YIMBY News for 11/21

[Eric Budd]

Kirkland Voters Maintain the City’s Course, Rejecting Anti-Growth Push

The Urbanist

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KEYWORD SCORE: 48.88. bike lane, bus rapid transit, comp plan, comprehensive plan, density, development, downtown, growth, housing, lower-density, multimodal, planning commission, project, rent, single family, single-family, transportation, urban, zone, zoning

In this year’s November general election, the city of Kirkland turned into one of the region’s biggest battlegrounds, after a group of residents aiming to hit the brakes on the city’s current pro-growth direction tried to flip the city council. With the results now in, it’s clear that the slow growth push fell short, with the more progressive candidate eking out a victory in three of the four council races on the ballot in Kirkland. Cherish Kirkland, a group formed to push back on housing capacity increases throughout Kirkland’s lower-density neighborhoods, had been advocating for more “balanc

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Two Decades In, a Native Homeownership Program in Washington Hasn’t Converted a Single Home

Next City

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KEYWORD SCORE: 46.22. affordable, affordable housing, development, homeowner, house, housing, housing authority, hud, income, occupancy, project, rent, single-family, urban, walk

(Illustration by Kyra Antone / Underscore Native News) *This story was produced by Underscore Native News and ICT as part of a series examining how systemic affordable housing issues in the Pacific Northwest have undermined Indigenous self-determination and equity.* After a 2024 Washington state audit determined that a program designed to help Native tenants become homeowners had failed its mission, state officials deflected blame but acknowledged the program’s shortcomings and the need for new policies as lawmakers demanded answers and critics decried the findings as another example of broken

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Train Wreck: Will transit sink the Interstate Bridge Project?

City Observatory

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KEYWORD SCORE: 21.56. bus rapid transit, construction, downtown, project, transportation

*Lack of transit funding could derail the Interstate Bridge Project* *No one has committed money to build or operate the key light rail segment of the IBR project.* *The “deal” has always been that Washington state got a widened highway if Oregon got light rail.* *The Trump Administration actively hostile to transit funding and to the Portland metropolitan area* *IBR isn’t even planning on filing an application for federal funds until 2028, well after it starts construction* *There is no plan for paying for the operating costs–neither of the region’s transit agencies–Tri-Met and CTRAN–have com

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