YIMBY News for 2/24

[Eric Budd]

Op-Ed: Issaquah’s Plan to Build Its Rail Line Faster and Cheaper

The Urbanist

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KEYWORD SCORE: 41.27. bus rapid transit, construction, development, downtown, housing, land-use, mixed-use, parking, parking garage, parking lot, parking structure, project, rent, transportation, urban, walk

Sound Transit faces a $34 billion shortfall and a narrow window to decide what gets built. That is a problem. But it is also a chance to rethink how transit gets delivered in this region. Issaquah wants to show what that looks like: a line that costs less, a station area that generates ridership through housing rather than garages, and a city that is ready to share the work with Sound Transit rather than just make demands. *A cheaper line is a buildable line* The Bellevue-to-Issaquah corridor is one of the most straightforward segments in ST3. Most of the alignment can run at grade in the I-90

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Denver proposes data center cutoff as ire grows against tax breaks, environmental cost

Colorado Sun

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KEYWORD SCORE: 25.34. affordable, affordable housing, construction, development, growth, house, housing, income, rent, zoning

Denver jumped onto the expanding bandwagon of animosity against massive corporate data centers Monday, with the mayor and city council jointly announcing they would try for a moratorium on new construction inside the city until a more community-friendly framework is in place. The Denver move comes as a legislative staff report details the budget hit from lucrative tax credits for constructing new data centers, and as a north Denver community meets Tuesday to share their frustration with data centers under construction there with city officials and executives from the builder, CoreSite. Neighbo

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Boom Times for Muni Bonds

Governing

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KEYWORD SCORE: 21.66. affordable, affordable housing, construction, housing, income, project, rent, transportation

In Brief: State and local governments issued nearly $500 billion in bonds in 2024, then broke that record in 2025. The money is mostly funding infrastructure repair, expansion and new projects. Some bonds help continue projects started with now-ended or frozen federal funding. Some investors see municipal bonds as a safer option compared to U.S. Treasury bonds or a potentially overheated stock market. Municipal bonds are booming, with state and local governments issuing an unprecedented amount in the past two years. “2024 was a record year,” says Justin Marlowe, director of the Center for Muni

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Western U.S. Cities Are Opening Their Wallets in the Quest for Water

Next City

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KEYWORD SCORE: 20.72. development, growth, house, project, rent, supply, urban

The Colorado River flows through the Grand Canyon on the Hualapai reservation on Aug. 15, 2022, in northwestern Arizona. (File photo by John Locher / AP) *This story was originally published by Circle of Blue.* Little more than two months ago, on an unusually rainy November evening, the Queen Creek Town Council staked claim to the city’s future. Queen Creek, located in central Arizona southeast of Phoenix, was founded in 1989 but is already home to some 88,000 people. In a unanimous vote, the council approved a $244 million deal to acquire 12,000 acre-feet of water annually for the next centur

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Residents fight to secure future of south Boulder Recreation Center

Daily Camera Boulder News

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KEYWORD SCORE: 20.13. affordable, affordable housing, housing, project, rent, walk

It was a warm, windy day in south Boulder. Yvonne Bennett, Alex Veltman, Christine Brescoll and Mary Sznewajs took a stroll around Viele Lake next to the South Boulder Recreation Center, a 52-year-old building that the city of Boulder says is nearing the end of its life. Bennett, Brescoll, Sznewajs and Veltman and their families are regular users of the SBRC. They met with the Daily Camera at the rec center on that Monday to discuss their work and the work of their neighbors through Reimagine South Boulder Rec Center. It would take about $30 million to replace the building, which the city said

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