HB 1589 favors investors over ratepayers---and state climate goals. A section veto would go a long way to fix the bill.

Washington state leaders set out again this legislative session to move the state's utilities forward on a path toward electrification and away from gas. House Bill 1589 - a bill that passed in the 2024 session and is to be delivered to Governor Jay Inslee's desk any day now - is a move in that direction.

This bill, initiated by Puget Sound Energy (PSE), Washington's largest electric and gas utility, requires the utility to proactively plan for the transition from gas to clean energy. The coalition of climate and consumer advocates who helped usher it to passage knew that to get PSE to retire its existing gas infrastructure, the bill would have to include sweeteners for the utility, likely in the form of financial benefits to be paid by ratepayers.

However, the final version of the bill, as amended during this year's legislative session, overplays the PSE incentives piece, upsetting a delicate balance between climate benefits, ratepayer protections, and enticements for the utility. Further, overly generous financial boons to PSE could hamper the state's future negotiating power with the utility on important, additional decarbonization moves.

The two outsized financial benefits to PSE include accelerated depreciation (Section 7) and earnings on large electric projects still in construction (Section 5.2.d). These upsides for PSE are set to become law by the end of March 2024, but Governor Inslee could rebalance this bill in the next few days, using his veto authority to remove specific sections.

Below we outline what's good about the bill and what needs to be cut in order to retain the spirit of the original decarbonization solution - balancing perks for PSE with the provisions that step the utility toward a thoughtful and systematic transition to clean energy - and away from fossil fuels - keeping on track with the state's climate commitments.

A CRITICAL STEP TOWARD DECARBONIZATION: HB 1589 REINFORCES WASHINGTON'S CLIMATE PRIORITIES

This bill goes a long way toward putting PSE on a path toward decarbonization - an essential piece in Washington's carbon emissions puzzle if the state is to meet its 2050 goals. In particular, Section 3 of the bill calls for PSE to undertake comprehensive decarbonization planning.

The policy sets up an entirely new planning framework for the utility, folding together most of its existing planning requirements on both the gas and electric sides of its business into a single integrated system plan and orchestrating a holistic approach that prioritizes substantive decarbonization. Here are the most important planning updates that the bill puts in motion:

Sets up expansive new electrification programs to help transition PSE customers off gas

Prioritizes money and expertise to help electrify the homes of lower-income ratepayers

Drives PSE to assess potential to electrify entire neighborhoods as an alternative to aging pipeline replacement and as an opportunity to decommission sections of the gas system

Requires PSE to evaluate a suite of alternatives to additional investment in the gas pipeline system

Increases the annual commitments for electricity conservation and demand response to offset some of the expected new electric loads

How would these policies help PSE's lower-income consumers? Well, the utility receives cash from auctioning off its carbon allowances in the state's carbon market. House Bill 1589 would prioritize those funds for bill assistance and electrification incentives for low-income households. In addition to replacing gas appliances with electric ones, these incentives would also help pay for electric panel upgrades, new circuits, and even weatherization.

VETO THE ACCELERATED DEPRECIATION PROVISION TO REBALANCE THE CLIMATE UPSIDES WITH THE FINANCIAL PERKS FOR PSE

Buried deep in a section in HB 1589 is a provision called "accelerated depreciation." Accelerated depr...

Gov. Kotek's SB 1537 will do several useful things, but no longer directly lifts any local bans on apartment buildings. What happened?

It's hard to imagine a building more compatible with Oregon Governor Tina Kotek's stated goals than the Owens II Apartments.

A four-story apartment building that'd sit next to another four-story apartment building in central Astoria, the proposed mixed-income project would be priced entirely for low-income and very-low-income seniors thanks to millions of dollars in federal subsidy that have already been lined up. Sitting in the walkable core of a small city where home prices are up 48 percent in the last four years, the 50 new homes would replace a mostly empty parking lot.

However, the site is directly downhill from three Airbnb rental units that describe themselves as "riverview" and charge $181 a night for the chance to watch cargo ships humming up and down the Columbia River, just across that mostly empty parking lot.

