seattleyimby.org info@seattleyimby.org January 8, 2026 Dear Mayor Wilson, Congratulations on your election victory! Our Chapter’s members were excited by your answers to our endorsement questionnaire, which demonstrated both a strong grasp of housing policy and a clear alignment with our values. That enthusiasm was reflected in our unanimous endorsement of your candidacy, as well as in the door-knocking, conversations, ballot-curing, and other outreach our members undertook during your campaign. Now is the time to act on affordability. We are at a point in the development cycle where local rents have remained stable in the past several years due to new supply coming to market that was financed on pandemic-era low-interest loans. However, new permits for housing are at critically low levels. If urgent action is not taken, rents are likely to spike during the next four years. We want to stay ahead of what’s coming lest your administration gets blamed for higher rents. Although interest rates are not in your control, there are many ways you can act on affordability. YIMBY Action’s housing policy priorities fall broadly into five categories : Legalize Housing, Fund Affordable Housing, Increase Housing Stability, Streamline Permitting, and Fix Broken Incentives. As you noted in your questionnaire, addressing our housing shortage requires an all-of-the-above approach to meet residents’ needs and achieve the rapid progress Seattle requires. Given this shared vision, we’re thrilled to have you leading our city and are eager to partner with you wherever we can. To start that collaboration, we wanted to share several actionable policies to improve affordability in Seattle for everyone. Legalizing homes for lower and middle incomes in high-opportunity neighborhoods Zoning constraints still confine most multi-family housing—and therefore most renters—to noisy, high-traffic arterials. Although nearly a third of Seattle’s renter households are car-free, renters remain disproportionately exposed to traffic-related pollution. Phase 2 and 3 of the Comprehensive Plan offers a critical opportunity to fix this. Expand Housing Options Away from Transit Corridors into Neighborhoods Broad transit-corridor upzones were analyzed in both Alternatives 4 and 5, yet the outgoing mayor’s proposal scaled them back to just a single block along frequent transit routes—ultimately reinforcing and worsening existing housing inequities. Expanding the current proposal to legalize multifamily housing within a 0.5-mile walkshed of transit stops would open quieter, cleaner residential streets to renters and first-time homebuyers who have been priced out of the single-family home market. Separately, the City should study a “family zoning” overlay 1 seattleyimby.org info@seattleyimby.org that would incentivize the construction of family-sized units of at least four stories near schools and parks, which would also address our public school enrollment challenges. A family zoning ordinance was recently passed in San Francisco. 1 Identify and Remove Housing Barriers Through a Citywide Task Force Addressing our housing affordability challenges requires immediate and decisive action. One of the main barriers to the home construction in our city is excessive bureaucratic red tape, which makes homebuilding so time-consuming and costly that many projects do not move forward at all, leaving prime land vacant and many of our neighbors left outside on the streets. During his first week in office, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani issued an executive order creating a task force whose purpose is to identify and remove barriers that increase costs and slow housing construction, called Streamlining Procedures to Expedite Equitable Development (SPEED). 2 The executive order recognized that the housing shortage “must be addressed through the delivery of additional housing at all levels of affordability” and that "improvements in City processes can be made at every stage of the production process.” Seattle should follow NYC’s lead and establish a similar task force to uncover the bureaucratic barriers to rapid housing production, and which can deliver recommendations for improvement within 100 days of Mayor Wilson taking office. Such a task force would ensure that we address affordability with the urgency that our present time demands. Study “Alternative 6” for the Comprehensive Plan During the yearslong process leading up to the Comprehensive Plan update, residents and organizations were clear that they wanted to see an Alternative 6, which would broadly open up access to more housing options throughout the city, not just along its arterial roads. Advocates warned that “ Simply not studying an option because it seems too audacious or politically fraught would undermine the rigor of the study and the entire process, given the outpouring of support.” 