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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
CA deserves its moment in the sun, but journalists should be paying more attention to the amazing Abundance policies -- and better Democratic politics -- of our neighbors to the north. Washington State is killing it. Oregon's doing pretty well too. 🧵/20.
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Paul E Williams
@PEWilliams_
First national YIMBY push notification?
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David Watson 🥑
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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
Three examples: 1⃣ Wash. State rid itself of project-level enviro reviews of urban housing on a 97-3 vote, via normal leg process. In CA, it required a daring gambit by
@GavinNewsom
, tying enviro review reform to budget. /2
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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
A stunner: By huge majorities, both chambers of Washington leg. have voted to exempt *all* zoning-compliant housing in urban growth areas from mini-NEPA review. There's no project-labor mandate, BMR housing mandate, or anything else to jack up cost of eligible projects. 1/5 x.com/danbertolet/st…
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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
2⃣ In 2002, CA repealed parking minimums near "major transit stops." But the bill gives local govts wiggle room to re-impose parking mandates unless the project meets certain targets for deed-restricted-affordable housing. /3
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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
By contrast, WA just passed a sweeping, plain-bagel parking reform, eliminating parking mandates for units up to 1200 sqft *everywhere* -- not only near major transit stops -- and w/o regard to whether project has BMR units. /4
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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
3⃣ For nearly a decade, California YIMBYs have been trying to pass a bill that would upzone land near major transit stops for mid-rise apartment buildings. This year, it looks like they may finally do it! AB 79 is the vehicle and it's a very good bill. /5
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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
But Washington's AB 1491--enacted earlier this year to little fanfare--is truly next level. Consider: ▶️ SB 79 proposes to upzone land near fixed transit stops; AB 1491 expands the geography to include bus-rapid-transit corridors. /6
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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
▶️ Both bills demand that cities allow floor-area ratios of 2.5-3.5 (depending on transit proximity), but HB 1491 **excludes 3+ bedroom units** from the FAR calculation. If you're building apartments for families in Washington, the sky's the limit. /7
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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
▶️ Both bills require 10%-20% of units in the project to be deed-restricted affordable housing. But WA **compensates the developer** for losses on the affordable units, whereas in CA, this bagel topping will render projects less feasible. /8
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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
WA compensates the developer by exempting the entire building from property taxes for 20 years. (Using an 8% discount rate and a 1% property-tax rate, that's tantamount to boosting the value of the new building by ~10%.) /9
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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
I've had some not-for-attribution chats recently with WA folks, trying to understand how / why the WA state politics of land use are different from those of the blue states that get more attention (CA and NY). /10
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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
Here's what I've learned: - In WA, the major enviro groups are pushing hard for infill housing, whereas in CA, they're usually on the sidelines, or worse. x.com/CSElmendorf/st /11
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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
For years, California environmentalists have been MIA or worse on an absolute no-brainer of green policy: building dense housing near transit. Are changes afoot? ⤵️ Maybe! But @NRDC's SB 79 support letter also shows persistence of addled Groups-blob thinking. 🧵/14. x.com/cayimby/status…
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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
Why? Path dependence. WA, like OR, has long required local governments to adopt land-use plans that protect enviro resources. Those plans (like housing plans) are s/t state review. The WA green groups' focus & human capital is devoted to substantive state-planning law. /12
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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
Whereas in CA, what the green groups "know" are the procedural complexities of CEQA. They need a better outlet. - In WA, all the labor groups--Trades, Teachers, SEIU, AFSCME--are rowing in the same prohousing direction, hard. Whereas in CA, the labor movement... /13
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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
is split, with the most powerful group (State Building & Construction Trades) being oppositional, the Carpenters being helpful, and groups like SEIU or Teachers mostly sitting on the sidelines and occasionally doing damage. /14
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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
In WA, there's a settled consensus w/in Labor that imposing "prevailing wage" or "skilled & trained" mandates on privately funded projects would be counterproductive, whereas in CA, this has been a core demand of the engaged unions. /15
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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
I suspect this difference is mostly due to prices. Washington housing never got expensive enough for unions to extract PW or project-labor agreements from private builders. Hankinson et al. provide strong evidence for such price effects at muni level. /16
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Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
- Another key difference, apparently, is that Seattle's progressive weekly paper,
@TheStranger
, has long been very prohousing. It publishes an influential voter guide and I was told it's almost impossible to run & win as a progressive in Seattle w/o its endorsement. /17
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B. Carfree
@BCarfree
OR legislature made changes to get ADUs built. Eugene wrote implementation code to effectively block them. The leg was up for the fight and passed HB 2001 (we flipped Manning's vote at the last minute). Of course Eugene slow-walked that, but now we have a YIMBY mayor. Hopeful.
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Robert Brown
@RobertB04028123
One reason is that, apart from Seatle, there's a lot of accessible relatively flat land (& relatively cheap/er), lots of water, no fire hazards, less steep terrain, cooler & not next to Mexico. Not like Bay Area, LA, Cali coast, which all have various land problems.
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Robert Brown
@RobertB04028123
Another reason is that there's fewer minorities, so the ding-a-ling white progressives in Wash./Ore. are free to act as crazy as they like and enact all sorts of virtue-signaling, irrational social-engineering schemes without opposition. Remember P-land/Seat. during GFloyd days?
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