Seattle's affordable housing plan ready to roll out

The city of Seattle wants your feedback on a plan to channel more growth and affordable housing into the city’s most popular neighborhoods.

In Seattle, we just can’t seem to build housing fast enough for all the people moving here. So this summer, city officials made a deal with developers.

We’ll let you build taller buildings, they said, if you build affordable apartments. Otherwise — only rich people will be able to live in Seattle.

And so, taller buildings are coming.

“Now the decision has to be made of where that additional capacity for growth will be,” said Jason Kelly, a spokesperson for Seattle's planning office.

People have already weighed in on changes coming to the University District, downtown and South Lake Union. Now, we’re looking at what growth will look like in the rest of the city.

“We’re meeting with folks in Crown Hill, Rainier Beach, Northgate, Bitter Lake – all of the communities that have been designated for growth by the city council more than two decades ago," Kelly said.

Kelly says we’re not talking about radical changes: “Typically the change is one additional story.”

The city wants to know what you think. You can attend a public meeting, or you can find maps of the draft zoning changes and submit your comments electronically, here.