YIMBY News for 8/28

[Eric Budd]

Cities Grapple With ‘Game-Changing’ Impact of Mercer Island Housing Plan Ruling

The Urbanist

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KEYWORD SCORE: 44.70. affordable, affordable housing, apartment, comprehensive plan, development, downtown, growth, house, housing, income, planning commission, project, rent, single family, urban, zoning

It’s been only a few weeks since Washington’s Growth Management Hearings Board issued a decision that deemed Mercer Island’s newly adopted Comprehensive Plan out of compliance with a new state law directing local governments to plan for affordable housing. Even so, the repercussions of that decision are already starting to be felt around the region, rippling across other cities struggling to come to grips with the same mandates. The August 1 ruling was the first major challenge to a local Comprehensive Plan under 2021’s House Bill 1220. The state’s new law directed local governments to get mor

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Seattle Social Housing Developer Strives for High Sustainability and Affordability Standards

The Urbanist

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KEYWORD SCORE: 43.69. affordable, affordable housing, apartment, construction, development, house, housing, housing authority, income, project, rent, supply, urban

Social housing backers hope to meet an ambitious green housing standard called “Passive House” while maintaining affordability. Despite leading the curve on many metrics among U.S. cities, Seattle still lags behind countless cities in Europe and Asia in key areas like affordability, climate preparedness, and emissions reductions. While many other American cities look to us for examples on how they could smarten their city planning and design, the individuals and organizations working to steer Seattle toward a brighter future have their gazes fixed firmly on the examples of superstar cities lik

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Are Sponge Cities the Flood Control Fix We Need?

Strong Towns

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KEYWORD SCORE: 41.03. comprehensive plan, development, house, housing, housing crisis, project, rent, urban, walk, zone, zoning

*Join Abby and guest John Pattison as they dive into the benefits and drawbacks of "sponge cities,"* cities that incorporate natural features like wetlands into their stormwater management infrastructure. Is this method more resilient in the long term? Do the benefits outweigh the massive cost? How does this relate to the incremental, bottom-up approach? They’ll cover all this and more in today’s episode of *Upzoned*. - Click here for the transcript. (Lightly edited for readability.) Abby Newsham 0:04 This is Abby, and you are listening to Upzoned. Abby Newsham 0:18 Hey everyone, thanks for li

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Lafayette City Council to overhaul zoning rules with public input

Daily Camera Boulder News

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KEYWORD SCORE: 34.39. affordable, affordable housing, apartment, comprehensive plan, density, development, house, housing, land-use, parking, planning commission, single-family, walk, zoning

Lafayette is rewriting its land use code — the set of rules that govern how land in the city can be developed and used — for the first time in about 40 years, and the public can give input to the city during the process. The code update is expected to be guided by the city’s 2021 Comprehensive Plan, which outlines key issues facing the community and recommendations to address them, including policies on land use. Lafayette Planning Manager Phillip Kleisler said updating the city’s land use regulations will help implement the comprehensive plan. The code will create more predictable and clear p

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Killing road pricing: Enviros get rolled again

City Observatory

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KEYWORD SCORE: 33.59. construction, house, mobility, parking, preservation, project, rent, transportation, walk

*LC 2, being considered by the Oregon Legislature, repeals the mandate for ODOT to develop congestion pricing in Metro Portland* *Pricing was the promised concession to environmentalists in the last two transportation packages for allowing more money for highway expansions* *ODOT is moving the highway expansions forward, but pricing is dead–environmentalists and the climate got rolled again.* *Ironically, this is happening just as Manhattan is showing how pricing is a rapid and effective solution to congestion–and helps pay for transit.* *More than just money, the demise of pricing monkey-wren

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CU Boulder looks to construct a 400-unit student housing building

Daily Camera Boulder News

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KEYWORD SCORE: 27.70. affordable, apartment, construction, development, house, housing, project, rent, transportation

The University of Colorado Boulder is looking to partner with a private developer to construct a 400-unit on-campus student housing building next to the University Heights neighborhood. The housing would be for non-first-year students and offer a mix of multiple-bed, apartment-style units with in-unit kitchens and bathrooms. The project requires the University of Colorado Board of Regents‘ approval, which the board will consider at its next regular meeting on Sept. 18 and Sept. 19 at CU Anschutz. The CU Regents finance committee voted unanimously during its Wednesday meeting to place the housi

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The evolving fight over giving people cash, explained

Vox - Policy

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KEYWORD SCORE: 20.45. house, housing, housing cost, income, project, rent

Over the past 15 years, the idea of giving everyone a “basic income” has been heralded as a promising solution for economic justice and even ending poverty. The California Democratic Party adopted it into its official platform back in 2018, and Andrew Yang ran on the promise of basic income during his 2020 presidential bid. The threat of unemployment from artificial intelligence has made the idea more buzzy. But recent studies have found that giving poor people unrestricted cash did not produce lasting improvements in their mental health, stress, or, in some cases, even self-reported financial

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Homeless Colorado students, with numbers on the rise, find help in shelters that resemble college dorms

Colorado Sun

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KEYWORD SCORE: 19.17. bus route, construction, house, housing, project, rent, urban, walk

[image: A woman wearing leopard-print sweater paints a Native American themed mural that has mountains in a circle at the center] The Landing, Destiny’s home for five months before she graduated from Thompson Valley High School in Loveland, had a warm shower, a bed and food. But it also offered one thing that the other shelters didn’t: reassurance. Destiny is an 18-year-old woman with a lot of life to experience. A few days out of the house is not enough time to develop the hardened street smarts she thought she needed to feel safe. The adult shelters where she stayed a couple days after her m

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