YIMBY News for 7/2

[Eric Budd]

Rollback of Stricter Energy Code Advances to Seattle City Council

The Urbanist

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KEYWORD SCORE: 45.17. affordable, affordable housing, apartment, construction, development, housing, housing cost, market-rate, project, real estate, rent, single-family, transportation, urban, walk

A City of Seattle advisory board voted last month to advance amendments to the city’s energy code walking back energy efficiency requirements in large buildings scheduled to take effect this fall. The changes, which have been pushed for by the Harrell Administration, were proposed in an attempt to reduce costs for multifamily home construction. Harrell officials contend that this is necessary to respond to a sharp downturn in new permit applications from builders, who have complained of high interest rates and mounting regulatory costs. It will be up to the Seattle City Council to consider the

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The Coming Labor Shortage Is Not Good News

The Atlantic

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KEYWORD SCORE: 34.34. construction, growth, house, housing, income, rent, single-family, supply, zoning

The lessons of the last economic crisis always loom large. Following the Great Recession, a consensus began to build that America hadn’t done enough to stimulate the economy through the early 2010s. A slow recovery meant people were languishing in unemployment, creating long-running problems for themselves and the broader economy. But when you do too much to stimulate a contracting economy, you can get skyrocketing inflation. By the time the COVID-19 financial crisis hit, the conventional orthodoxy had been that the government should do much more to prevent long-term unemployment. And it did.

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Seattle’s Population Nears 800,000 in Latest State Tally

The Urbanist

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KEYWORD SCORE: 29.73. comprehensive plan, growth, housing, housing crisis, housing price, real estate, rent, single family, urban, zone

Seattle could soon be more populous than San Francisco, based on current trends. New state population estimates released Friday revealed that Seattle is on the cusp of crossing the 800,000 mark. The annual April 1 population estimates from the Washington State Office of Financial Management (OFM) have showed Seattle steadily growing since a brief pandemic dip and hitting 797,700 in April 2024. The recent trend line suggests Seattle will surpass 800,000 by a comfortable margin by the next round of estimates in April 1, 2025. That said, the real estate industry has warned of a homebuilding slowd

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Boulder Chamber opposes airport closure proposal

Daily Camera Boulder News

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KEYWORD SCORE: 27.00. affordable, affordable housing, housing, market-rate, transportation

The Boulder Chamber is staking out a position in opposition to a ballot measure that would decommission Boulder Municipal Airport for the purpose of building below-market-rate housing on the site. “There seems to be a huge rush to go to the ballot before we know what the actual consequences are of decommissioning the airport,” Jonathan Singer, chamber senior director of policy programs, told BizWest Friday. “By all indications, decommissioning of the airport could be a very costly mistake that would hurt the city and our community to the tune of tens of millions of dollars over many years.” Th

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Could Medicaid cover food and housing?

Colorado Sun

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KEYWORD SCORE: 21.84. homeowner, housing, parking, project, real estate, rent, urban, zone

[image: The Sunriser logo] ------------------------------ Good morning and welcome to the twilight zone. Not “The Twilight Zone,” mind you, but the particular haze that settles over everything at the beginning of a week with an oddly placed holiday. On the one hand, you’re rushing to get everything done before Thursday. On the other, you know that any momentum you’d usually have built up by Wednesday will go off the rails as soon as the clock strikes 5 o’clock. Luckily(?) for us here at The Sun, there is always something interesting happening in Colorado that needs our attention, so before you

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New Life for Downtowns as Innovation Districts

Governing

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KEYWORD SCORE: 19.41. construction, downtown, growth, house, mixed-use, mobility, real estate, urban

Editor's Note: This article appears in Governing's Summer 2024 magazine. You can subscribe here. In certain sectors, working from home, either part time or full time, has become a structural feature of the post-pandemic economy. As a result, cities need to move fast to diversify their downtowns. To do this, they can’t just rely on the office-and-entertainment strategies of the past two decades. Instead, they should return to their historic role as centers of enterprise and innovation. Many cities have begun to focus on maximizing the conversion of office space for residential purposes. That mo

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One Last Play: A Former All Star Helped Kill Stadium Financing for His Old Team

Governing

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KEYWORD SCORE: 19.30. downtown, gentrification, growth, house, project, rent, transportation, urban

Editor's Note: This article appears in Governing's Summer 2024 magazine. You can subscribe here. In late March, some of the biggest names in professional sports appeared in a TV ad urging residents of Jackson County, Mo., to vote. It wasn’t an anodyne appeal to civic duty. Instead, the stars — including Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce, fresh off the latest of their three Super Bowl wins in the past five years — wanted voters to back a sales tax to fund renovations for the Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium and help pay for a new stadium for the Kansas City Roya

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A major fossil fuel group has a plan to sue Denver over its climate-minded building polices

Denverite

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KEYWORD SCORE: 18.88. apartment, construction, development, house, project, real estate, rent

After wildfire smoke and smog smothered Denver in the summer of 2021, the city approved an ambitious plan to tackle its largest source of planet-warming pollution: big buildings. Local advocates and climate officials knew the Mile High City wouldn’t reach its lofty climate targets without an aggressive plan for its office towers, businesses and apartment blocks, especially since those types of buildings account for nearly half of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions. To help fix the problem, Denver updated its building codes and passed ordinances to reduce natural gas usage. The codes banned ga

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States Should Take the Lead in Stabilizing Disaster Insurance

Governing

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KEYWORD SCORE: 18.58. affordable, homeowner, house, land-use, rent, zone

In the coastal Southeast it’s hurricanes, in the Mountain West it’s wildfires, and in Middle America it’s unprecedented regional flooding and shifting tornado patterns. Across the country, homeowners are facing stiff increases in casualty insurance premiums. In some cases, affordable coverage simply can’t be found. Between climate change and escalating house restoration costs, it’s become a bad business to sell insurance for major catastrophes that hit large geographical areas. The reinsurance market — where consumer-facing insurance companies cover their worst-case loss exposure — is either d

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Under-Resourced Neighborhoods Can Be Incubators For Future Entrepreneurs – If We Want Them To Be

Next City

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KEYWORD SCORE: 18.14. apartment, construction, development, growth, house, real estate, supply, urban, walk

(Photo by Getty Images / Unsplash+) In 2016, I walked into a school’s career day on the west side of Chicago and met a great young man. This honor roll student played basketball and was respected by his peers. But despite these wonderful qualities, he sold drugs to pay for the things he desired. He was one of thousands of young Black men in Chicago who have the ambition, intelligence and leadership acumen to become successful, legitimate entrepreneurs but have no idea how to find that path, let alone follow it. There are tens of thousands more like him in cities across the country. Some put th

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