The following are sample emails that you can send to your own Seattle state legislators. We encourage you to personalize them with your own thoughts. Please refer any questions to [email protected]
Sample email #1 - Housing Affordability Focus
Dear Rep/Senator {Last Name}
Please do not sponsor or endorse any Missing Middle Housing bill unless it includes anti-displacement provisions and subsidies for low-income rental housing below 50% of Area Median Income. Both affordability and anti-displacement measures were missing from the original bill.
Missing middle refers to the forms of housing where density is less than midrise apartments and more than single family zones. It has nothing to do with affordability or income.
Because townhouses are the most profitable type of housing being built, it’s unlikely any other type of housing will be built by market-rate developers. Developers will tear down existing older houses and replace them with unaffordable and inefficient townhouses which are more expensive and less useful than the homes they demolished.
What we need is a bill that creates low-income subsidized rental housing, not a one-size-fits-all approach to density that pretends to address affordability.
Please refer to Seattle Fair Growth’s fact sheet on the missing middle housing bill which I think you’ll find informative.
___________________________________
Sample email #2 - Environmental Focus
Dear Rep/Senator {Last Name}
Last year’s missing middle housing bill, HB 1782 will have a new number in the 2023 legislature. It could come back stronger or substantially changed. Please do not sponsor or endorse any Missing Middle Housing bill until you’ve read the new bill and talked to the Housing Alliance.
I believe many aspects of it are anti-environmental. Building townhouses lotline-to-lotline decreases the tree canopy. Preservation and reuse is better for the environment than building new. In reality, any land use that eliminates single-family zoning decreases Seattle’s tree canopy, since this is the only zoning type that exceeds average tree canopy.
What is needed is transportation-oriented development (TOD), rather than scattered density in single-family zones without access to frequent transit. Scattering multi-family units in single-family zones won’t motivate people to drive less. Although buses may be flexible, service hours are always in short supply and will be assigned where there is density, not in more remote neighborhoods.
Seattle has enough building capacity to accommodate the growth that’s planned without taking such drastic steps and harming the environment.
Please refer to Seattle Fair Growth’s fact sheet on the missing middle housing bill which I think you’ll find informative.
Sample email #1 - Housing Affordability Focus
Dear Rep/Senator {Last Name}
Please do not sponsor or endorse any Missing Middle Housing bill unless it includes anti-displacement provisions and subsidies for low-income rental housing below 50% of Area Median Income. Both affordability and anti-displacement measures were missing from the original bill.
Missing middle refers to the forms of housing where density is less than midrise apartments and more than single family zones. It has nothing to do with affordability or income.
Because townhouses are the most profitable type of housing being built, it’s unlikely any other type of housing will be built by market-rate developers. Developers will tear down existing older houses and replace them with unaffordable and inefficient townhouses which are more expensive and less useful than the homes they demolished.
What we need is a bill that creates low-income subsidized rental housing, not a one-size-fits-all approach to density that pretends to address affordability.
Please refer to Seattle Fair Growth’s fact sheet on the missing middle housing bill which I think you’ll find informative.
___________________________________
Sample email #2 - Environmental Focus
Dear Rep/Senator {Last Name}
Last year’s missing middle housing bill, HB 1782 will have a new number in the 2023 legislature. It could come back stronger or substantially changed. Please do not sponsor or endorse any Missing Middle Housing bill until you’ve read the new bill and talked to the Housing Alliance.
I believe many aspects of it are anti-environmental. Building townhouses lotline-to-lotline decreases the tree canopy. Preservation and reuse is better for the environment than building new. In reality, any land use that eliminates single-family zoning decreases Seattle’s tree canopy, since this is the only zoning type that exceeds average tree canopy.
What is needed is transportation-oriented development (TOD), rather than scattered density in single-family zones without access to frequent transit. Scattering multi-family units in single-family zones won’t motivate people to drive less. Although buses may be flexible, service hours are always in short supply and will be assigned where there is density, not in more remote neighborhoods.
Seattle has enough building capacity to accommodate the growth that’s planned without taking such drastic steps and harming the environment.
Please refer to Seattle Fair Growth’s fact sheet on the missing middle housing bill which I think you’ll find informative.