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[music] howdy I'm nolan gray your friendly neighborhood City planner research director at california yimby and one of the co-leads of the new metropolitan abundance project welcome back to the abundance podcast in this episode I chat with Anthony Gill he's an economic development professional and the writer of Spokane rising an urbanist blog focused on the ways to make Spokane a better place to live in this episode we t about Spokane some of the recent incredible zoning reforms that have happened there we talk about some re forms happening at the statewide level uh in Washington and we talk a little bit about that other City in Washington you might have heard of uh Seattle in this episode we're joined by robin leslie our uh director of strategic partnerships as always like subscribe leave a comment a full transcript of this episode is available on metro abundance. Org that's metro abundance. Org uh feel free to go check it out and with that on to the show cool uh hi anthony welcome to the abundance podcast hello thanks for inviting me uh pleasure is all ours and we're joined by robin leslie our director of strategic partnerships right that's right so let's talk about Spokane I think a lot of folks heard about some of the exciting stuff that happened in Spokane last late last year we're recording this in early 2024 uh but you know um I've actually never been a spokan and robin have you been you're from Seattle uh yes I have been I have not spent quality time but have been I I say you're from Seattle as if like these aren't like on the opposite end of a giant State that would cover like
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Three states on the east coast but in any case some people might take it a certain way to cast that his verion so let's let's uh I am from Seattle I do not claim I claim no spokan well you know whenever I tell people I'm from kentucky they're always like oh I know somebody from kentucky but you probably don't know them it's a big State and I'm like try me because it actually kind of uh actually is a really small State in a certain sense uh in any case uh anthony why don't you tell us a little bit about spokan u why is it interesting and you know what what maybe some characteristics of the City that might make it clear like what other peer cities might be yeah definitely so spokan is a City kind of on the border with northern idaho uh so not the Seattle area but uh complete opposite side of the State in eastern Washington uh about 250,000 people in the City about 4 00,000 in the County uh and the metro area really I would say kind of connects over into northern idaho so there's a lot of kind of cross State uh connections a lot of people go back and forth for jobs or housing and whatnot um and the whole area kind of in its entirety is probably about 600,000 people so kind of midsize City um really grew up around uh the railroad forestry uh min in um kind of in the late 1800s early 1900s um actually has a really significant transit history uh transit and rail history as a kind of a rail hub but really just a really beautiful town
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River running through it um really strong pre-war grid um really good bones of a City uh which is one of the things that I love about it personally um is just like the character this the feeling of the place it really feels like it you know kind of maybe Seattle you know 20 30 years ago portland 20 30 years ago uh really strong pacific northwest City yeah no I was noticing that when I was looking on google maps I mean just the incredible grid and a lot of small blocks with alley alleys bisecting them I mean that's I always say like that's kind of the hardest thing to fix with cities is like the street grid and so like these cities that are starting from a place with a great grid are really in a good position right absolutely and really the majority of the City I would say probably 60 70% of it actually has that like really strong pre-war grid um so it's really only once you get out toward the fringe that it starts to spread out a little bit more so I know there's been a huge amount of growth in probably I guess somewhat kind of sort of nearby cities you know boise right has had some of the most rapid growth not in any again not in any normal like american sense of close but in the general region right there's been a lot of movement away from really high cost coastal cities like Seattle and portland into this region what's been going on with span on that front yeah so I would say i' separated out into two kind of periods so I think uh prior to maybe the I don't know 2018 2019 period um I think spoken was
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Probably on a different trajectory from say boise or some of those like still larger slightly larger cities um that have maybe a stronger university base a stronger maybe tech sector uh boise actually has a lot of tech jobs spokan doesn't um so maybe it was on a little bit of a different trajectory a little bit more stagnant slower growth and then really what happened is the pandemic hit and uh of course people moving away from these high cost cities uh having the freedom to be able to go wherever and work wherever uh really supercharged uh growth in rents and housing costs so we had a period especially god 2020 into 2022 really I mean everywhere had that but spokan it was probably supercharged uh with people moving away from Seattle portland san francisco uh sometimes with like legitimate family connections in Spokane uh so it's not like they were moving away for no reason but uh moving into the Spokane area and really driving up housing costs um I don't have the stats you know super handy but I would say uh very significant growth I mean in my for my perspective I you know I was looking for a condo actually in spokan uh early in the pandemic about 2020 uh and I was looking at condos that were kind of in the 250 270 range and this would get you like a good
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Two-bedroom you know two bedroom two bath condo and uh you know the same condo today is probably going for 450 500 so and that's that's now after kind of the peak of uh housing cost so uh it's been a big runup in prices and costs for people yeah I think robin and I hearing 200 250 for a condo from where we are in sf and la is uh painful uh 45500 crying over here it's fine that's fine I'm I'm still like uh yelling at myself for not buying ben many such cases um well so I mean part of the reason why we're talking about spokan uh with you is it actually seems like right so I like many cities across the country there's been an incredible run up in home prices but not every City has I think responded with zoning reform commensurate to the scale of the problem and Spokane seems like an interesting exception so maybe let's just walk through it I mean what was the situation going into some of these reforms fairly typical zoning permitting rules like what were the big hurdles as far as you could tell yeah definitely so spokan had done a couple of things kind of nibbling around the edges is how I would describe it so uh you know had done a little bit of work around making adus a little bit easier to build but nothing maybe on the scale of some of this even the State level legislation that we've seen in some
