Report

Light Touch Density and Filtering Down: City of Seattle Case Study

July 03, 2023

Key takeaways:

In the City of Seattle, about 12 times as much land is zoned for Single Family (SF) than for Low-Rise Multifamily (LRM).
In the mid-1990s, the creation of the LRM zone allowed property owners to use their land more efficiently. As a consequence, many single-family detached homes have been converted to mostly townhomes. This is light-touch density at its best.
Since 2000, 18,000 new townhomes units have been built in the LRM zone. As a result, its housing stock increased by about 75% – or about 3% per year. The supply addition in the SF zone from new single-family homes is minimal.
The new townhomes are generally starter homes, which has enabled homeownership for lower-income, younger, and more diverse households.
Home values in the LRM zone have appreciated at the same rate as home values in the SF zone.
Unfortunately, this success is now being derailed by Seattle’s Mandatory Housing Affordability (MFA) program.
This program will produce a small amount of heavily-subsidized “housing Ferraris” that will be sold to low-income households and destroy the progress LRM zoning has made in expanding broad-based housing affordability.