(The Center Square) – Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson’s plan to build more housing in Seattle can be summed up in three words: “taller, denser, faster.” But city residents are divided on the plan, as evidenced by two hearings on Monday attended by several hundred residents.
Wilson announced her approach last week, aiming to accelerate a revamp of the city’s zoning laws to sometime in 2027, rather than 2028.
The speakers fell into two camps: those who feel that more housing will help create more affordable units in a city with a housing shortage and expensive rents, and homeowners who don’t like apartment buildings staring down their residential street.
The second camp also expressed concern that more housing would result in trees being torn down.
One resident, John Matheson, said more housing units were needed. He had lived in Seattle for 10 years and had been forced to move to different neighborhoods as his rent kept going up.
“I’m a fifth-generation Seattle resident,” he said. “I have five kids. All of them are in Seattle. Two of them are at home, but three of them are on their own, and they are finding that finding housing is pretty problematic in Seattle.”
He urged the city council to do everything it could to help his children.
Sandy Shettler of Tree Action Seattle said she was speaking in favor of saving the Seattle tree canopy from being cut down for more housing.
“We’re actually losing 270 trees a month, over half for development,” she said. Shettler said 70% of the trees being lost have trunks over 70 inches in diameter.
Wilson, who ran for mayor last year on a housing affordability agenda, wants to permit larger apartment buildings and “middle housing” like fourplexes in traditionally single-family neighborhoods.
“To address our housing shortage, we’re planning for a city where everyone has the opportunity to live in a safe, welcoming neighborhood,” Wilson said in a statement last week.
Wilson’s proposal arrives at a moment of heightened tension between pro-density advocates and residents in the city’s more affluent neighborhoods.
Previous versions of the growth plan were downsized under pressure from wealthy neighborhoods, leading to the reduction of several proposed “Neighborhood Centers” where higher-density apartment buildings were to be allowed.
Councilmember Eddie Lin, chair of the Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan, suggested that the political winds may be shifting.
“The message is clear—go bigger and bolder, work with urgency,” Lin has said, citing a “wide coalition” of labor unions, businesses, and environmental advocates pushing for change.
The battle lines are expected to be drawn most sharply in neighborhoods like Montlake, Madison Park, and Madrona, where houses are single-family, and apartment buildings are few.
Under the so-called “Centers and Corridors” plan, these areas could see the introduction of six-story mixed-use buildings in their cores and four-story residential units on their edges.
By pushing multifamily housing deeper into residential areas near transit arterials, the Wilson plan seeks to create a more walkable, transit-dependent urban environment.
The aim is to move Seattle closer to the “15-minute city” model, where everything in a person’s life is nearby. It’s a model popular in European cities that many urban planners advocate.