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States uh you know had done a little bit of work to try to look at the codes to figure out like what is driving people not choosing to build you know these accessory dwelling units or uh you know the housing was one that was a really big you know popular talking point um and had done a little bit of that work but in general 70% of the City was zoned for single family homes uh our comprehensive plan which is uh in Washington State our prime governing document in planning uh you know was really oriented around these single family homes and concent trading growth along major like commercial corridors and major commercial centers uh so we called it our centers and corridors plan and I think there had been a lot of effort around trying to figure out ways to concentrate growth there and not a lot of focus on uh how do we enable more housing in the rest of the City um so that was kind of what we were coming in with was this uh comprehensive plan that probably was rooted really in kind of like the 90s early 2000s uh like it had some principles of smart growth but maybe wasn't uh at the bleeding edge uh and certainly wasn't at the bleeding edge that we see today I'm kind of curious this bleeding
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Edge you're talking about one of the things that uh you know nolan and I when you have conversations about you know massing standards height setbacks all these things what are you allowed to build on a parcel so I guess what's your kind of dream thing that gets built as a result of all these changes I'm curious if you can kind of take us through some of your what you'd like to see happen in Spokane yeah so in Spokane I think uh some of the things that you know are now legal um as a result of the changes that we made uh starting in 2022 and then make making them permanent in 202 three uh you can now build an aplex on a single family lot um which is just incredible I mean you I talk to friends in Seattle and they start like yelling at me that is the case yeah or Seattle's not a big City like spokan you know I don't know if it can handle that a level exactly uh but I mean I think one of the things that was most significant about the reforms that we made is that we kept it very simple so uh you know I think our planning director and our City Council did a really good job of reducing the level of complexity in the zoning code uh so you know there's no long we no longer have duplicate regulation of things like f setbacks uh height limits you know it's just very simple you have some setbacks you have that are fairly reasonable you
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Have minimum lot size and you have a height limit and it's basically that um so for me what I'm really excited about is the potential for uh you know I think six plexes eight plexes uh like who knows how many eight plexes we'll see I don't know but uh certainly six plexes and we have developers already ready taking advantage of these rules um I go into the pering system every couple weeks just to kind of take a peek and see if anything new has dropped in and you know they're taking advantage um and especially of the kind of the interlocking pieces of the these reforms uh that really almost they multiply the level of actual density that this allows so you know I say eight plexes on a single family lot well if you have a big single family lot two eight plex buildings not crazy uh to think about so uh yeah it's it's very significant let's chunk it out and like figure out how we got here so the one of the first big reforms was eliminating parking requirements within a half mile of transit right well so the first big action that we took was uh in 2022 uh the City Council adopted uh interim rules uh Washington State has uh a system where you can actually put in place interim zoning rules for up to six
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Months and then the City Council can extend it uh that allowed up to four plexes so the original was up to four plexes um and the intent there was really to let's just go ahead and do it let's try it let's see what happens um and during that time they worked on the permanent new rules that now allow ap plexes in the middle of that time we also went ahead and made parking optional within a half mile of transit so uh we've had a number of different reforms that have kind of taken place and they all start to blur together even for me um but the I think the way that we passed our uh missing middle legislation was pretty unique because we decided to do it through an emergency ordinance which meant that we didn't need to do all of the front-ended community engagement work all of the you know sea nepa analysis all of the process basically took place after the legislation was already in place which meant that we didn't necessarily have all of these big community meetings where people come out and say oh god this is going to cause disaster uh because people recognized oh these rules are already in place so it kind of obviates the actual opposition well so what was the what was
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The political landscape like such that you could do something like that I mean in many places that would seem pretty radical I think there's a couple things so our City Council is was very unique at the time it still is very unique but it was unique at the time we have a uh in spokan we have a strong Mayor and the way many people describe it is strong Council uh form of government so our Council actually does take significant policy moves that you might not see in uh other strong Mayor cities um it at the time was split 52 between progressives and conservatives uh and the conservatives are legitimate conservatives they're republicans uh um and but at the same time the those conservatives are uh I think different from what you see in some other cities so one of them was the former uh lobbyist for our homebuilders association one of them is a conservative who is just generally much more libertarian minded um so I think that results in maybe him being more open to these types of reforms than uh one might ect and then none only one of our uh progressive City Council members was someone I would describe as maybe like coming up through like neighborhood councils uh and kind of community neighborhood boards that type of system uh the rest of them were much more rooted in uh labor housing justice
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Groups um and uh act like just straight activism so uh I think our Council itself was a little bit unique at the time in that uh we had opportunity for people to come together where they might not ordinarily um the other piece of the puzzle is that I think our Council in general and our community because we're located so close to northern idaho because we're located in a region uh we're kind of a blue dot in a sea of red is how I describe it uh people are comfortable having strange bud fellows people are comfortable you know agreeing with people on one thing even if they vehemently disagree with their you know maybe their positions on social issues or their position on uh you know other urban issues even in some cases um I think that by necessity people have to come together in a place like Spokane where they might not have to uh in a place like Seattle or san francisco or los angeles just from a political necessity perspective so in terms of the interest groups pushing one way or another what was that landscape like yeah so uh frankly I don't think we actually had any organized opposition which is pretty unique um that you know there were people who were potentially opposed uh to uh missing middle reforms but there was no organized
