Dear Councilmembers,

I live in the (Fill in your neighborhood) and I am concerned about the Mayor’s One Seattle Comprehensive Plan and your proposed amendments. As currently written, this legislation writes a blank check to developers and abandons any resemblance of a housing strategy that creates middle housing and strengthens communities. I urge you to pause before moving CB 120993 forward in its current form and work toward a plan that truly supports affordable middle housing while preserving diversity of homes, consistent front setbacks, trees, and sunlight. Not blocks of oversized buildings that overwhelm their surroundings.

I support adding more homes that families and working people can afford, without destroying the smaller homes and apartments that provide affordability today.

The last-minute introduction of Amendments that provide middle-housing bonuses makes clear that this legislation, pitched as middle housing, has devolved into its very opposite. I ask you to:

  • DENY granting developer “Bonuses” that overbuild (various amendments): FAR, setbacks, height, and lot coverage bonuses for middle housing are unnecessary in a bill already designed to enable it.  Let’s keep larger apartments and condos in the LR+ zones, and reserve Neighborhood Residential (NR) zones for affordable middle housing: duplex, triples, fourplexes and smaller single family homes. Example: FAR for 3-story residential from 1.0 to 1.1, and incrementally higher for 4- and 5-story buildings.

  • DENY the inflation of height limits (Amendments 74, 78, 91, 93): Allows 40–47 feet (incl. roof) in Neighborhood Residential zones and pushes lowrise (LR) zones higher still.

  • DENY elimination of 6,000 sq ft minimum for stacked flats citywide in NR (Amendment 77): Strips away the lot-size safeguard, opening even the smallest parcels to stacked flats.

  • DENY removal of parking requirements (Amendments 7, 84, 85, 86): Pushes parking burdens into surrounding narrow streets and reduces safety; most households still need cars and a place to park them.

  • DENY buildout of Environmentally Critical Areas (Amendment 72): Incents development in hazardous and environmentally sensitive areas.

  • DENY distortion of ADUs (Amendments 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59): Turns ADUs into effectively free additional primary units, making them larger and subdividable. Also makes ADUs exempt from FAR, density calculations, and Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) requirements. This fuels lot-buildout without delivering affordability.

  • DENY conflating Bus Routes with Mass Transit (Amendments 60, 61, 76): Extending development entitlements intended for BRT and Light Rail facilities to lots within ½ mile of typical “frequent” bus stops undermines the land-use goal of creating localized zones of density near true mass transit. Changing the definition to include Frequent transit would convert nearly ALL of Seattle into areas of mass density,

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Your name!

SAMPLE LETTER TO COUNCIL - councilmember email addresses