Tuesday, November 26, 2024

A need for the missing middle affordable housing can unite labor, minority, environmental and other interests.

Very interesting podcast about Washington State's new bill for affordable housing.

House Bill 1110, which legalized “missing middle” housing statewide. A conversation with Rep. Jessica Bateman.

After decades of effort by urbanists, housing has arrived as a political issue. Big environmental groups have come around to the idea that dense housing is a crucial climate strategy, support is growing from unions worried that their members can’t afford to live where they work, and polls show that the public is increasingly convinced that there is a housing crisis.

Over the last five years, a wave of good housing legislation has been building on the West Coast, spreading from California to Oregon and now to Washington state. In this last legislative session, some 50 housing bills were put forward in the Washington legislature and more than a half dozen passed, any one of which would have been historic.

One of the most significant bills that passed this session — and one of the biggest surprises — was House Bill 1110, which legalized so-called “missing middle” housing statewide. Every lot in the state will now be permitted to build at least two units of housing, four units when located near transit, and up to six units if some portion are set aside for low-income homeowners.

Podcast on Volts.

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