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Opposition uh the people who came together in support uh was a really broad coalition so uh you know most significantly we have the homebuilders on board uh historically the homebuilders in Spokane have been supportive of more conservative City Council candidates have been uh more that just in general they build sprawl developments uh so they're not you know necessarily the types of developers that would actually be taking advantage of these rules in many cases or if they are taking advantage of them they're taking advantage of them in places where some activists maybe wouldn't want them to take advantage of these rules um more toward the urban fringe uh we had a very strong contingent of uh low-income housing developers uh the habitat for humanity is very strong in Spokane so uh habitat is a good example of uh a strong supporter and then uh spokan also has a very strong very significant uh homelessness crisis like many uh west coast cities right now so a lot of the homeless services uh homelessness advocates uh were actually involved in the push for these new regulations ations because of the potential benefit uh in terms of long-term affordable housing uh creating a more a better long-term picture uh for housing costs so I think a pretty
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Broad mix of supporters and then you had of course all of the typical people you know I was out there uh you know on twitter pushing people to go to City Council meetings uh getting people to send letters uh and you know I would describe myself as kind of a typical urbanist advocate um but in general I think one of the biggest things is uh we did not have organized opposition uh in any real way um that we might have had if we had taken a more traditional approach uh to passing the legislation I'm curious if that's sprung up after having passed this I would say uh we might be getting certainly not organized opposition but right now we might be seeing uh some of kind of the first wave of uh questions in the community would be how I would describe it um people like developers are actually getting permits for uh you know fourplexes and six plexes in single family neighborhoods and you know you are seeing more posts on next door more posts on reddit uh about it so and the posts are all I'm really happy this is happening near me this is great right more neighbors yay certainly not on next door uh on renit yes actually which is good but uh certainly not on next door has there been a divide in kind of the reaction from different neighborhoods I'm curious you know I'm thinking like
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Correct me if I'm wrong but like kind of some southern neighborhoods of Spokane are more well off then there's the north and east and so I'm curious if it's been geographically located by like more wealthier single family homeowner neighborhoods or not I we see that sometimes and I'm curious for that breakdown along similar lines certainly the opposition I've seen on next door is coming more from uh you know residents on the south hill um and those are yes it's it's more you have some historic neighborhoods quote unquote historic uh neighborhoods down there um and definitely more off more affluent uh probably disproportionately whiter although spokan in general is fairly white um and but with that said one of the interesting things is uh a lot of people before I shouldn't say a lot of people there were some people before the legislation passed that were concerned that uh you actually wouldn't see any sixplex or fourplex development on the south hill because the land costs would be so high and then you would be concentrating the growth in neighborhoods that maybe are lower opportunity um you know lower fewer like access to amenities these types of things um but we what we have seen is applications have come in across the City so and permits are being issued across the City so it there isn't necessarily a geographic concentration of uh these missing middle units in terms of what's being applied for as of
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Right now that could still change and we could see that trend start to develop but as of now uh at the very least it's actually really good that we're seeing uh applications coming in on the south hill to because it shows that you know really when you unlock these options across the City they will be developed across the City so let's let's get a little bit more into the nitty-gritty on some of the policy stuff so parking requirements removed within a half mile of transit up to eight units allowed on a typical lot could you unpack that a little bit more I mean what's the geography of that what are the restrictions like what are the massing provisions you know that was a big issue some places that have legalized single family or eliminated single family zoning uh is they changed the use but they don't change the massing rules so like I think the listenership of this podcast is keen to hear like the some of the details here I think yeah definitely so and that's kind of where I live uh in a good and bad way um so one of the things that's significant is uh so I can just kind of jam through them real quick um there's actually no f regulation at all um for uh our single family quote unquote single family now they're called r1 neighborhoods um there actually is a minimum density of four units per acre pretty small pretty typical um minimum lot size 1,200 square fet which is pretty small um that kind of works out about to what would that be 80 feet deep is the minimum lot depth and then 15 feet is the minimum lot width um we have a
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Maximum total building coverage of 65% so you can cover 65% of the land area of that lot uh with that said if you're located within a certain radius of transit or a commercial zone you actually can go up to 80% um and uh if you provide at le a few affordable units you can go up to 80% uh in terms of setbacks uh the front setback is 10 feet the side setback is three feet on narrow lots and five feet on lots that are at least 40 feet wide and then in the rear it's uh 15 feet or zero if you include an ADU uh in the back um now that's all kind of for detached housing you also can do zero lot line uh development row homes uh that don't have any side setbacks um it's just kind of governed under a different provision of our uh zoning code but in general the big things that uh people keep in mind is uh no f uh 1,200 sq foot minimum lot size and then there's a 40 foot height limit so you can go up all the way to 40 feet in a single family neighborhood formerly single family now r1 neighborhood uh which means you can get up to really four stories um now people if they do include parking it gets a little bit
