

How would supply go up for rental houses? If everyone was only allowed one house, it would mean there are no rental houses available.

What if I'm a family of five who just moved to an area but don't want to buy a place just yet?

Or someone who just wants a small townhouse to rent and not own?

Or a single mother, recently divorced, who doesn't have the down payment for a house.

Well i sure stirred the pot here🤐

That would be the goal, but not happening. Families have a slim chance of getting a home against developers and investors. Until developers and investors are leveraged to point to where they slow down buying inventory, it won’t shift.

It literally does tho, its basic supply and demand I dont know why this terribly backwards idea comes from. We have a supply issue, we need more housing. Literally any housing helps. If the developers and investors were just buying legit any open property anywhere sure you may have a point but that would mean we would have no houses available either which we know is not the case. All housing built is good full stop.

100%. And if I sell my home and a developer wants to buy it and eventually tear it down for more dense housing? Great. That’s the free market working.

Also new developments of single family homes aren’t going to be outlawed either. They’ll just be in the suburbs because there won’t be the demand for multi family like there is in the actual cities.

I think I misunderstood your earlier comment that I replied to - I was under the impression you were against the change and were talking about how "nobody should be banned from buying a single family home here" as if people were about to be banned from buying SFH's.

My bad! We're in agreement.

Lol this is so funny because I was working at the Bothell city council meeting last week and there was high tension amongst them regarding a middle housing agreement that they have been working on.

Welcome to the stack and pack state ladies and gentlemen this is only ment for more taxes that is all its not like our roads are capable of handling more traffic as it is.

*In cities such as Seattle.

does nobody think about the cute $5M home neighborhoods? You’ll ruin the place! /s

I don’t know what you mean with open - as in listed in MLS? I don’t know exact percentages, but I would gather conservatively 75% never get listed. It’s under the table deals and in some cases taking advantage of elderly. The area started providing free legal housing advice to elderly which implies city knows it’s a problem.

…there we go.

I don't understand how an abundance of housing would hurt people who don't have houses currently.

This isn’t state mandated density. This is the state forbidding local zoning laws from banning density; I.e protecting the right to density.

Just think how Roe. V. Wade wasn’t ‘state mandated abortions’; it was a ruling that prevented states from banning abortions.

Because not everyone wants to own/can own?

If there aren't any rental properties, people would have to buy or be homeless. And if everyone is only allowed one property, there would not be any rentals.

It would really suck for new immigrants and those struggling.

I don't get what you aren't understanding here.

It's hard to get both sides happy. The commerical side wants lots of cars and traffic for customers. The residents want peace and quiet. Then there is a very limited range of acceptable businesses. You'd have difficulty putting a dog daycare in due to noise. It's gotta be small, low traffic and quiet. There are only so many vets, daycare, clinics, coffee shops and corner stores an area can sensibly have. Then they charge too much and the commerical space stays empty for a year and looks terrible.

What do you think density means…? It can’t all be multi-story townhomes.

It really isn’t.

What goes away?

I just wish people would keep in mind that a diverse range of options need to be available. Not just vertical, overpriced townhomes. We need townhomes, apartments, condos, 5-over-1s, etc.

I’ve been outright told in other subreddits that disabled people who can’t use stairs are basically expendable and should be forced out into the suburbs where they have no transportation and no access to any of the services they need, just because it’s “too much effort” to build high-density housing that is also ADA-compliant or at least doesn’t having living spaces separated by stairs.

Suburbs. SFHs. Over time they get rare.

And that’s a problem how exactly…?

I'd love to see that.

No its not their problem at all. If your thinking about a developer that has a 200 acre plot he wants to turn into a suburb then sure maybe. But we don't have many of those left. This would affect areas that are already inhabited by single family residents.

Someone that wants to turn a house into a 4 plex can't afford to upgrade the cities sewer system. If its running at capacity what does that mean? they can't build it? The City doesn't have to permit it? But that would quickly put us right back where we started. They do have to permit it?. And when it breaks we will worry about it later or pump the wast into the sound?

I'm all for the change. I'm not even opposed to a lets do it and we will figure it out as we go. But this feels a bit ham handed not considering things area by area. Again local gov is supposed to see to these details and they have had an agenda other then making housing affordable so something has to be done. But there are quite a few moving parts at play the state needs to consider.

!remindme 10 years.

I highly doubt rents going to be any cheaper because investors like profit and don’t like loss.

See you then.

I will be messaging you in 10 years on 2033-01-26 07:04:45 UTC to remind you of this link

CLICK THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.

^(Parent commenter can ) ^(delete this message to hide from others.)

Japan has no urban growth boundary. It sprawls for days. Most of the population live in suburbs. The size if Tokyo suburbs are the stuff of legend. They are denser, but they are SFHs.

We'll never get Tokyo due to the GMA.

Yes of course but it's not happening. In Vancouver, four stories max with no accompanying infrastructure improvements.

Sounds good, consider skimming this at some point in the meantime

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand

That’s a good point, and you certainly can’t trust the developers to consider what the infrastructure can handle. They just want to sell houses. IMO, the strain on infrastructure is an easier problem to deal with in the long run. Upzoning discussions are so fraught, whereas if sewage is overflowing I feel like it’s pretty easy to get people on board with upgrading the sewer system.

And you are right about that. That a conversation about upgrading a sewer system is way easier to navigate then getting a bunch NMBY folks to agree to higher density and change. So hopefully it passes and it will have the desired effect. Its probably better then trying nothing and complaining that its still broke.

See what?

Sorry, I misread your earlier comment and thought you were arguing against building up.

Out of anywhere in Washington, Spokane of all cities was the first to do something progressive with zoning?

What the fuck?

I mean, that's ABSOLUTELY fantastic, but I'm very surprised it was Spokane.

Get out of your bubble and come check out Spokane, it’s not what your Seattle friends told you it is. It’s the second largest metro in Washington

I don't live in Seattle, I live in Idaho right next to Pullman. So I actually spend way more of my time in Spokane than I do Seattle.