There have been lots of great communications to the Seattle City Council about low-rise legislation. Please take a minute and email the Council (here’s our petition page: http://www.seattleforgrowth.org/lowrise/) and let them know your thoughts. Our petition page is already filled out. 

You can change that text. Not sure what to say? Here’s some ideas from someone who sent out some talking points for testimony at Planning Land Use and Sustsinabilty (PLUS) Committee meeting next week.

I am a renter. Public Policies that restrict growth hurt me by constraining housing supply, which drives up the market price of my rent. I need Seattle to build more housing, not less.

I am trying to buy my first home. I am frustrated with so many people trying to buy and so few properties available. This scarcity causes bidding wars and price escalation that makes it very hard for me to own my own home. I need Seattle to build more housing, not less.

I am an existing homeowner. I feel lucky that i was able to buy in Seattle in an era when housing was more affordable. I want to extend the opportunity to live in Seattle to others as well. I am oppose housing policy that is designed for my benefit that comes the expense of others. I want Seattle to building the housing that people need. Apartments, condos, rowhouses, townhouses, fancy houses, small houses, micro-housing…if there is a need, we should build it.

People are moving to Seattle faster than we are building new places for them to live. When there is a shortfall of housing supply, prices escalate, and the people that get hurt are the folks at the bottom of the economic ladder who get outbid by people on the rungs above them.

Every person who lives in Seattle was a newcomer at some point. No one gets no walk through the open door, and then close it behind them. Incumbency does not entitle residents with a right to exclude others.

For more background, see this blog post for some background on why people concerned with affordability and design quality have opposed this legislation: http://www.seattleforgrowth.org/appealed-low-rise-downzone/

To see the proposed legislation and supporting docs, see June 2 Plus Agenda (Page 7): 
http://seattle.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&ID=384446&GUID=E57CC333-B996-4F16-B6F0-8DA73A363C17