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More complicated but uh that's kind of the the general uh rules that we have in place I was reading up on it and one part that I thought was interesting is the maximum footprint for a building uh I was wondering if you could share a bit more about that and if that's been like how that came about or if it's been an impediment to yeah so I my understanding is that's basically getting at one of the things that the our planners have and our Plan Commission was were trying to balance is trying to maintain that there some level of outdoor space uh in particular for uh you know these larger units that may be going in uh you know you want to have some gathering space outside uh you want to have like whether it's trees or uh even just lawn space for people um that's the big thing that people are trying to maintain with that uh maximum building footprint um and also the fact that you may have uh on a larger lot uh part of it is trying to get it at that issue on larger lot but no to date I have not heard any concerns from uh developers about the maximum building footprint uh we also have fairly generous rules in terms of lot splitting so uh what I have seen is some developers will actually if they have a large lot they may actually just divide the lot and then uh do you know one type of middle housing on one lot
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Another type on another maybe they'll they'll do the same type of building on both um but that's another way to kind of get around that maximum building footprint if you have a large lot that's interesting so you can subdivide the lot and then do up to the maximum number of units on each lot huh technically no maximum unit count so the only thing governing the unit count is how many you can fit in so you could in theory do micro units um and do you know I mean I guess in theory you could do like you know 20 30 units if you did like a really small uh setup but uh yeah that's the idea that's interesting yeah I mean the minimum lot size stuff is near and dear to my heart done a lot of work on this and I mean just as a way to stimulate more small lot homes and town homes is a lot of the reform so far has done a good job at making it easier to build multif family housing rentals uh most and that's good but you also have a lot of communities that really want to stimulate the supply of new owner occupancy opportunities and many states condo defect laws and other rules make that a big issue so you can't be condos but so you can do town houses and small atart homes and um I'm curious if there's been sort of what's what kind of action you've seen there I think that's probably one of the biggest things that you'll see happen in spokan is town homes um and I think one of the reasons for that is Washington State's condo law um so we have it's not exactly the same condo uh defect law issues as california where it's much more complicated but uh we have those issues so uh I think we're
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Gonna end up seeing a lot of uh developers take advantage of these rules to do zero lot line to do town homes um I think you know we will see a significant number of things like stacked flats uh because we do have a number of developers that are really interested in that concepts that are kind of frankly a lot of Seattle developers who wish that they could develop in Seattle that are uh now maybe not entirely by choice going over to Spokane to do it um but I think what I've seen so far in the permitting system is you know we're getting a lot of people taking advantage of these lot split rules um so they will divide the lot and then maybe they'll do four town homes on each new lot that they've created um so there's I think a significant amount of flexibility that comes uh with these new rules in terms of the types of products that you can build uh it'll take some time to see what really works uh and what sells of course but you know we have a good amount of precedent in spokan for people purchasing town homes uh we have a couple neighborhoods uh newer build neighborhoods where those are more common so I think we're going to see a significant number of those there's a pretty substantial industry already going on doing those zero lot line ones in Seattle as well or at least there was a boom in 2019 so are you guys kind of jump chopping up those developers too I think that's part of it yeah I think we're g I think you're gonna see I mean Seattle I mean and maybe some of this is
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Uh maybe some of this is where Seattle see some uh nism take place as there people freaking out about town homes but uh yeah I think we are probably on that path of seeing many more of those uh in spokan well so I'm curious is spokan subject to this similar like fiveyear rents rule on condos so like you have to rent them for five years and then they can be available for sale I don't know if it's five years uh specifically but same condo laws in general uh apply in Spokane um you know I think there have been some movements at actually at the State legislature to try to reform some of the condo laws in Washington we've done a little bit of that uh but it really and it's been particularly for uh buildings with fewer than 12 units and honestly it hasn't really gone far enough for especially the banks and the like the financing to work out for the development uh like the banks need to feel comfortable fundamentally and they're not there yet uh but you do see I think in Seattle yeah you do see people building um you know a a apartment building and then you know after you know five seven years they will sell um and I think we will see some of that in Spokane as well one of the things that I think was a talking point earlier on uh in the last legislative session around some of these condo reform rules is you know you if
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You did it in spokan you know some of the liability concerns in eastern Washington might be mitigated just by nature of it being in eastern Washington uh you might not have to worry about earthquakes as much you might not worry as much about mold um so I think there's potential maybe even to do like some sort of bifurcated system it's not great for Seattle but you could potentially do a some sort of bifurcated system uh on both sides of the State let's talk a little bit more about the output of some of these changes I mean just looking at the us census data and um you gotta be careful with it because a lot of times it's imputed but when you have these big jumps like you did in 2023 in Spokane I mean kind of remarkable and I mean a few things jump out at me is first it's almost the total inversion of typology from 20 years prior it's like the City was almost exclusively building single family homes for a period there well I guess not it's almost building a lot of multif family but mostly single family homes now that's flipped it's mostly multif family and there's a pretty robust amount of duplexes and three to four plexes being built I mean not nearly at the scale that I think we would like to see it someday but far more than you know according to the sensus 72 the building permit survey data 72 duplexes and 22 units and triplexes and fourplexes that's a lot by like a us standard that's uh and I mean just an overall amount of housing production that's on like almost like sun belt yeah um do you want to provides more color with that like what types of