In public hearings and legal filings for more than a year now, the owners of those Airbnbs and another family that owns a house across the street have raised first one issue about the proposed apartment building, then another. It's been a very expensive game of chicken for the dueling lawyers hired by the site's neighbors and the Northwest Oregon Housing Authority, which wants to build those 50 homes. Regardless of how this legal battle ends, the delay has postponed the project and could end up killing it.

In short, the Owens II Apartments would be exactly the sort of building Gov. Kotek seems to want to dedicate much of her governorship to helping create. So why, after more than a year of policy development, will Kotek's top-priority housing bill do so little to help it - and thousands of other potential buildings like it - get built?

50,000 MISSING APARTMENTS IN OREGON

To be clear, Gov. Kotek's Senate Bill 1537, which passed the state legislature Monday, might help the Astoria project claw its way over the finish line and provide permanently stable homes to 50 low-income senior-led households in northwest Oregon. One notable provision of the bill: if the people trying to stop the project lose their legal argument, the new law could eventually require them to pay attorneys' fees for both sides.

But that outcome is not certain, and would come only after a long and risky legal battle.

A different section of SB 1537, the subject of much quiet debate within Oregon's government over the last year, might have been a much bigger help. An earlier version would have automatically approved requests by housing developers for exceptions, or "adjustments," to various zoning rules. For their Astoria project, the Northwest Oregon Housing Authority would have automatically been allowed to build a much smaller parking lot, avoiding the need for excavation that's become the latest focus of the legal battle.

But during the lead-up to Oregon's 2024 legislative session, that section of Kotek's bill was largely gutted in the face of opposition by various Oregon cities.

Subsidized housing like the Owens II aren't the only homes at stake. Gov. Kotek has set a high-profile goal of accelerating the state homebuilding rate between 50 and 100 percent, enough to both keep up with future growth and to add 66,000 homes to the housing stock that, had they been built over the last 20 years, would have prevented Oregon's current shortage.

That will inevitably require figuring out how to bring homes to market at lower prices, and therefore how to develop market-rate homes with lower costs. Of those 66,000 missing homes, more than 50,000 would need to be at prices that only multifamily buildings, with their shared land, roofs, and utilities, can generally meet.

These are the low- to mid-price market-rate homes that the millions of Oregonians who live in market-rate housing rely on to keep housing market prices within reach. When more apartments get built, as they have been in almost unprecedented numbers in...

Vastly higher turnout in even-numbered years drowns out down-ballot drop-off, and more representative results indicate voters have the information they need.

For supporters of democracy, the equation should be simple. Higher turnout = better representation.

Research bears this out. Aligning local elections with higher-profile state and national races - in even-numbered years - boosts voter turnout more than any other change that election scholars have studied. Sightline's recent analysis comparing 2021 and 2022 turnout in Washington showed that fully 62 percent more people - 1.2 million Washingtonians - voted in the even-year election over the odd.

The sheer numbers speak for themselves; a democracy serves communities when more voters participate.

And digging into the academic studies regarding how voters understand and communicate their preferences confirms this conclusion, despite fears from critics. When more people vote, more people vote on local issues, and their ballots largely reflect their values and ideas - leading to better representation and a more responsive democracy.

To build a more representative democracy, then, we should do everything we can to increase voter participation when we have a choice.

WHAT WASHINGTON VOTERS AND LEADERS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EVEN-YEAR ELECTIONS

1. Washington state could see far higher turnout for local offices - contrary to the naysayers

With House Bill 1932 in the 2024 legislative session, Washington state legislators have an opportunity to significantly increase participation in local elections across the state. HB 1932 would allow (but not require) cities and towns to move their elections to even-numbered years if they wish to do so. For jurisdictions that make the switch, turnout for mayor, city council, and other city offices would likely double, or more. Local government leaders could take advantage of the much greater turnout and govern with a clearer mandate from their constituents.

