YIMBY News for 5/29

[Eric Budd]

Banking Like the Planet Depends On It

Next City

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KEYWORD SCORE: 44.75. affordable, construction, development, growth, homeowner, house, housing, income, parking, parking lot, project, real estate, rent, residential solar, urban

[image: The Bottom Line] Nicholas Hartnett, owner of Pure Power Solar, carries a panel as he and Brian Hoeppner, right, install a solar array on a roof in Frankfort, Kentucky, on July 17, 2023. (Photo by Michael Conroy / AP) America’s fastest-growing new bank doesn’t specialize in AI or crypto-currency or some exotic investment strategy with little real world value. It specializes in environmental sustainability. Based in St. Petersburg, Florida, Climate First Bank was chartered in 2021 with a mission to finance environmental sustainability. Five years later, it’s already pushing $1.8 billion

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How U.S. Cities Lost the Economic Development Plot

Next City

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KEYWORD SCORE: 39.44. construction, density, development, growth, house, housing, housing cost, income, project, real estate, rent, urban, zone

*This essay was originally published by *Common Edge*, a nonprofit dedicated to reconnecting architecture and design with the public that it’s meant to serve. * In the 1950s, Robert Moses bulldozed a swath of the South Bronx to build the Cross Bronx Expressway, displacing an estimated 60,000 residents and gutting one of the most economically diverse urban neighborhoods in the country. The logic of the time was efficiency: move cars faster. By the time the expressway was completed, the same idea was imposed upon the entire city: rationalize land use and separate urban functions into legible zon

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Where Diana DeGette, Melat Kiros and Wanda James stand on the issues in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District primary

Colorado Sun

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KEYWORD SCORE: 37.25. affordable, affordable housing, construction, development, house, housing, housing price, income, rent, rent control, renter, transportation, zoning

Three Democrats are running against each other in the Democratic primary for Colorado’s 1st Congressional District on June 30: incumbent U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, former lawyer and Democratic Socialist Melat Kiros and University of Colorado Regent Wanda James. *Diana DeGette* has served as the U.S. representative for Colorado’s 1st Congressional District since 1997. She holds a law degree. She is 68, married and has two children. She lives in Denver. *Melat Kiros* is a lawyer who was fired from her law firm after writing an article defending pro-Palestinian student protestors. She is running as

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Sound Transit Board OKs Major ST3 Update, Casting Ballard into Limbo

The Urbanist

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KEYWORD SCORE: 36.52. affordable, bus rapid transit, construction, development, downtown, growth, house, infill, parking, parking garage, project, rent, transit center, transportation, urban, walk, zone

Advocates threw a funeral procession for Ballard light rail ahead of the move.[image: Sound Transit Board OKs Major ST3 Update, Casting Ballard into Limbo] At a marathon five-hour board meeting Thursday, the Sound Transit board approved a sweeping update to its rail expansion plans, choosing which transit projects to prioritize and which to delay or defer indefinitely. The big shakeup is in response to a precipitous $34 billion budget shortfall over the next two decades. The final vote to recalibrate the plan was approved 16-2, with Seattle Councilmember Dan Strauss and King County Councilmemb

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Where Manny Rutinel and Shannon Bird stand on the issues in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District primary

Colorado Sun

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KEYWORD SCORE: 30.30. affordable, development, house, housing, income, rent, single family, transportation

Two candidates are running against each other in the Democratic primary in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District on June 30: state Rep. Manny Rutinel and former state Rep. Shannon Bird. Former U.S. Marine Evan Munsing dropped out of the race on Wednesday, May 27 . The winner of the primary will face off against Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans in November. *Manny Rutinel *is a member of the Colorado House of Representatives. He served as an economist for the United States Army Corps of Engineers and has a law degree. He is 31 and lives in Commerce City. *Shannon Bird* is a former member of the

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Graham Street Station Set to Be Resurrected at Pivotal Sound Transit Meeting