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Projects are we seeing uh who's building them are banks like kind of rediscovering these missing metal typologies that they maybe they've forgotten how to finance there's like seven different questions there but I'm fasc by the answer to everyone yeah definitely um so I think one of the things that's interesting about spokan is that uh we have a couple of areas that just outside of City limits where uh Spokane County which is in general much more conservative much more uh maybe quote unquote developer friendly but that might be the not be the exactly the right frame to think about them um so right outside of the City we have a lot of uh apartment development happening um and a little bit also happening in spokan valley which is a separate jurisdiction uh a good number amount of apartment development in liberty lake uh and then a good amount in airway heights as well which is kind of another suburb um so I think a lot of what you probably see in that census data is uh apartment development that's happening honestly probably more outside of the City of spokan uh than uh you might expect uh assuming you're looking at County level data um the with that said uh I think we are seeing a good number of applications coming in for uh missing middle uh type housing uh you know I think one of the earlier updates earlier this year I think in January they said they had received 150
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Applications roughly 150 applications um with you know significant number of units as a result of that uh I don't think they gave the unit count of that point uh but also seeing a significant amount of you know I think smaller apartment development so not so much like the 300 unit apartment buildings the 400 unit apartment buildings these big five over tws uh you know that you see in Seattle portland san francisco well maybe not san francisco san jose uh los angeles uh not so many of those but you're seeing a lot of uh redevelopment of old historic downtown buildings uh old brick buildings being converted into from offices we actually have a good number of office conversions in downtown spokan um you're seeing a number of smaller developments happening down there and then we're also seeing uh a good amount of that of interest in that type of development in what I was referencing ear our centers and corridors um so I think it's an a mix I think you know we will see I think a significant pickup in activity for our missing middle rule uh development over the next year I'm going to be really interested in seeing the 2024 numbers in particular because there'll have been more time for the developers to get a sense of like oh it's possible you know what might I be able to develop on
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The these properties that I own I don't think they had that ability yet and we're starting to see that happen now um but what we have seen is just this supercharge uh of development of small apartment buildings and uh you know redeveloped apartment buildings in the core uh and a lot of that is as a result of Washington states uh multif family tax exemption program so we have a program that gives develop v opers uh a property tax break if they develop multif family housing um it's kind of interesting because it actually results in a pseudo land value tax but uh if you develop affordable housing in spokan and affordable in spokan we define that very broadly up to 115% AMI uh you can get a property tax break if you're building uh multif family housing and a lot of developers are taking advantage of that right now so walk me through that a little bit more is the State kicking in money to offset that or how does that like what how does that not distort fiscal incentives for local governments it does distort fiscal incentives for local government uh no for State government especially but uh it's actually just one of the biggest tools that Washington State has uh to incentivize housing development we don't have uh in Washington State uh tax inurement financing so we're one of the few states in the country that doesn't have that tool um which of course there like it's
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Been abused in some cases but uh can be a really powerful tool for investing in infrastructure development um we don't have incentive tools that other states have for housing this is the only one we have um and it really is intended for uh yeah these big multif family project small and big but midsize and bigger uh multif family projects in the cores of cities um it's used I think very well in cities like Seattle belleview uh they actually have stricter rules and Spokane has around affordability with those units um but Spokane has kept it relatively loose in part because of I think the consensus that we have on our Council around just build baby build like any units are good units at this point um let's let's talk about the State here in a minute but kind of wrapping up on a reflection on some of the local stuff uh what are the lessons learned for cities that might be looking to spokan as maybe a pure City what would you what's worked maybe more importantly what's not worked I think that I think they're probably three things I think uh one is uh it really helps to be comfortable having strange bed fellows um I think spokan like that's just been one of the unique factors that and we talked about it that resulted in us being able to pass missing middle legislation uh I witness the same fights in Seattle that I think are much more
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Political because people just don't want to be on the same side as someone else on an issue um because they disagree with them on other things and I just I think that's fundamentally the wrong place to go on housing so you need to be comfortable you know having agreeing with you know the in spokan the greater spok chamber like the chamber of commerce you need to agree with them uh if they're right on housing you need to agree with uh labor organizations if they're right on housing you need to just be comfortable having a really big tent uh I think that's really important um you know one of the other things is uh you know the process if you have a tool that lets you uh you know invert your typical process and pass things on an interim basis and then do all of the rigma rooll and process and environmental review and analysis on the back end take advantage of it um because that's a really great tool to kind of dissuade people from you know blowing up about a particular issue because you can test the waters and that you know things aren't going to change overnight uh and then third I think uh and you know really importantly for spokan and I haven't mentioned this is we have a really strong planning team a really strong planning department uh that is comfortable making strong recommendations to City Council I think we have uh planning in this country has uh maybe been too willing to take a back
