HB1782 – Requiring local governments to allow additional duplexes through sixplexes, stacked flats, townhouses, and courtyard apartments near major transit stops and some of these in areas now zoned single family.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Bateman (D; 22nd District; Thurston County.) (Co-Sponsors Representatives Macri, Berry, Fitzgibbon, and Ryu – Ds) (By request of the Governor.)
Current status – Had a hearing in Local Government January 18th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 1st. Referred to Appropriations, had a hearing February 5th, and passed out of committee (after the failure of a series of amendments.) Referred to Rules; still there at cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5670 is a companion bill in the Senate.
Summary –
Substitute –
The substitute provides for additional technical assistance from Commerce; adds a variety of new requirements; and makes other changes. There’s a staff summary at the beginning of the substitute.
Original bill –
The bill defines “middle housing” to mean duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, fiveplexes, sixplexes, stacked flats, townhouses, and courtyard apartments with up to six units. The bill would require cities with over 20,000 people planning under the Growth Management Act [GMA] to allow them on all lots zoned for single family within half a mile of a major transit stop, and to allow duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes on all other lots zoned for single-family. As an alternative, a city with a population of 500,000 or more could alter its zoning to allow an average minimum density of at least 40 units/acre across all of its urban growth area; a city with between 100,000 people and 500,000 could rezone to an average minimum density of at least 30 units/acre across its UGA; and a city with between 20,000 and 100,000 people could rezone to an average minimum of at least 25 dwelling units/acre across its UGA. Within nine months of the effective date of the bill any of these cities that had not adopted local antidisplacement measures as part of its comprehensive plan’s mandatory elements would be required to perform the actions for addressing racially disparate impacts, displacement, and exclusion specified in the GMA for areas within one-half mile of a major transit stop. (The bill would define a major transit stop for the purposes of the entire GMA as a ferry terminal; a stop on a light rail, commuter rail, or fixed rail system; a stop on a bus rapid transit route or a route that runs on HOV lanes; or a stop for a bus or other transit mode providing actual fixed route service at intervals of 15 minutes or less for at least five hours during weekday peaks.
Any city with a population of at least 10,000 planning under the GMA would have to allow duplexes on any lots currently zoned for single-family. (Any city with a population between 10,000 and 20,000 would be able to alter its zoning to allow an average minimum density of 15 dwelling units or more per acre instead.) Cities choosing any of the alternatives based on average minimums in the bill would also have to adopt findings of fact demonstrating that will not result in racially disparate impacts, displacement, or further exclusion in housing, and then transmit those findings to the Department of Commerce.
Cities would be allowed to adopt development and design standards for middle housing, provided that those didn’t discourage it through unreasonable costs, fees, delays, or other requirements or actions which individually, or cumulatively, made developing it impracticable. They would be prohibited from requiring zoning, development, siting, or design review standards for it that were more restrictive than those for single-family residences, and would be required to apply the same development permit and environmental review processes to both. They would be prohibited from requiring off-street parking as a condition of developing it within a half mile of a major transit stop; from requiring more than than one off-street parking space per lot for it on lots smaller than 6,000 square feet; and from requiring more than two off-street parking spaces per lot for it on lots larger than that.
The Department of Commerce would provide technical assistance to cities implementing the bill’s requirements, and prioritize cities demonstrating the greatest need for it. It would publish a model middle housing ordinances within 18 months of the bill’s effective date, and that would preempt local development regulations until a city took all the actions necessary to implement the bill’s requirements. Commerce would establish a process by which cities implementing the requirements could seek approval of necessary local actions. Any local actions approved by the department would be exempted from appeals under the GMA and the State Environmental Policy Act. It would exempt amendments to development regulations and other nonproject actions taken by a city to implement its requirements from administrative or judicial appeals under the GMA. [I think the language of the bill would only exempt them if they had been approved by Commerce, but I’m not sure.]
The bill’s zoning requirements would take effect twenty-four months after its effective date for cities over 10,000 people, or twelve months after the Office of Financial Management determined that a city had reached one of the population thresholds in the bill.