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“Buildings make up a quarter of Washington’s carbon emissions, polluting more than any other sector except transportation. Almost half of that pollution comes from burning fossil fuels, mostly gas, for space and water heating.“
Can You Guess the AI-Generated Parking Mandate?
Artificial intelligence is coming to write your city’s zoning codes. Or is it? Most people assume their town’s zoning rules are carefully tailored by educated planners to meet today’s best practices while also ensuring future buildings integrate well with the existing community. Unfortunately, that’s not really how it works in practice. The fact is that … Read more
Sunlight Suites: A Simple Change Could Unlock These Beautiful Homes (Photos)
Editor’s note: In 2023, Sightline helped pass bills in both Washington and Oregon that prompted those states’ building code councils to develop new code to allow what you might call “sunlight suites.” They’re often dubbed “single-stair apartments,” but that name can mislead, since plenty of these buildings feature elevators and the homes themselves can be … Read more
Parking Reform Alone Can Boost Homebuilding by 40 to 70 Percent
Takeaways Making parking fully flexible could unlock more new homes than other land use reforms combined, according to new research out of Colorado that modeled how multiple policies would impact economic feasibility for new housing projects. The findings add to a growing body of evidence that making off-street parking optional is a small policy change … Read more
The History of Washington’s Wandering Election Day
Despite intending to choose a voting day that’s best for voters, timing could still be easier—but legislators can fix that.
A Magic Boost for Low-Turnout City Elections
Takeaways First-time candidate for Seattle City Council Alexis Mercedes Rinck just got more votes in her 2024 race than the city’s mayor, Bruce Harrell, when he won in 2021. In fact, she got more votes than any elected official in all elections that Seattle city government has ever recorded. But it’s not because she’s particularly popular. … Read more
Reintroducing: Your Local Library, a Critical Tool for Democracy
“A community is not a machine. It is not a cogs-and-gears device or an elegant algorithm designed by an engineer to maximize efficiency. A community is a garden: a complex adaptive ecosystem in which all kinds of life is striving to thrive, a riot of diversity with the potential for both beautiful bounty and terrible … Read more
Election Reform Measures Lost; Election Reform Didn’t
Sooner or later, bad things happen to everyone. That’s inevitable. The problem is that people often learn the wrong lessons from their misfortunes. Across Cascadia and beyond, proponents of unified primaries and ranked choice voting just had bad things happen to them. They lost four out of five statewide ballot measures in Cascadia and matched … Read more
Lessons for Washington State Leaders as Another US Oil Refinery Closes
Takeaways Yet another US oil refinery will soon shut its doors. Phillips 66 announced in October 2024 that it will close its Los Angeles refinery by the end of 2025, due to factors that include declining oil demand and slim refining margins. An estimated 900 people are likely to lose their jobs when the refinery shutters. Phillips 66’s … Read more
Three Ways Anchorage Leaders Could Unlock More Homes
$524,000. That’s the average price of a home built for one family in Anchorage today. The average cost of new single-detached house is even steeper: $683,000. These prices, astronomical for Anchorage, have risen by 23 percent since 2020. In that same period, the city took steps to make its zoning code, Title 21, more conducive … Read more
Alaskans Keep Their Model Election System
Alaska voters narrowly decided to retain their groundbreaking election system. By a margin of just 664 votes, a ballot initiative to roll back open, top-four primaries and ranked choice general elections failed. The Alaska Division of Elections announced the unofficial results on Wednesday. A recount is likely because the margin was just 0.2 percent. Support for “yes, … Read more