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Seat uh to uh elected officials uh maybe a little bit too willing to say well what do you want and I think we need to be comfortable planners need to be comfortable making strong recommendations um and you know show all the data behind it show all of the uh thinking behind it show that you have uh you know thought about this in your professional capacity uh and are making a rec recommendation that's backed up uh but make a strong recommendation to your Council make a strong recommendation to your City manager City leadership I think that's really important planners play a significant role in this process and uh on both sides they can speed things up and slow things down um so I think we planner should not be slowing things down I think that's important so those are my three biggest takeaways um and I you know I hope to god places like san francisco and los angeles uh can uh take them some of those things to heart uh but if not we definitely are will relish permitting sorry more housing units than you all did in the first half of the year yeah we have great planners at least here in la uh we definitely cannot do coalitions um and I don't think we can iate reform without squel but very good principles and certainly some that folks
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In some of the cities and states that we work with can take to heart yeah I'm curious uh you know takeaways from any relational with like other City neighbors you know you talked a bit about how there was apartment building going on you know in you know along the I90 corridor leading to idaho right where all those communities are and I'm curious kind of are they worried you're going to eat their lunch on housing development and are they is your reform sporing more reform over there or kind of I'm curious how that's playing out with your neighbors well so I think uh what's really interesting is some of the neighbors actually are probably on the opposite end of the spectrum uh spoken valley uh before Washington State passed its uh fourplex law um spoken valley actually uh made duplexes illegal they originally were legal across the entire City but they made them illegal uh which is so they actually moved backward which is a little bit unique um but I think some of the I think you probably will see a little bit of that but I think it'll be as a result of State action and I think State action in Washington State has been really strong and will result in cities like liberty lake spoken valley uh airway heights to a certain extent uh actually have to go back and in spoken valley's case rel legalize uh some of these uh missing biddle housing types um but yeah I think part of the challenge with our region is that once you get outside of
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Spokane City limits you end up encountering a much more uh conservative much more and much more socially conservative uh political environment and I think that results in uh I don't know maybe some culture war issues starting to play into the conversation about missing middle you were um I actually believe in property rights and deregulation republicans and more keep your government hands off my single family zoning uh republicans yeah much more like agenda 21 uh oh god go yeah it goes that extreme the closer you get to idaho exactly um well so I one quick thing more on spokan you know what's what's next I mean there's been a lot of amazing stuff but of course there's still probably great work to do so to your mind what's next for zoning reform and housing affordability more broadly and spokan yeah so one of the things that I think uh I'm really excited about is we're we are about to launch a comprehensive plan update Washington State requires update updates every 10 years and we are about to launch that process in spokan I think uh we have a lot of potential around kind of inverting our growth paradigm uh historically we've really put a lot of attention into these centers and corridors uh I think we still will probably put some attention into them but I think we're g to probably start to think a little bit more about uh growing in our neighborhoods uh so paying more attention to these missing middle
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Housing types I really am interested in figuring out if we can embed neighborhood commercial at a greater scale uh we actually are probably a little bit more permissive on neighborhood commercial than some cities but I think we can go further um I personally would really like to see something like accessory commercial units uh something like uh you know a corner store uh legislation would really like to see neighborhood cafes at greater scale in Spokane these types of spaces are really popular where we do have them in Spokane and so I think we could do it really easily I don't think we'd have opposition nearly at the level that you see in some cities uh so that's one thing I'm I'm personally really excited for and then the second piece is uh we have a lot of work to do around uh transportation and transit um so you know we've gotten rid of parking requirements for housing but I think we have some potential to do that for commercial um commercial parking requirements drive me crazy uh because they result in the like most ridiculous uh like outcomes you can imagine uh I think about you know the restaurants during COVID that couldn't put in outdoor dining areas into their parking lots because their parking like had to be there or in some cases uh even if they weren't taking over a parking lot they were adding space to
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Their restaurant so that increased the amount of parking that they were technically required to have so uh from my perspective we just need to completely get rid of commercial parking requirements and I think that's something as well that uh our City Council is going to be looking at in the next several months and hopefully years uh we take advantage of that so a lot of work to do but I think I'm I'm really excited about the potential I would love it if you all could lead on accessory commercial units because it's just such a great it's such a cool next sort of frontier issue uh and just key for reducing vmt um okay robin do we want to do a quick lightning round before we turn to State stuff best place to get lunch and spoke in oh god that's impossible uh I'm really right now I'm a huge fan of taco uh which is this kind of hole in the wall uh breakfast taco place in uh kind of the it's on northwest boulevard in spokan what's the next City you hope to visit for the first time oh that's so hard I'm doing ait trip to detroit uh next week I've been there before but haven't spent a ton of time there and haven't really met people there so I'm I'm looking forward to detroit um I actually have never been to new york City though so for me uh I feel like I need to experience like the like quote unquote urban capital of the united states uh so that's
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Definitely on my list um what's your favorite you know you talked about transit history and Spokane and transit projects what's your favorite transit idea for Spokane oh pipe dream would be uh highspeed rails to Seattle um yeah slightly less pipe dreamy would be uh you know you could create a really great uh regional uh train system in Washington State just by investing a little bit of money I say little but it's still probably on the order of $200 million but some money in uh some additional train sets and more operations uh if you could have four trains a day uh from spokan to Seattle uh and a couple of them probably going through like yakama tri cities pasco uh you could do something really incredible in terms of connecting the State um so for me I go back and forth way too often so uh I'm I'm definitely interested in better train service in the I think I broke the lightning round rules noan I apologize back actual lightning round uh it's no problem at all perfectly good answer um favorite uh day trip outside of spokan uh I'm a huge skier so uh I spend a ton of time at schwitzer in north idaho uh it's north idaho but it's awesome it's great skiing uh in the interest of cross State unity could you say something nice about