Opponents of this legislation are raising concerns that moving local elections to even-numbered years will result in voters who are uninformed about local issues or who will stop filling out a long ballot. KUOW reported in December that Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs "opposes the move to even-year elections. He argues that voters won't have time to learn about local races, and there will be a lot of undervotes. He also thinks candidates for smaller races won't be able to break through in grabbing voter attention." These comments were echoed in public testimony last month from Secretary Hobbs' office opposing HB 1932. Sec. Hobbs is not the only one - Seattle City Council president Sara Nelson, for example, has espoused similar views, as has the Seattle Times editorial board.

Concerns about undervotes and about voter attention and information are unwarranted. Evidence reveals that the increase in voter turnout in even years completely swamps any undervotes. And when people turn in a ballot, they are able to effectively communicate their interests - including on local issues, when the ballot is long, and with scant available information.

2. More voters means more votes for local offices - far more votes, not undervotes

The data show that undervotes are not a reasonable concern. More people vote for local offices during even years, not only on high-profile positions like US President or Senator.

Sightline has previously explored the issue of "undervoting," also known as down-ballot drop-off - when voters stop voting for the races farther down the ballot, which tend to be local offices. We found that while drop-off occurs in almost all elections, the switch to even-year elections results in an increase in the total number of votes cast in local races: greater overall participation vastly outweighs the small amount of individual ballot drop-off. Oregon's turnout for local elections is double that of Washington's, after taking ballot drop-off into account.

If cities in Washington switched thei...

Underfunded inclusionary zoning fails, but fully funded programs can be a boost to below-market housing and a fiscal bargain.

Hey, here's some cash. While you're at the store, would you grab me some eggs?

That's the simple, efficient premise behind the housing policy just approved by Oregon's most populous city and county. Here's some cash. While you're building those apartments, set aside some of them to be rented at less than the market rate.

In a 3-2 vote Thursday, the Board of Multnomah County Commissioners followed up on a unanimous Jan. 31 vote by the Portland City Council to fully fund this concept in the form of Portland's inclusionary housing program for rental projects.

Together, the two votes will remove what has been a major obstacle to new apartment buildings in close-in Portland neighborhoods. In most of the city, what had been an underfunded mandate will no longer be underfunded.

"It just makes our entire city more equitable,"

Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, an East Portland resident who spearheaded the county action, said Wednesday.

"People at many different income levels have opportunities to live close to where their jobs are."

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

It's easy to overthink "inclusionary zoning" programs like Portland's, but the concept is not complicated: New buildings should include homes priced for a mix of different incomes.

The problem is how to get a good quantity of mixed-income apartment buildings to exist. If you required 30 percent of homes in every new building to be priced at less than the cost of building them, you wouldn't get a mixed-income building; you'd get nothing at all. Thirty percent of zero would be zero.

With this round of changes that takes effect March 1, Portland has faced that problem head-on and come up with a relatively simple answer. Fully fund the gap between costs and prices.

Don't just ask for the eggs; pay for the eggs.

"We only get those homes if private-sector projects move forward, and they only move forward if the financials make sense,"

Portland Commissioner Carmen Rubio, who steered the reform through City Hall, said last month.

Portland's program in brief: For new apartment buildings of 20 or more homes, at least 10 percent must be set aside for people earning no more than 60 percent of the metro area's median income. (Currently, that 60 percent limit comes to $54,180 for a household of two, for example.) Those homes' rents, meanwhile, must be capped at levels those households can afford. (No more than $1,250 a month or so for a one-bedroom, for example.)

The government then makes up for that reduced revenue, mostly with a temporary property tax break, to keep the project in the black.

There are a few other options for new buildings to comply, such as putting below-market homes in a comparable location elsewhere. But with this being the only option that's fully funded in higher-rent parts of the city, it's expected to be by far the most common choice.

If you do the math to calculate the public's cost per home, the below-market housing created via fully funded inclusionary housing is less expensive than a comparable home created by a local housing bond. That's presumably because the affordable homes hitch a ride on a project that was already being financed.

