Thread by @CSElmendorf

CA deserves its moment in the sun, but journalists should be paying more attention to the amazing Abundance policies -- and better Democratic politics -- of our neighbors to the north.

Washington State is killing it. Oregon's doing pretty well too.

🧵/20.

https://twitter.com/PEWilliams_/status/1939875759318847863

Three examples:

1⃣ Wash. State rid itself of project-level enviro reviews of urban housing on a 97-3 vote, via normal leg process.

In CA, it required a daring gambit by @GavinNewsom, tying enviro review reform to budget.

/2

https://x.com/CSElmendorf/status/1633484561685561344

2⃣ In 2002, CA repealed parking minimums near "major transit stops." But the bill gives local govts wiggle room to re-impose parking mandates unless the project meets certain targets for deed-restricted-affordable housing.

/3

By contrast, WA just passed a sweeping, plain-bagel parking reform, eliminating parking mandates for units up to 1200 sqft *everywhere* -- not only near major transit stops -- and w/o regard to whether project has BMR units.

/4

3⃣ For nearly a decade, California YIMBYs have been trying to pass a bill that would upzone land near major transit stops for mid-rise apartment buildings. This year, it looks like they may finally do it!

AB 79 is the vehicle and it's a very good bill.

/5

But Washington's AB 1491--enacted earlier this year to little fanfare--is truly next level. Consider:

▶️ SB 79 proposes to upzone land near fixed transit stops; AB 1491 expands the geography to include bus-rapid-transit corridors.

/6

▶️ Both bills demand that cities allow floor-area ratios of 2.5-3.5 (depending on transit proximity), but HB 1491 **excludes 3+ bedroom units** from the FAR calculation.

If you're building apartments for families in Washington, the sky's the limit.

/7

▶️ Both bills require 10%-20% of units in the project to be deed-restricted affordable housing. But WA **compensates the developer** for losses on the affordable units, whereas in CA, this bagel topping will render projects less feasible.

/8

WA compensates the developer by exempting the entire building from property taxes for 20 years.

(Using an 8% discount rate and a 1% property-tax rate, that's tantamount to boosting the value of the new building by ~10%.)

/9

For more on Washington's amazing housing reforms, read this @danbertolet's blog post, and listen to @drvolts's recent pod w/ Rep. @juliagrantreed & Alex Brennan of @FuturewiseWA:

sightline.org/2025/05/15/was…,

volts.wtf/p/a-win-for-tr…

/9

I've had some not-for-attribution chats recently with WA folks, trying to understand how / why the WA state politics of land use are different from those of the blue states that get more attention (CA and NY).

/10

Here's what I've learned:

- In WA, the major enviro groups are pushing hard for infill housing, whereas in CA, they're usually on the sidelines, or worse.

/11

https://x.com/CSElmendorf/status/1938106642299818489

Why? Path dependence. WA, like OR, has long required local governments to adopt land-use plans that protect enviro resources. Those plans (like housing plans) are s/t state review.

The WA green groups' focus & human capital is devoted to substantive state-planning law.

/12

Whereas in CA, what the green groups "know" are the procedural complexities of CEQA. They need a better outlet.

- In WA, all the labor groups--Trades, Teachers, SEIU, AFSCME--are rowing in the same prohousing direction, hard. Whereas in CA, the labor movement...

/13

is split, with the most powerful group (State Building & Construction Trades) being oppositional, the Carpenters being helpful, and groups like SEIU or Teachers mostly sitting on the sidelines and occasionally doing damage.

/14

In WA, there's a settled consensus w/in Labor that imposing "prevailing wage" or "skilled & trained" mandates on privately funded projects would be counterproductive, whereas in CA, this has been a core demand of the engaged unions.

/15

I suspect this difference is mostly due to prices. Washington housing never got expensive enough for unions to extract PW or project-labor agreements from private builders.

Hankinson et al. provide strong evidence for such price effects at muni level.

/16

- Another key difference, apparently, is that Seattle's progressive weekly paper, @TheStranger, has long been very prohousing.

It publishes an influential voter guide and I was told it's almost impossible to run & win as a progressive in Seattle w/o its endorsement.

/17

By contrast, the analogous progressive weekly in San Francisco, the SF Bay Guardian, was arch-NIMBY.

/18sfbg.com

Progressives in WA are committed to building more deed-restricted affordable housing, but the influence of The Stranger means they're not knee-jerk "anti-developer" types.

They understand the need to compensate developers for BMR mandates.

/19
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

For more on the interesting, productive "PA Northwest" shade of blue-state housing politics, check out the video from @BESI_Berkeley's recent convening on blue-state governance and follow @andersem @danbertolet @FuturewiseWA @Sightline @drvolts



/endbesi.berkeley.edu/3-takeaways-fr…

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