These local governments beat the state to legalizing middle housing

Plus Reichert gets in formally and stuff is already on fire

Middle housing may have happened this year in Olympia, but for some Washington cities, it was a rerun of a local experiment. 

If you’ve perused sites like Redfin or Rent.com, you probably know that the real estate market in Washington is somewhere in the neighborhood of terrible for would-be homebuyers.¹ Skyrocketing real estate values are also a double-edged sword for retirees dealing with rising property taxes who might want to downsize to a townhouse that many local zoning codes won’t allow. None of this helps the state’s homelessness crisis.

This last session, lawmakers passed a mountain of bills to shore up the state’s housing supply. For the forward-thinking cities first in line for the up-zoning bandwagon, the results are a mixed bag. The Association of Washington Cities and company held up that bag as a cautionary tale for the up-zoning faithful, but the reality on the ground is always more complicated.