"WE HAVE TO GO WHERE THE DATA TELLS US"

The city's inclusionary housing program had already been fully funded for years in Portland's "central city," the approximately one-mile radius around Pioneer Courthouse Square. But outside central Portland, the program's funding had been tightly limited by the city and county, which must both sign off on any tax abatement.

The result of this underfunding over the last seven years had been that many projects bent over backward to avoid the program. The share of new homes in 12--19-unit buildings, those just below the program's threshold, had approximately doubled. Hundreds and maybe thousands of other homes likely weren't built at all, in part because of cost...

In just one month in 2023, the province legalized fourplexes, allowed apartment buildings up to 20 stories near all transit stations, eliminated public hearings for plan-compliant buildings, ended parking requirements in transit-oriented districts, and announced that it is considering single-stair reform.

While other Cascadian jurisdictions have been struggling to adopt piecemeal housing reforms - reducing parking requirements in Washington, or legalizing duplexes in Oregon, duplexes and lot splits in California, and fourplexes in Portland - British Columbia just enacted all of this and more, in a single month: November 2023.

By legalizing apartment buildings up to 20 stories next to all Skytrain stations, legalizing fourplexes province-wide, eliminating parking requirements near transit, and proposing single-stair apartments, British Columbia has set a new standard for zoning reform in North America. More locally, it has created a framework for the construction of some of Canada's best neighborhoods in the near future.

As Alex Armlovich, housing analyst at the Niskanen Center, recently tweeted about BC housing minister Ravi Kahlon:

"Nobody in the last 60 years has ever successfully decriminalized construction of multifamily homes near mass transit in a large North American city. And this guy just walks in, presses the "houses aren't illegal anymore" button on his ministry desk, & carries on with his day"

THE LEGALIZATION OF APARTMENTS IN BC HAPPENED GRADUALLY, AND THEN SUDDENLY

For years, the opponents of transit and infill housing in British Columbia mostly had their way. Some development was allowed on old industrial sites, but a formidable dam of zoning regulations held back new homes and transit. Zoning rules preserved the built form of single-detached house neighborhoods, even as prices rose, making homeowners millionaires many times over.

The system may have reached its apogee in the year 2000 when Kerrisdale resident Pamela Sauder uttered her now-infamous opposition to a transit line:

"We are dentists, doctors, lawyers, professionals, CEOs of companies,"

she said, explaining why the area was unsuited to public transportation.

"We are the crème de la crème in Vancouver."

Sauder and her fellow opponents of the proposed "Arbutus Line" won that fight, and the city routed both the transit line and accompanying new homes well to the east of Kerrisdale, along Cambie Street. The dam held.

In 2017, in the same style, media executive David Radler wrote in opposition to a seniors' home proposed for Vancouver's wealthy Southlands neighborhood. Radler wrote that Council "would be allowing one of the last upper-scale residential areas of the city close to the airport to be commercialized" if it approved the rezoning, harming the economy by ruining an area of "executive housing." Despite this, Council approved the senior center, and construction is almost finished. A leak in the dam, perhaps. And the economy? Arguably not ruined by this one seniors' home.

"You're dropping the ghetto in Kitsilano…we are one of the treasures of the city."

This was the reaction of Kitsilano homeowner Judy Osburn to a proposed five-story apartment building in 2019. After 25 hours of heated debate over three days, Vancouver's City Council voted eight to three to approve the building. An apartment building was allowed on a quiet, low-density street on Vancouver's west side. The leak had become a trickle.

Four years later, in November 2023, the dam finally burst.

Under the leadership of Premier David Eby, Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon introduced and the Legislature passed Bills 44, 46, and 47, remaking British Columbia's housing landscape.

"The housing system as we have it now is not working,"

Minister Kahlon told The Tyee.

To remedy this, BC's government has enacted a wealth of reforms for residents to unlock much-needed new homes, in all shapes and sizes, across robustly transit-connected neighborhoods:

Legalizing 4-20-story buildings near bus, rail, an...