3 To counter the obstruction and inaction of the previous administration, Mayor Wilson should study an Alternative 6 for the Comprehensive Plan in an EIS, including broad zoning changes throughout all neighborhoods, which would address and remedy the history of exclusion in our city. It should be underlined that studying an option does not require its adoption, but not studying it is antidemocratic, given the broad coalition of our community in support of an Alternative 6. Switch to Funded Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) MHA fees, unfortunately, do not achieve their intended purpose. They drive up the cost of housing and stifle its production, leading to a shortage of affordable homes built, which is the opposite of the policy’s intention. Although MHA fees are not the only barrier to housing 3 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KUqZ5VsghfwE2c9oz2u9jv0k_H5Fi-U48yXRuB2-nfU/edit?tab=t.0 2 https://www.nyc.gov/content/dam/nycgov/mayors-office/downloads/pdf/executive-orders/2026/eo5-final-i mproving-process-to-accelerate-affordable-housing.pdf 1 https://sfplanning.org/sf-family-zoning-plan 2 seattleyimby.org info@seattleyimby.org production, they represent a significant contributor, often adding up to over $20 per square foot of living space, or in excess of ten thousand dollars for a one-bedroom apartment. These costs are ultimately absorbed by renters, who must bear the burden of higher rents and less home choices. In environments such as the present, potential projects suffer “death by a thousand cuts” and are not able to move forward due to MHA fees and other costs, further worsening affordability. The City can address many of these negative, unintended effects by offering an offset to funds paid into the MHA program, such as through a tax credit. With funded MHA, many more projects will become feasible while ensuring integrated housing with both affordable and market-rate units. Through tax credits MHA will fund itself, as the new homes will significantly increase the city’s tax base, while shifting the burden of paying for it from renters to the public at large, matching the public benefit provided by the construction of more affordable housing. In addition to MHA’s unintended consequences, the policy also likely violates the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, as the policy lacks the required “rough proportionality” nexus to justify burdening a private property owner for a public benefit. 4 In this way, funded MHA would reduce the legal liability in current and future lawsuits, protecting the interests of taxpayers. Lastly, funded MHA is not a new concept in our region. For example, Portland, Oregon, recently changed its unfunded mandate to a funded program. Washington State’s new transit oriented development law, HB 1491, is similar. Relax Restrictions in Urban Centers and Neighborhood Centers In recent decades, the overwhelming majority of new housing that has gone up in Seattle has been in Urban Villages, now separated into Urban and Neighborhood Centers. These are areas already well supported by amenities such as restaurants, grocery stores, and childcare facilities. Despite recent attempts to open up single-family neighborhoods to allow for more homes, it is doubtless that the Urban and Neighborhood Centers will continue to see most new housing in our city. In other words, affordability starts and ends in these areas. That’s why it is critical that the new administration take immediate, decisive steps to relax building restrictions in these areas that have led to abandoned projects, vacant buildings (which are a public nuisance) and other underutilized lots. The truth is that building in these areas has largely stalled because it is infeasible to build larger projects in the current environment. Relaxing restrictions could take the form of additional building height and floor area ratio; expedited permitting processes; and reform of utility, infrastructure, and permitting fees. Requirements for private space in apartment buildings, which drives up the cost of building and 4 See the recent US Supreme Court decision of Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, California, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-1074_bqmd.pdf (“the Takings Clause saves individual property owners from bearing public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole.”) 3 seattleyimby.org info@seattleyimby.org leads to underutilized spaces, could also be adjusted. Rather, the City should emphasize and incentivize the use of public spaces. Eliminate Citywide Parking Mandates Seattle calls itself a “transit-first” city, yet other longstanding policies that have contradicted this goal are still on the books. One of these outdated policies is parking requirements. In line with Mayor Wilson’s goals to shift the way we get around, the City should stop requiring parking spaces for any project or development. Seattle’s residents have been clear at public hearings that more cars will not make our city better, but more homes will. In addition to bringing down the cost of new housing and supporting transit ridership, eliminating parking mandates will reduce pollution and other negative impacts imposed by driving. End Design Review The writing is on the wall: design review must go. It’s the kind of bureaucratic red tape that is in opposition to your administration’s affordability goals. From its beginning in 1994, the intent of design review was clear: allowing a small, vocal section of our community to block new housing through the weaponization of government bureaucracy. By just one recent example, a 100% affordable housing project in Phinney Ridge was forced to spend an additional $500,000 in defending itself against design review, all to appease a single, vocal opponent of more neighbors in that community. But for each project that is well-financed enough to meet the hurdles imposed on it by design review, countless others are defeated or never even begin, further eroding housing affordability in our City. To make matters worse, the prescriptions in design review only regulate the outside of a project’s appearance, while ignoring the livability for tenants in the new building. For example, design review is regularly used to mandate the removal of balconies from proposed projects depriving renters of access to outdoor space. Design review forces projects to adopt esoteric concepts such as “articulation” and “modulation” that add significant costs without improving a building’s functional