The WA urbanist’s guide to bills to write home (or your legislators) about

Note: This story has been updated as of February 20 to reflect where all bills currently stand.

While our national politics feel increasingly and utterly impossible to affect, I’m finding refuge in our state and local politics, which continue to march on towards progress despite everything going on at the national level. The Washington State Legislature is now in session, meaning our state Senators and Representatives are proposing, debating and (hopefully🤞) passing bills until April 27th.

Here are the land use, housing and transportation bills I’m keeping a careful eye on; each would have tangible effects on housing affordability or livability in Spokane County if passed.

Important: if you care even a little about any of these bills, the websites I’ve linked allow you to send a comment to your legislators. It takes literally one minute and you don’t even have to remember their names.

Strap in; there are a lot of bills to get excited about (and some, not so much).

Land use & housing bills:

Transportation bills:

Land use & housing bills

Corner cafés

Corner shops like The Scoop are largely illegal to build these days.

You may be surprised to learn that corner stores and cafés, the beloved attractions of American tourists in Europe, are largely illegal to build in Washington. And here at home in Spokane, the cafés and stores embedded in our neighborhoods like Doyle’s Ice Cream Parlor, The Grain Shed, The Scoop, Rockwood Bakery and Rocket Market are institutions (and each of those buildings was constructed more than 50 years ago).

Two similar bills moving through the House and Senate seek to make it legal to build the next iconic corner store or cafe in neighborhoods across the state.

House Bill 1175 would (re)legalize corner stores in residential zones, but it does allow cities to regulate hours of operation. Senate Bill 5421 is similar, but it allows cities to regulate more aspects of the business like signage and delivery timing.

The usual opposition to allowing these businesses concerns parking, but the beauty of these corner beauties is that their audience primarily consists of those a walk or a bike ride away. Developing those corner stores is easier now that the city isn’t forcing builders to cram unnecessary parking spots into these small lots.

If the state legislature does not pass this bill in its current session, Planning Director Spencer Gardner has been thinking about how to legalize them locally anyway as the city updates its Comprehensive Plan.

Supporters of corner cafés see them as third places that strengthen bonds between neighbors, community assets that decrease emissions from transportation, and opportunities for entrepreneurs and small businesses to thrive.

HB 1175 was heard in the House Appropriations Committee on February 17, and is waiting to be scheduled for a Floor hearing.

Free market parking regulation

Speaking of parking, Senate Bill 5184 (and its companion bill, HB 1299) would prevent cities and counties from creating or enforcing heavy-handed regulations on parking minimums. Spokane is ahead of the curve — we already did away with parking minimums — but other municipalities have wide-ranging and arbitrary minimums: for instance, Spokane Valley requires new hospitals to build one spot per 500 square feet, while Liberty Lake requires 2.5 spots per patient bed – who’s to say which, if either, is correct.

We’ve found ourselves in the cycle of requiring parking, which makes walking harder and driving necessary, which requires more parking, all based on some shaky science.

The bill would leave most decisions about parking up to the builder or developer to decide for their project what the market requires, rather than municipalities trying to guess how much would be needed and setting that as a mandatory minimum. The goal of the bill is to increase housing production – projects tend to “pencil” more easily if more of the lot can be used for the housing itself rather than wasting space with underutilized parking spots.

If you want to know more about this bill, I highly recommend this explainer of the bill written by RANGE friend Ryan Packer for The Urbanist.

HB 1299 will die in the House Committee on Local Government if it is not scheduled for a vote by February 20, but SB 5184 has passed the Senate and is moving to the House, as of February 19.

Builder’s remedy

SB 5148 and HB 1235 incentivize compliance with the housing portion of the Growth Management Act by preventing cities and counties that are out of compliance from denying affordable housing projects.

There’s a similar state law in California sometimes referred to as the “Builder’s Remedy” that has been effective: developers have built infill projects in noncompliant cities that wouldn’t have been allowed otherwise (typically due to local zoning codes like height or density restrictions), and other cities have rushed to reach compliance to retain control of zoning.

Like many of the bills we’ll discuss here, the goal of the bill is to increase housing production in the state.