A host of laws to make voting easier would benefit Independent, Republican, and Democratic constituents.

Conventional political wisdom says that laws to make voting more convenient help Democrats, but not Republicans. That doesn't appear to be the case in Alaska, where voters across the political spectrum would stand to benefit from policies that smooth the way to casting their ballots.

Why does this matter? Because the Alaska legislature can still mobilize to get a big voter access bill over the line in 2024, after two consecutive years of attempts. But the sticky false narrative of how it would help the left and not the right blocks passage of these common-sense voter laws.

The truth is that in Alaska, registered Republicans, Democrats, and especially independent voters could all stand to gain from pro-voter laws like same-day registration and a cure process for mailed ballots. Similarly, at the federal level, more reliable mail service would help all voters across the political spectrum (and not just during elections).

For the third year in a row, lawmakers in Juneau have the legislation before them to make it happen.

ALASKA HAS A HISTORY OF MIDDLING VOTER TURNOUT

In Alaska's most recent six elections, statewide voter turnout ranged from a low of 17 percent in the 2016 primary election to a peak of 68 percent in the 2020 general election. If voter participation statewide were graded using the Anchorage School District system, the report card would say "N" for "Needs Improvement."

Several factors contribute to patterns in turnout:

Public awareness of high-profile campaigns: High-profile contests, particularly the US presidency (starred on the chart below), motivate voters to go the polls, causing peaks during presidential election years and troughs at the midterms.

General versus primary elections: More voters show up for general elections, when their votes will lead directly to a decision about who is elected, as opposed to primary elections, which narrow the candidate field but don't produce a winner.

Lead time for voters and officials: Special elections often have the lowest turnout because the date isn't set until a few weeks before the election. Election officials have less time to publicize information about the election, and voters have less time to plan when, where, and how they'll vote. Alaska had one special election in 2022 to choose a replacement for U.S. Rep. Don Young, who died in office after representing Alaska in Congress for 49 years. The special primary occurred in June 2022. The special general election was on the same ballot as the regular primary election in 2022.

Voter profile: More experienced voters tend to pay more attention to the timing of elections and are more likely to vote. For that reason, special election voters tend to be more politically active and older than the average registered voter in the same district.

Aside from the factors listed above, turnout in individual elections can vary significantly for other reasons. On one hand, turnout could go up if the election were conducted fully by mail (indicated by white dots on the chart above), improving convenience for voters, or if a candidate or contest received a lot of media coverage and inspired more voters to come out. On the other hand, turnout could go down if the only statewide office on the ballot one year had a popular incumbent running uncontested, so voters didn't feel the need to show up, or if candidates discouraged voters from participating.

Case study: The 2022 midterm election

Consider 2022, a midterm year when the absence of a high-profile presidential contest means fewer voters typically participate. That year, Alaska posted strong turnout for the primary and slightly lower than usual turnout for the general election. Attributing turnout numbers to any one factor would be a huge mistake, but listing the factors that might have played a role is kind of fun.

In 2022, Alaska's electoral landscape underwent dramatic changes ...

The most familiar way to get more homes built is the one most people don't want.

Oregon is basking in a bit of bipartisan consensus. The state, most people agree, needs more homes.

That's it. That's the extent of the consensus. As the state's brief 2024 legislative session launched this week, Oregonians on left and right were girding for battle over what, exactly, to do about this shared housing shortage. In the middle of the battlefield was a bill developed by Gov. Tina Kotek, which includes various ideas from left, right and center aimed at accelerating homebuilding.

But as many lawmakers and interest groups try to tug the contents of that bill in their direction, it's also worth stepping back to ask: What, in the broadest sense, caused this decades-long underproduction of housing that we can all agree exists? Before Oregonians start negotiating over specific policy goals like quick-and-dirty sprawl allowances or revolving zero-interest loan funds, they should understand in some more general way why this problem, unlike shortages of toilet paper or baby formula, seems unable to solve itself.