design. Instead, projects should be governed by objective standards, undergoing administrative review that prioritizes how a project design affects the livability of its future inhabitants. Government professionals, not anti-housing activists, are in the best position to conduct this type of review. Protecting and relieving renters from onerous fees Alongside other work to address the housing shortage, we believe that there are immediate steps that can make the rental market fairer and easier to navigate for tenants, who often face additional fees and burdens that are not faced by homeowners. Our priorities fit squarely within Mayor Wilson’s intent to address junk fees and other unfair business practices affecting tenants. Ban Impact Fees Impact fees function as a tax on renters, sending the message that people who cannot afford single-family homes are somehow a burden to the city and should pay extra to live here. 4 seattleyimby.org info@seattleyimby.org Although it is often assumed that developers absorb these fees, renters’ day-to-day experience shows otherwise: costs added to new housing are routinely passed on to them. For example, King County’s Sewer Capacity Charge appears directly on renters’ monthly utility bills, adding roughly $50 per month—on top of a bill over which renters typically have less control than homeowners. Because the charge applies only to new sewer connections, those who can afford to purchase existing single-family homes are exempt. Despite the County’s claim that “growth pays for growth,” the reality is that capacity charges are mostly used to stabilize and improve existing infrastructure that would otherwise be severely underfunded . Impact fees also disproportionately burden small local builders, skewing the market towards larger commercial real estate developers. Require rent transparency. Landlords should be required to include all fixed and variable monthly fees in the advertised rent. Listings should disclose every recurring mandatory charge—whether paid to the landlord or to required third-party providers—and should include a realistic estimate of monthly utilities. For example, some apartment buildings are now charging separately for “common area” utilities, amounts for which can be even higher than in-unit utility costs, to the surprise of new tenants. Landlords should also be discouraged from using excessive third-party providers, which charge extra fees and otherwise add complexity, to handle basic services such as paying rent and utilities. Additionally, the Federal Trade Commission recently entered into a settlement with Greystar, one of the largest property management companies in the country, requiring it to publish all fees with advertised rent. 5 Requiring cost transparency would give renters a clearer picture of the true cost of monthly fees before signing a lease. Strengthen data privacy for tenants. We have a constitutional right to privacy in our homes. Unfortunately, this right is being eroded away by the increase in surveillance of tenants in and around the buildings where they live. For example, many buildings now utilize technology that captures a picture of every person that enters the building, every time, while recording timestamps, unit numbers, and other personally identifiable information. These photos and data can be easily accessed from smartphone applications on servers hosted by third-party providers, with no assurance of protection from unauthorized disclosure. Potentially nefarious uses of this private information are many. Seattle’s renters deserve the same privacy in their homes as is afforded to homeowners. Increase Accessible Housing Options Seattle’s residents with disabilities deserve access to housing that supports their functional needs. Unfortunately, there remains a shortage of homes that are accessible. While this 5 https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2025/12/are-you-managing-rental-property-lessons- ftcs-lawsuit-against-greystar 5 seattleyimby.org info@seattleyimby.org shortage cannot be remedied overnight, the City can make it easier to find vacant accessible units through transparency measures such as a citywide accessible housing database. For example, the state of Massachusetts offers MassAccess, a free program that matches people with disabilities with accessible housing. 6 The program’s Accessible Housing Registry catalogues information including location of housing, rent level, number of bedrooms, accessibility features, and vacancy status. 7 Without this kind of registry, residents with disabilities are forced to inquire with potentially dozens of apartment managers to find a unit that both fits within their functional needs and is vacant. To increase the supply of accessible units, we encourage your support of legislation to make them faster and less expensive to build. While last year’s efforts to support stacked flats are a good start, experts warn that new rules will not result in much of their production without further reform. 8 The reality is that in recent decades, most accessible units built are located in the City’s Urban Villages (now called Urban Centers and Neighborhood Centers). Relaxing building restrictions in these zones, as well as increasing their area and prevalence, would go a long way towards boosting the future supply of accessible homes. The City should also consider further incentives such as exempting accessible units from Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) fees. Signed, Seattle YIMBY 8 https://www.cascadepbs.org/news/2025/06/seattle-upzoned-single-family-neighborhoods-what-will-get-b uilt/ 7 https://www.massaccesshousingregistry.org/ 6 https://www.mass.gov/massaccess-housing-program 6