HB 1235 is scheduled for a public hearing in the House Committee on Housing on February 21 (the last possible day before it dies), and SB 5184 has moved out of its committee of origin, been heard in the Ways & Means Committee and now awaits a last committee vote before it moves to the floor.

Various building code and development reforms

HB 1183 is a bit of a smorgasbord of reforms aimed at easing housing development, allowing more density and allowing greener building practices (like not punishing architects for building thick walls that insulate better, not counting solar panels against a project’s height restrictions and rewarding passive house building practices and mass timber construction). It also legalizes smaller elevators, but there’s another bill that could double cover that, so I’ll come back to it.

HB 1183 is scheduled for public hearing in the House Committee on Appropriations at 9 am on February 22.

Smaller elevators

SB 5156 would allow the smaller, wheelchair-sized elevators used the world over to be used in Washington’s small-lot, infill apartment buildings – the ones that can be built with only a single stairwell starting in 2026.

Elevators in North America cost triple the cost of their European counterparts, which drives up the cost of housing (if the builder includes an elevator), or causes fewer accessible units to be built (if the builder decides not to include an elevator).

One could imagine the bill might encourage taller infill buildings to be built, as more folks would be interested in living in a 5th floor unit when an elevator is present.

If passed, the Washington State Building Code Council would include this change in their 2026 body of reforms.

This bill has passed the Senate and is moving to the House. It’s cosponsored by Marcus Riccelli, state senator of District 3, which covers most of the city of Spokane.

Density around transit hubs

HB 1491 requires cities to allow dense multifamily housing development and mixed-use development around high performance transit. You may hear this referred to as “transit-oriented development” (TOD), which is a planning strategy to build walkable and bikeable areas around transit hubs to make it easier for residents to get around without a car.

The state has funded a lot of transit recently ($3 billion over the next fourteen years), and it wants to ensure the zoning around the stops allows the transit to be successful.

When cities prevent density around transit hubs, fewer people get to live near transit, so fewer people can use it – meaning more people are forced to drive, which increases emissions, traffic, wear-and-tear on our infrastructure and requires more parking to be built.

How this bill affects Spokane

The city is already planning to upzone the area around the upcoming Division Bus Rapid Transit line, but this bill could force the city’s hand to allow denser housing and more mixed-use development around the BRT’s stops.

The city recently finished a rezone of the South Logan area to coincide with STA’s City Line development that allows for increased density around its stops, but the bill could require the city to allow more density in other areas, like on Mission Avenue around Chief Garry Park, which is currently zoned for single-family housing only.

This bill is sponsored by local representatives Natasha Hill and Timm Ormsby. It has been referred to a Capital Budget hearing.

Stop splitting hairs about lot splitting

HB 1096 is designed to ease the process of splitting a lot and building housing on the newly created lot. It would require that cities have a mechanism that allows developers to seek simultaneous approval for both the lot split and the building permits on the newly created lot, rather than needing to apply for the lot split then the building permits.

Infill development is a logical lever to pull in the efforts to fight our housing crisis: it uses existing utility and road infrastructure, is built where people already want to live, increases home ownership opportunities and prevents sprawl into natural areas and farmland.

HB 1096 is sponsored by local representatives Natasha Hill and Timm Ormsby. It ischeduled for executive session in the House Committee on Appropriations at 4 pm on February 20.

Easing condo construction woes

Condos are rarely built in Washington these days, at least partially due to the burden of liability that is placed upon the builders. Builders of single family homes are bound only to the explicit warranties they offer, while condo builders are bound to implied warranties, which results in condo builders being sued by homeowners’ associations years after completion – sometimes for small cosmetic issues – even if the builder wasn’t negligent and followed industry standards.

These liabilities result in higher insurance costs which cause projects to no longer pencil. It also makes it more difficult to convert apartment buildings into condos, and results in less affordable housing stock.

HB 1403 attempts to better balance consumer protection and builder liability to encourage the construction of more condos, which are part of the “missing middle” housing and allow for more home ownership.

The bill:

Requires arbitration in more cases to stave off costly, traditional litigation.
Does away with implied warranties when the builder provides express warranties that meet state requirements.

This bill is sponsored by local representatives Natasha Hill and Timm Ormsby. It is currently in the Rules Committee for review.