The answer to that question - what actually causes housing shortages? - is the starting point for a new Sightline series that begins today. In the weeks and months to come, we'll lay out a housing agenda that Oregon could achieve under its most housing-focused government in many years.

But first, as so often happens in the first U.S. state to impose state-level urban growth boundaries, we need to talk about urban sprawl.

TO AVOID GROWING OUT, GROW IN. BUT WHAT STOPS INFILL?

For decades, many Oregonians have claimed that the simple answer to Oregon housing problems is that in Oregon, developers are not allowed to build subdivisions wherever they can afford to. Instead, gradually expanding "urban growth boundaries" around every city let the state and regional governments dictate where new suburban development is allowed.

To which other Oregonians have long replied: but there's lots of space for more homes inside urban boundaries. It's in backyards, abandoned malls, half-empty parking lots, and the sky.

Damon Motz-Storey, head of Oregon's Sierra Club chapter, spoke for many environmentalists on Sunday.

"I see empty lots in popular, central Portland neighborhoods all the time,"

Damon Motz-Storey, head of Oregon's Sierra Club chapter, spoke for many environmentalists on Sunday. "I see empty lots in popular, central Portland neighborhoods all the time," Motz-Storey wrote. Motz-Storey was right; as right as they'd said it about Hillsboro, Salem, Monmouth, or Burns.

But Motz-Storey's accurate observation also raises a question. Why does one see empty lots all the time? If these would be good locations for housing, why weren't homes built there already?

The answer, once you clear away all the details, is not complicated. The thing that stops homes from being built in a housing shortage is that the cost of building them outweighs the revenue they would bring in.

Pointing at an empty lot or shopping mall isn't, in itself, an answer to a housing shortage. To actually create more infill housing in a market economy, one or both of these two things needs to happen:

the cost of building infill homes needs to go down, or

the amount of money to be made by building infill homes needs to go up.

Those are the options. There aren't any others.

WE WON'T STOP RENT HIKES UNTIL WE CUT THE COST OF BUILDING HOMES

A market economy, of course, can include governments and public programs. And that's one way to solve for the two-factor equation above: with public housing subsidies.

When the government spends tax money to subsidize a poor person's rent, or to hire people to build and manage a new below-market apartment building, that's a form of option (2) above. This can be good. But it's only as good as we can find public money for it - and there are always plenty of competing ideas for how to spend public money. (On Wednesday, state economists estimated that Orego...

Making the case for statewide elimination of parking mandates.

If Minnesota becomes the first state to end parking minimums, it'll be thanks in large part to Chris Meyer.

Since he read the High Cost of Free Parking over a decade ago, Chris Meyer has been on a mission to liberate new homes and businesses from costly parking mandates - rules that dictate every building have a pre-determined minimum number of parking stalls.

From writing about parking minimums in his college newspaper, the Minnesota Daily, to handing out copies of Shoup's book to Minneapolis City Council members, Chris has been sowing the seeds of reform wherever he is. "I've never met anyone that is as excited about parking than Chris Meyer," US Representative Ilhan Omar said at the bill's press conference, recounting the years she worked at city hall leading up to Minneapolis's 2015 transit-related parking reform. Meyer went on to serve on the Minneapolis Planning Commission, which added the City of Lakes to the list of cities who fully repealed parking minimums in 2021.

Now, as legislative assistant to state Senator Omar Fateh, he is behind an ambitious new bill in Minnesota that would prohibit parking mandates across the state: All cities, all uses. Sightline called him up to learn more.

Catie Gould: How did the People over Parking Act originate?

Chris Meyer: I suggested it to my boss [Senator Fateh]. He was persuaded it was a good idea, because he cares a lot about housing affordability and climate action. This was a good way to take on both of those issues.

You took a pretty bold stance. No minimums at all, no exceptions. What is your thinking around the politics of that versus incremental reform - like no minimums for certain uses or around transit? Those approaches seem more common.

