With one month to go, the poster child for increasing density in cities by mandating middle housing authorization, HB 1110, continues to move forward. The bill passed out of the Senate’s policy committee with few substantive changes.
Next stop – Senate Ways & Means Committee, where the bill may get its final tune up before coming for a vote.
Here’s what changed:
- Permissive authority for cities to allow accessory dwelling units (ADU) to meet the density requirements; however, cities must still allow six of the nine types of middle housing to meet the density requirements. It’s unclear, as drafted, how
the middle housing mandate and the permissive authority grant a city the option of having ADUs meet the requirements. We are working on refinements to clarify that cities are not required to allow ADUs (or middle housing types) beyond the density
requirements.
- Only administrative design review, as defined in the bill, is authorized for middle housing.
- Under the alternative option for cities under 75,000 and within the contiguous urban growth area of the largest city, the walking distance to a major transit stop was changed from a ½ mile to a ¼ mile.
- Removes density around a “community amenity” from the alternative compliance options to align with its previous removal in the mandated density section.
- Allows cities complying with the density requirements to postpone compliance with two aspects of HB 1220 (2021) requirements until June 30, 2034. The postponed provisions are as follows:
- To identify and implement policies and regulations to address and begin to undo racially disparate impacts, displacement, and exclusion in housing caused by local policies, plans, and actions; and
- If in compliance with the transitional, supportive and shelter housing requirements from 2021 (RCW 35A.21.430 or 35.21.683), to make adequate provisions for existing and projected needs of all economic segments of the community, including:
(i) Incorporating consideration for low, very low, extremely low, and moderate-income households;
(ii) Documenting programs and actions needed to achieve housing availability including gaps in local funding, barriers such as development
regulations, and other limitations;
(iii) Consideration of housing locations in relation to employment location; and
(iv) Consideration of the role of accessory dwelling units in meeting housing needs;
- Cities must still comply with the rest of the requirements, including identifying areas that may be at higher risk of displacement from market forces that occur with changes to zoning development regulations and capital investments,
including the required zoning mandate in the bill.
- An extension approved by Commerce for lack of water supply must be based on water system plans.
Here’s what didn’t:
- Despite the title and intent section, the bill still applies to every residential lot rather than focus on lots zoned for single-family detached housing.
- Statutory definitions for middle housing that will conflict with those already in city ordinances, adding additional costs to the code updates with no public value. AWC continues to request the definition of middle housing to focus on number of units
and design rather than defined “types.”
- Requiring exactly six of the nine types of middle housing to be authorized which is infeasible for lower density areas, based on the definitions provided in the bill. Simply requiring middle housing to be authorized would suffice.
- Speaking of requiring middle housing, work is still needed to ensure that the bill will not act as a downzone around transit assets, where cities have created zones to provide and encourage more than a sixplex. Even the alternative option prohibits
a city from including transit areas in the 25% of lots not impacted by the bill. Again, requiring middle housing on lots zoned for single-family detached housing would address this issue.
- Overly prescriptive language on development regulations that treats multi-unit residential housing the same as single-family detached housing.
- Parking restrictions
- Lot splitting issue that we highlighted in the last article.
- Although the bill purports to increase density, cities can’t count the density that occurs from these substantive changes to the city landscape when they report on their growth targets (Section 6).