How 'Zoned Capacity' Skews the Debate About Housing

Dan Bertolet writes in response to claims that Seattle has plenty of zoned capacity for new housing.

The Seattle Times editorial board argued the idea that the city is already zoned to capacity earlier in September, but as Bartolet acknowledges, the daily newspaper is far from a solitary voice on the issue. In fact, writes Bartolet, "'We have plenty of zoned capacity' is repeated credulously and earnestly by citizen activists and homeowners at city council meetings and community forums and in online debates (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here)."

Bartolet sets out to debunk this myth, as he describes it, perpetuated by faulty methodology for estimating zoned capacity, which he argues is "exceedingly difficult to estimate correctly and is employed by planners only as a crude yardstick." One limitation of zoned capacity is its failure to measure other real world obstacles to housing construction.

The most important point about zoned capacity, writes Bartolet, is that "in every city, zoned capacity is a side show to the main event. The main event is housing prices." [Emphasis from the original.]

Housing prices are the crux of the matter. They reveal if people have enough housing choices. If vacancy rates are low and rents and housing prices are rising, then a city needs more homes. Period. The city needs to remove zoning-code barriers to more housing, so that builders can construct more homes. Compared with the evidence of the actual housing market, zoned capacity is just fuzzy math.

Bartolet goes into a lot more detail in his effort to debunk zoned capacity, especially as it relates to housing and zoning in Seattle. Since Bartolet wrote this polemic, the city of Seattle released proposed zoning maps that would increase density in downtown and transit adjacent areas around the city.