A more modest version would probably have an easier time passing but - first, the reception has been pretty good! The Star Tribune, the big paper here, their editorial board wrote an opinion piece in support of the bill. And a GOP legislator just came out in support. Opposition has been more muted than anticipated. But even if it hadn't been, I felt like it was important to make the case for the full-fledged elimination of parking minimums, across the board.

I know a lot of other places started with removing them around transit stations. That's how Minneapolis did it as well in 2015. But I feel the case against parking minimums is just as strong regardless of whether it's a small-town, suburb, or a big city, and regardless of how car dependent the place might be. I'm from a small town of 6,000 people. We have a nice downtown main street. It would be illegal to build as it is under parking minimums. There would be too much parking required between buildings for it to be a nice, walkable, main street. In small towns it makes sense to get rid of these. It makes sense to get rid of them everywhere.

Parking minimums are only ever bad or pointless. If you set requirements low enough that they would be building it anyway, it's a pointless requirement. If you set it above what they would be building otherwise, then you're forcing unnecessary parking to be built. So regardless of the situation, we felt that it was important to communicate that these parking minimums are bad policy everywhere.

Has statewide parking reform ever been attempted in Minnesota before?

Not to my knowledge. If it has, no one knows about it because it seems like everyone is being introduced to the idea for the first time.

Will this bill have an impact on people's everyday lives?

It'll be a gradual one. Minneapolis, St. Paul, and now Duluth also eliminated parking minimums as well. As we did that there wasn't any dramatic change overnight. But gradually it did reduce housing costs pretty substantially. There was national coverage of how Minneapolis was keeping inflation low because rents were staying low. That was largely because of reforms like this, that allowed more housing to be built.

Why does the state n...

City leaders take another step toward allowing more new homes, in more sizes and varying price points, in Alaska's largest city.

The Anchorage Assembly has removed major impediments in city building and land use rules that have long discouraged builders from putting up tri- and fourplexes. The changes are the latest in a series of reforms that could spur more infill housing in a wider variety of styles and price points in Alaska's largest city.

City code saddled tri- and fourplexes with a raft of extra requirements, like having to pave over enough land for a vehicle to make a three-point turn. They were also subject to extra landscaping, lighting, drainage, and architectural requirements. A one- or two-unit home on the same lot of the same size or even larger, even if built to house fewer people, didn't have the same requirements, making them cheaper to build.

No surprise, then, that Anchorage developers have been leaving a significant number of units on the table. No more than five triplexes have gone up in Anchorage in a single year since 2001, according to data provided by affordable housing developer Cook Inlet Housing Authority. Some years, no developer has built a single triplex.

A working group consisting of officials from across the municipality, from the fire marshal to the planning department, along with local developers and community members, spent about a year hammering out changes. They consulted with officials from Shelby County, Tennessee, which reclassified structures of three to six units as residential instead of commercial under its building code. The process resulted in two sets of reforms, one in the municipal land use code (Title 21) and the other in the building code (Title 23).

Developers have long known about the regulatory impediments to small multifamily homes. But only in the last couple years have high home prices, low inventory, a homelessness crisis, a trend toward smaller, more numerous households, and a shrinking working-age population propelled these and other housing supply fixes to the forefront of city priorities.

The land use and building code reforms for tri- and fourplexes are the latest in a series of pro-housing ordinances passed with healthy majorities in the 12-member assembly. The assembly has done away with parking requirements, removed key regulatory barriers to accessory dwelling units, and changed zoning rules to encourage more residential construction downtown. In October 2023, the assembly hosted Housing Action Week headlined by Charles Marohn of the urban reform organization Strong Towns and unveiled a strategic action plan for housing. It's considering further changes in the summer of 2024 to bring zoning rules into greater conformance with the pro-housing goals stated in Anchorage's 2040 Land Use Plan.

Both ordinances went into effect in January 2024. But before construction can really get going, developers are waiting for additional action by the city to change drainage requirements and walk back rules passed this summer dictating where on a site parking is allowed.