Transportation bills

Tougher drunk driving laws

Substitute Senate Bill 5067 would lower the ABV limit from 0.08 to 0.05, following most of the world and, as of 2018, the state of Utah.

The bill notes that “a driver’s risk of crash involvement at 0.05 is double the rate of a sober driver, which increases to three times the risk at 0.07.”

The Washington Traffic Safety Commission requested the bill.

The bill is scheduled for executive session in the Senate Committee on Transportation at 1:30 pm on February 25.

Automated vehicle noise enforcement cameras

SB 5417 and HB 1423 define a new type of automated traffic safety cameras – in addition to the ones that track speeding drivers and those who don’t stop at intersections – designed to detect both those racing their vehicles on city streets and the cars that are louder than the legal limits.

Noise pollution (typically from vehicles) has well-documented adverse effects on both mental and physical health: aside from hearing-related diseases and sleep troubles one might expect, some studies have found noise pollution also leads to increases in cardiovascular disease.

If this bill is passed, perhaps those that live within a half mile of Division Street can finally find peace from the drag racing (and not the fun kind) that occurs. It would require a local ordinance designating the area as one the city is concerned about racing on.

Reached by text, City Councilmember Zack Zappone said he was not aware of the bill, but acknowledged that racing on Division Street is a well-known problem. He said he also hears constituents talk about racing on Monroe Street, which lies within his council district..

The funds from the traffic safety cameras in Spokane are used for the traffic calming program, which builds crosswalks, sidewalks, and other pedestrian infrastructure. Cameras that reduce racing and far-too-loud cars while funding traffic calming seem like an easy win-win.

Both bills have had a public hearing, but neither has been scheduled for an executive session in their respective committees.

Excessive speeding = reckless driving

SB 5238 would add speeding 30 mph over the limit to the definition of reckless driving, which is currently only “willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property.” Reckless driving is a gross misdemeanor, which is a criminal offense, while most other traffic offenses are civil offenses that just result in citations, even in cases that end in pedestrian death.

The bill has passed the Senate and now sits in the House Community Safety Committee.

Transit users on transit boards

HB 1418 allows transit boards to add two users of the transit system as voting members, which could allow the actual users of transit to have a say in how it is managed in their region.

The bill would apply to the Spokane Transit Authority Board of Directors. Currently, the STA Board’s voting members, by law, consist of nine elected officials from around the region. Their eligibility for the board depends on their status as elected officials – there is no requirement for those deciding how STA operates or where to invest to actually use transit.

Historically, STA has had issues with involvement and input from their riders: like asking security officers to follow a local transit advocate and his young son, leaving public input out of their CEO hiring process until they faced pushback, and drastically underrepresenting people of color on their board (since RANGE published that article, Council President Betsy Wilkerson has been replaced by Council Member Lili Navarrete, keeping the ratio of BIPOC representatives on the board the same.)

Erik Lowe, the transit advocate who was followed by security at meetings, filed a public records request last year inquiring after transit usage by each board member, but the resulting document was so heavily redacted that little could be gleaned. If this legislation passes, it could guarantee that riders will always have a voting say in the actions of their transit agency.

STA spokesperson Carly Cortright wrote to RANGE that STA is not taking an official position on HB1418, but they “respect the legislature’s work on this bill.”

HB 1418 is sponsored by Representative Natasha Hill. It sits in the Rules Committee for review.

Bills which would harm active transportation networks

Local representatives Jenny Graham, Mike Volz and Suzanne Schmidt are cosponsoring a bill that would legalize the use of Climate Commitment Act funds for highways, which are indisputably climate-negative. CCA funds are currently earmarked for clean transportation like pedestrian, bike, and public transit projects. The bill has not yet been read by its committee.

Despite active transportation deaths in Washington increasing from 85 in 2014 to 177 in 2023, two southwest WA representatives have sponsored a bill that would reduce Complete Streets obligations, which require WSDOT to design state highway projects with pedestrians, cyclists, those using mobility devices and those using public transit in mind. The bill has not yet been read by its committee.

The future of these bills

Hearings are happening this week on a lot of these bills, meaning they could pass out of their respective committees or die. I’ll be following along and posting updates on Bluesky.

Additional reporting contributed by Erin Sellers.

The urbanist’s guide to bills to write home (or your legislators) about