Activists Pushing for More From Tacoma's Ambitious and Ongoing Housing Density and Rezoning Process

The City of Tacoma is deep into a project known as "Home in Tacoma." This project will implement new policies through zoning, design standards, affordability, and anti-displacement steps, along with actions to support development. A project overview can be found here (6 pages).

The Tacoma City Council adopted Phase 1 of the project in December of 2021. Phase 1 directs the following 

• A housing growth scenario map, 
• Comprehensive Plan Changes (78 pages) to encourage the development of higher-density housing
• These changes include revisions to zoning maps to increase density
• Removes "Single Family Residential" from the zoning code and replaces it with a "Low-scale residential" designation that includes up to 10-25 dwelling units net per acre.
• Removes "multi-family" designation and replaces it with "mid-scale residential" providing 15-45 dwelling units per net acre.
• Retains "Multi-Family" high-density designation of 45-75 units per net acre.
• Adoption of near-term Code Changes (24 pages)
• Adoption of the city Housing Action Plan  (87 pages)
• Phase I Amendment to Comprehensive and Land Use Regulatory Code Mitigated Determination of Environmental Nonsignificance (383 pages)

City planners and specialists are currently updating three chapters of the One Tacoma Comprehensive Plan to implement the above changes.

Activists calling themselves the Home in Tacoma For All movement are complaining that this process simply does not do enough. They seek the following:

• Rent control
• Tenant right of first refusal to buy a property
• 6-month mandatory notice of rent hikes with easy-break leases
• Relocation assistance that is equal to three-months rent for increases above 10%
• Force developers to build 25% of units in larger new developments permanently affordable or pay into a fund that would be used for affordable housing (known elsewhere including Portland, Ore., as Inclusionary Housing)
• Creation of a social housing developer that would use money from the city's budget and bonding capacity to increase public development of housing for thousands of publicly-owned mixed-income units. (A similar initiative is underway in Seattle) 
• Ban natural gas from new residential construction
• Require building to highest standards of sustainability
• Fully subsidize retrofits from gas to clean energy