LAND USE CHANGES WILL TREAT SMALL MULTIFAMILY MORE LIKE SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES

In an 11-1 vote, the assembly on December 19 passed updates to Anchorage zoning code that eliminated a few of the major differences between how Anchorage code treats single-detached (a.k.a. "single-family") homes and small multifamily homes.

The minimum lot size for triplexes now matches that of single-family homes and duplexes in a residential zone known as "R-2M," where triplexes are already allowed. Triplexes can go up on lots measuring 6,000 square feet or more, where they previously required an 8,500-square-foot lot. R-2M zones exist throughout the city: along the Chester Creek greenbelt and near Westchester Lagoon, the U-Med district and Campbell tract, Sand Lake and Campbell Lake, and Muldoon.

The assembly also changed the allowed gross density of R-2M to 30 dwelling units per acre in accordance with Anchorage's 2040 Land Use ...

State leaders are considering measures to allow ranked choice voting, even-year elections, statewide democracy vouchers, and more.

Washington State leaders are eyeing a suite of democracy and elections upgrades that would help ensure representation of communities, boost voter turnout, streamline administrative procedures, and offer more diverse candidate choices to advance the priorities of everyday Washingtonians. The legislature has considered ranked choice voting, moving to even-year elections, and other improvements in the past, gaining familiarity with these reforms although not yet passing them.

But interest in and execution of such advances is growing across the US, with jurisdictions from Alaska to Arizona, Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Portland, Oregon, offering examples of their benefits in action. The issues before Washington lawmakers are gaining the momentum they need that may finally usher them across the finish line in 2024.

SMOOTHING THE PATH FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENTS WANTING TO ADOPT RANKED CHOICE VOTING

Washington legislators face a different opportunity regarding ranked choice voting (RCV) than they did in years past. The question is no longer if Washington will use RCV, but rather how the state will use it. Will it be inconsistent, varying from one county to the next? Or will it follow choreographed steps based on what we've learned works well? Washington state law prohibits most local jurisdictions - except for charter cities and counties, like Seattle and Clark County - from changing their election code. This restriction means that they have been prevented from using systems like RCV.

In June 2023, however, the Washington State Supreme Court issued a ruling that specified that ranked choice voting is a remedy for violations of the Washington Voting Rights Act (WVRA). Because changes to local laws under the WVRA are allowed regardless of other state laws, the ruling opened the door for any governing body - from school district to city - to adopt RCV in response to a violation or potential violation of voting rights, as defined by the WVRA. This pathway for opting into RCV is an important acknowledgement of the power of the voting method to improve representation of community interests. Yet it could result in a wide variety of implementation procedures and voter education materials across the state, with each county effectively inventing its own wheel of getting RCV up and running for the community.

HB 2250 (and companion SB 6156), the Washington VOICES (Voting Options, Implementation, Compliance, Education, and Standards) Act, sponsored by Rep. Gregerson, would clarify standards for local governments and convene a workgroup to help the Secretary of State create statewide guidelines for RCV implementation. The legislation would improve efficiency and consistency for local election administrators while ensuring that voters have the tools they need to make their voices heard.

BOOSTING VOTER TURNOUT BY ALLOWING LOCAL ELECTIONS IN HIGH-TURNOUT YEARS

State law in Washington currently requires cities and towns to hold their regularly scheduled elections for local offices, such as mayor and city council, in odd-numbered years, when voter turnout rarely rises above 40 percent. Turnout in even-numbered years, in contrast, is often double that of odd-numbered years, including for local races. What's more, national studies have shown that voters tend to be better represented by leaders elected in even years.

Three bills will address this issue this session: SB 5723, sponsored by Sen. Valdez (and companion HB 1882, sponsored by Rep. Farivar), would amend the state's election code to allow cities and towns to hold elections in even years if they choose. This creates the option for more local governments to follow the example of King County, whose voters approved a switch to even-year elections in November 2022. Voters in the state's largest county will soon enjoy fewer campaign cycles to track and leaders who have won sup...