Yet again, Seattle’s density zoning update is hit with delays

Seattle is on track to delay its upcoming zoning changes, which are part of the city’s twenty-year housing and job growth plan, for another year. The “Centers & Corridors” zoning update will allow the city to build larger apartment buildings near transit and rezone thirty neighborhood centers for denser development. The project has been fending off attacks on its environmental review process since last February; with the appeals settled, now a new ruling is set to slow down the city’s rollout of the zoning changes.

“Rather than studying "maximum likely development" under a future zoning scenario, the ruling stated, Seattle's Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) was required to analyze "maximum possible development,” a fact that ropes in a significant number of housing units that are unlikely to be built in the plan's twenty-year horizon. Readjusting to study that maximum possible development expands the scope of the EIS considerably, even as the ruling itself acknowledges that Seattle is unlikely to see all parcels develop before updating its Comprehensive Plan again,” Ryan Packer writes for The Urbanist.

The city’s deadline to complete the new analysis is Sept. 9, 2027, with a follow-up hearing later that fall. While OPCD is requesting more analysis, there are currently no plans to change Seattle’s growth plan.