The Urbanist

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KEYWORD SCORE: 27.58. affordable, construction, downtown, hud, infill, project, rent, transportation, urban, walk

[image: Graham Street Station Set to Be Resurrected at Pivotal Sound Transit Meeting] Sound Transit's planned Graham Street 1 Line infill station in the Rainier Valley has a clear path to being fully funded and built, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson and King County Executive Girmay Zahilay jointly announced Wednesday. Release of a proposed amendment that could make it happen came hours before a scheduled vote at the Sound Transit board Thursday that will overhaul the Sound Transit 3 (ST3) plan. The agency faces a $34.5 billion budget shortfall across the entire agency through 2046. In response, Sou

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The Meaning of Mamdani

Governing

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KEYWORD SCORE: 25.97. affordable, housing, housing crisis, rent, transportation, urban

This article is part of Governing’s Inside Politics newsletter. Sign up to subscribe. A year and a half ago, Zohran Kwame Mamdani launched a longshot campaign for New York City mayor, a little-known state assemblyman with a socialist vision for the financial capital of the world. Today he’s almost universally known, and in his first five months in office he has become a standard against which other big-city mayors are measured. The comparisons began well before he took office. Last summer, before either one of them became mayor, Katie Wilson was referred to as “the Mamdani of Seattle.” Omar Fa

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The Good Roads Our Counties Need

Governing

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KEYWORD SCORE: 21.34. development, growth, house, housing, project, rent, transportation, urban

Picture a grain elevator in rural Missouri on a harvest morning. A line of loaded semis snakes back a quarter-mile. Each loaded truck then travels county roads to reach the rail silo, the barge and the world market. The farmer’s margin — already thin — depends on that road holding under 80,000 pounds of corn. Now picture that road after a wet spring: a frost-heave crack running shoulder to centerline. The county engineer knows it needs work. It’s been an issue for years. But the budget math no longer works. This is not a story about one county road, but rather about the heart of the American e

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2nd Congressional District: Republican Kelley Dennison

Colorado Public Radio

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KEYWORD SCORE: 20.16. affordable, cost of housing, homeowner, house, housing, housing stock, rent, single-family

Kelley Dennison, a 27-year-old Larimer County massage therapist, thinks young people could be the cure for what ails American democracy in 2026. But only if her generation, Gen Z, makes the choice to opt into the conversation. “We need to take an active stance instead of being hopeless,” Dennison said. “I think that’s a major problem in my generation, and we need to step up.” That conviction inspired the young Republican to run for the congressional seat now comfortably occupied by Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse. Environmental conservation and 2nd Amendment rights are among her top priorities. “I

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Colorado schools avoid budget squeeze while voters decide future of education funding

Colorado Sun

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KEYWORD SCORE: 19.42. construction, growth, house, housing, income, project, rent, transportation, walk

[image: Young school kids walk in a single-file line through a school hallway] Colorado’s spending plan for K-12 schools was among the first bills lawmakers introduced during this year’s session and among the last pieces of legislation they passed, bookending an especially grueling 120 days that included moments of concern over potential school funding cuts. Despite having to fill a roughly $1.5 billion state budget hole, however, the General Assembly avoided taking an ax to K-12 education. In fact, lawmakers increased education spending to nearly $10.2 billion as Colorado continues to ramp up

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5th Congressional District: Democrat Jessica Killin

Colorado Public Radio

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KEYWORD SCORE: 19.06. affordable, development, house, housing, housing cost, housing stock, rent, supply

Jessica Killin said she has lived her version of the American Dream, and she wants people in the 5th Congressional District to have the opportunity to do the same. “This is the community that raised me, and I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to now give back to the community that raised me,” she said when explaining her decision to run. Killin is a 4th-generation Coloradan who graduated from Falcon High School. She was able to afford college through an ROTC scholarship and served in the U.S. Army for eight years, leaving with the rank of captain. She went to law school, worked at USAA, a

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