April 12, 2023
MEDIA CONTACT: Dan Bertolet, Director, Housing and Urbanism Program, Sightline Institute, dan@sightline.org
OLYMPIA, WA – Several bills to open up more housing types in cities across Washington have passed the state legislature. In a time of soaring home prices and rents due to a decades-long shortage of homebuilding, the legislation helps ensure that local zoning laws cannot be used to exclude more modest and affordable housing options, like backyard cottages, duplexes, and fourplexes, in areas previously reserved for single detached homes.
“This is great news for the people of Washington, and the broad and bipartisan support for these measures was heartening,” said Dan Bertolet, Director of the Housing and Urbanism program for Sightline Institute, a Pacific Northwest regional think tank. “These bills free Washingtonians to build a greater variety of housing types not only to address the severe shortage of homes we have, but to advance more affordable, sustainable, and vibrant communities that people love to live in.”
The bills passed include:
- HB 1110 legalizes middle housing options like duplexes, fourplexes, or sixplexes (depending on city size, proximity to transit, and affordability) on all residential lots in Washington’s urban communities.
- HB 1337 removes local regulatory barriers to accessory dwelling units (ADUs), also known as “backyard cottages” and “in-law apartments.”
- SB 5491 legalizes single-stair apartment buildings, or “point access blocks,” up to six stories.
- HB 1293 reforms capricious local design review programs.
- HB 5412 reduces unnecessary environmental review of homebuilding proposals.
- SB 5290 supports local governments in streamlining their permit processes for new housing.
More: Find a full list of and status updates on the 50 housing bills moving through the Washington legislature this session.
Related:
- Washington’s 2023 Middle Housing Bill, Explained
- Seven Reasons Washington Needs Middle Housing
- Washington Bill Would Boost In-Law Apartments Throughout the State
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Dan Bertolet is Director of Sightline Institute’s Housing and Urbanism program. View his latest research, and follow him at @DanBertolet. (Last name pronounced “BER-də-lay.”)
Sightline Institute is an independent, nonprofit think tank providing leading original analysis of housing, democracy, forests, and energy policy in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, British Columbia, and beyond.