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Seattle the silence def it it has a growing light rail system know if it's not growing fast enough it has a growing light rail system and I like that we'll get to east west it's fine north south's good it's good uh very good uh okay on the way of wrapping up here let's talk about the State uh Washington State's been doing a lot of really exciting State level zoning reform uh what's happened so far what still needs to happen and what potentially can they learn from spokan yeah so uh last year last calendar year uh two legislative sessions ago uh Washington State passed uh a bill uh hb110 which uh legalizes four plexes across the State uh and six plexes in certain areas uh close to transit um and in kind of our bigger cities uh that is a huge step forward um and I think really significant uh we've also done a lot of good work around uh in making it a little bit easier to build different types of housing so we were one of the first dates to pass a single stair uh bill which I'm personally very excited about as someone who uh you know spent time in germany lived in germany for a little bit uh in a single stair building um that concept I'm just stoked about um we've also done some really good stuff around adus we have a really good ADU bill that passed again a couple
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Legislative sessions ago we have a lot of work to do though to implement those laws um Seattle's comp plan update is a really good example of that uh they have released a draft right now that really just does not go nearly far enough and I would argue in some sense actually violates the spirit and intent of hb110 because while in theory it legalizes uh fourplexes and six plexes across Seattle uh in practice because of the zoning code rules that they have uh how many are going to buil be built probably very few so we need to do some work I think around uh making sure that the cities are actually implementing what they've been required to implement by the State and doing it uh well and in a way that in practice results in the types of missing middle housing that we need um you know so we've had uh a concept uh and a actually legislation in the past legisl legislative session uh that would put in a form of a builder's remedy if states cities are not actually implementing their hb11 10 and other State law uh required rules uh I think there's a lot of complexity around california's version of a builder's remedy so I'm not sure if that's exactly the right solution uh but we need to definitely do some work uh to
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Make sure at the very least that the cities are implementing the rules that they need to implement um so whether it's a builder remedy or some other form of accountability for cities I think we really need at the State level uh to do some work to make sure that cities like Seattle uh or eastern Washington spoken valley uh aren't shering their responsibility uh even while cities like spokan are trying to take full advantage this is one of the big challenges in california too it's it's easy to pass a lot of good laws but if local jurisdictions are still basically in the driver's seat on implementing and they still do not actually want to do what the State's proposing to do you're kind of playing a game of enforcement whacka all right and I mean that's kind of where we're at now in california where it's like if a jurisdiction grossly violates the law you know the attorney general and the housing accountability unit all of that will come in but you know right a lot of jurisdictions still fly under the radar you know I suspect that as in california where the big cities or the cities that are that want a fight like the huntington beaches they get a fight but so many cities just fly under the radar and I suspect that is true in Washington as well your se Seattle's probably to a certain extent going to be under a microscope and it's it's showing up a lot in my newsfeed from all the great yimes and urbanists there uh but it's like man you know like ideally you get to a system that doesn't rely on this like every City staying under a microscope well and I think it results
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In a lot of uh so results in a lot of money for lawyers and the court system and I just I don't think that's the right solution to this problem um you know it can get results absolutely um but I think there's there's probably some work to do to figure out you know does there need to be some form of State level agency that like is like more in the driver's seat we actually in Washington State don't have a dedicated department of housing um which is something that is being talked about uh our commerce department handled a lot of housing related issues but uh they're kind of the everything department so uh is there potential to do something a little bit more like hcd where you have a little bit more authority uh to come in but yeah again I don't think the using the legal system necessarily as a tool uh is going to result in the right outcomes at least fast enough um and that's another big piece of it another thing I'd like to see at the State level I have to say is uh and you know I'm sure this will be something that you all are on board with but uh we need fundamental uh environmental law reform so uh our State environmental policy act does some good things and is well intentioned uh but it also does some bad things uh not as bad as in california but I think it can result in some perverse outcomes and reviews for things that just absolutely
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Should not require reviews one of the things that Seattle had to review they had to do a sea review on turning over the downtown Seattle transit tunnel from king County metro to sound transit like just the ownership change needed a sea review which just is insane to me that's wild I had thought that Washington State did a better job here in terms of most infil being really exempted from that ss that we've done a good job of but yeah but I didn't realize that there was still some games like you know famously our environmental quality act sequel was used to toh stop bike lanes for example yeah I didn't realize there were some shenanigans in Washington like that's a and maybe it's just we wanna we continue to want to do better right like maybe it's just you know we have our eyes on like oh like it's good perfect yeah but uh yeah it's definitely it's not as bad as california I will say that it's okay to want to be perfect uh you know you don't have to apologize for that um yeah I mean in terms of uh bigger picture from maybe the states what what's been the big thing that really has worked at the State level and what would you know I one of the things that I situation we're in now is you know Washington oregon california we've kind of been wrestling with this stuff for a while but you know of course this housing affordability is who has exploded into a whole bunch of other states montana was probably one of the biggest movers last year what are some of the other what would be your
