By Scott Hamilton
Guest Contributor
Jay Inslee
A little noticed interview with Gov. Jay Inslee could potentially mean a new push to up-zone land in the Puget Sound region to accommodate more housing.
In a Dec. 10 interview with the Tacoma News Tribune, Inslee said “he will ask the state Legislature next year to approve major initiatives to increase the number of homes in Washington to address high prices and also take steps to reduce homelessness, which he called a ‘statewide crisis.’”
The News Tribune continued, quoting Inslee, “We’ve got to build more housing stock, and we are going to propose some proposals on how to do that, which will include financing more low-income housing,” he said. “But we also have to find a place to site new housing, which has to do with some of our land-use planning decisions.”
The governor said details will be released later this month. The Legislature opens its 60-day regular session on Jan. 13.
In February, State Sen, Mike Palumbo proposed a revision to the Growth Management Act—which applies to Sammamish—that would mandate a minimum zoning of R-6, or six units per acre.
Growth and development continue to be a major issue in Sammamish.
Sammamish Comment 
Sammamish would have been better served had it kept its word and followed its comprehensive plan thus meeting its obligation for growth. Instead some have decided to try and stop growth. The result is that Sammamish is a prime location for this upzoning, not because of freeway access but because of the abundance of open land, such as the undeveloped TC acreage. As has been said many times, growth is best managed. Now the question is will Sammamish develop its TC to sufficiently meet its obligation, or will it watch as the rest of the City is clear cut to accommodate more single family homes and urban sprawl? As a City with dwindling resources, it has limited options to buy and set aside acreage to preserve open space.
Hi, Just an FYI – Former State Senator Palumbo’s name is Guy, not Mike. He resigned and went to work for Amazon earlier this year. BTW- thank you for what you do! Michael ApplebyBellevue, WA206-595-4961
This is an irresponsible, top down proposal. Who is going to pay for the expanded road network to handle the added traffic? And the runoff into our wetlands and streams when we upzone R-1 ro R-6? All the more reason to make sure Inslee isn’t re-elected to another term.
It seems to me that the Governor is addressing a pressing, real problem of our successful state. Tthat means he will bring all of his considerable political skills to bear on getting his goal accomplished. If we in Sammamish are to minimize the impact of this legislation on our already stressed city, our best bet will be to work at influencing the legislature to include strong requirements that increased density must be accompanied by funding commensurate to the transportation and other infrastructure needs of all the new families that are expected to occupy the additional housing they’ll be living in. It seems to me that this is a major source of our present distress: that the developers haven’t been held to even the minimum infrastructure improvements that were required by their developments, for reasons that have been thoroughly discussed during our recent city council elections.
Is it that developers haven’t been funding improvements or is it that the City isn’t spending the money from impact fees in the correct areas? Impact fees can be collected for various infrastructure needs including roads. I agree with your assessment.
The council that was in charge when the community center project was approved (ie, Mayor Tom Vance, Dep Mayor Kathy Huckabay and Don Gerend, among others) diverted $25m in monies intended for roads to fund construction of the center. So said former Director of Public Works John Cunningham in an email obtained by Miki under a public records request.
Scott (since there’s no reply button on your comment), as I have pointed out several times, the $25m mistake is at least partially correctable through divestiture of the pool and structure that houses it. Even if all funds can’t be recovered upon the sale, there is an ongoing revenue stream available to the city by leasing back the land on which it’s built. This puts the money back into the city coffers where it can be deployed for the benefit of the ENTIRE city, with no bond issues (debt) and no new taxes. Otherwise it stands as a constant reminder of the fiscal irresponsibility of municipal governance, implicating the elected “representatives” who originally approved it as well as those who refuse to take responsible, corrective action now.
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Moonbeam with his garbage policy. Must be voted out of office. It is all about taxes.
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Impeach Inslee !! High time to make positive corrections for better fiscal operations. The man is totally clueless. The infrastructure is not in place ! What dumb things this man is proposing – yes stupidity. Calling the last election results unconstitutional is again a good reason to remove him from the office. Sammamish stand firm to confront him. We had enough. Sent from Mail for Windows 10