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Recommendations as somebody who's watched what's happened in Washington be for other states that are considering State levels zoning reform for the first time I would say one thing that uh was really important with hb110 which was our fourplex law is you if you need to make compromises to get something past take the win um I think uh hb 1110 was not perfect I think the original version was six plexes statewide and much there were fewer uh like caveats in terms of like the cities where it applies and the affordable housing like in some cases requirements if you want to do six instead of four um take the win um you know I think if you can a duplex law in your State but you can't don't think you can get up to four plexes do the duplex law right uh if you can get really good ADU laws on the books in your State uh but you don't think you can go to the duplex rules take the win um I think you know we so often like I said like want the perfect solution and we should strive to that absolutely uh but we also have to be strategic and I think we have to think a little bit about what is going to be politically acceptable politically valid politically viable in your State you know montana's a great example they created a bill that is uniquely montana um and you know oregon did something similar with their bill you
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Know uh arizona is something similar so uh take into account you know what is unique to your State uh if you need to and if that means having some caveats for now you know those could be stripped out later that's the other piece like you can make amendments in future years and future uh iterations and that's one of the things that we've done in Washington State like hb 1110 was not our first attempt at you know uh missing middle bill in the State we had tried doing ADU rules across the State before uh and you know it made some changes around the edges it did definitely uh improve the situation for people on the margins for developers on the margins of viability uh maybe didn't go as far as we needed it to but then we came back in the next session and we passed a better bill so I think uh don't underestimate the power of progress uh and momentum I think uh once you can kind of start the process I think it starts to become a little bit more of a role um and people who might have been opposed before start to see oh you know not much has really changed or it hasn't changed as quickly as uh I maybe would have been led to believe maybe I don't need to oppose this next piece of bill of legislation as significantly or as strongly um so there's a lot of potential I think just just
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Around taking advantage of the wins that you can uh you know a bill in arkansas is not going to look the same as a bill in Washington and that's fine cool well anthony I think I speak for yimes all across the country and I say thanks for your continued leadership along with a lot of great coalition partners in spokan I think the progress that you all are making is revealing to a lot of other cities that hey we can do these reforms uh and you know this is not just a new york or a Seattle or an la phenomenon this is something that needs to happen in a range of cities uh and to the extent that spokan I think is pushing the boundaries of what's possible uh already I'm it's incredibly exciting and what's coming I'm you know I'm excited to see you all legalized accessory commercial units so I have model and I can uh we can spread this across the country but in any case uh thanks again and thanks for joining the abundance podcast absolutely thank you so much happy to talk to you [music]
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[music] howdy I'm nolan gray your friendly neighborhood City planner research director at california yimby and one of the co-leads of the new metropolitan abundance project welcome back to the abundance podcast in this episode I chat with Anthony Gill he's an economic development professional and the writer of Spokane rising an urbanist blog focused on the ways to make Spokane a better place to live in this episode we t about Spokane some of the recent incredible zoning reforms that have happened there we talk about some re forms happening at the statewide level uh in Washington and we talk a little bit about that other City in Washington you might have heard of uh Seattle in this episode we're joined by robin leslie our uh director of strategic partnerships as always like subscribe leave a comment a full transcript of this episode is available on metro abundance. Org that's metro abundance. Org uh feel free to go check it out and with that on to the show cool uh hi anthony welcome to the abundance podcast hello thanks for inviting me uh pleasure is all ours and we're joined by robin leslie our director of strategic partnerships right that's right so let's talk about Spokane I think a lot of folks heard about some of the exciting stuff that happened in Spokane last late last year we're recording this in early 2024 uh but you know um I've actually never been a spokan and robin have you been you're from Seattle uh yes I have been I have not spent quality time but have been I I say you're from Seattle as if like these aren't like on the opposite end of a giant State that would cover like
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Three states on the east coast but in any case some people might take it a certain way to cast that his verion so let's let's uh I am from Seattle I do not claim I claim no spokan well you know whenever I tell people I'm from kentucky they're always like oh I know somebody from kentucky but you probably don't know them it's a big State and I'm like try me because it actually kind of uh actually is a really small State in a certain sense uh in any case uh anthony why don't you tell us a little bit about spokan u why is it interesting and you know what what maybe some characteristics of the City that might make it clear like what other peer cities might be yeah definitely so spokan is a City kind of on the border with northern idaho uh so not the Seattle area but uh complete opposite side of the State in eastern Washington uh about 250,000 people in the City about 4 00,000 in the County uh and the metro area really I would say kind of connects over into northern idaho so there's a lot of kind of cross State uh connections a lot of people go back and forth for jobs or housing and whatnot um and the whole area kind of in its entirety is probably about 600,000 people so kind of midsize City um really grew up around uh the railroad forestry uh min in um kind of in the late 1800s early 1900s um actually has a really significant transit history uh transit and rail history as a kind of a rail hub but really just a really beautiful town
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River running through it um really strong pre-war grid um really good bones of a City uh which is one of the things that I love about it personally um is just like the character this the feeling of the place it really feels like it you know kind of maybe Seattle you know 20 30 years ago portland 20 30 years ago uh really strong pacific northwest City yeah no I was noticing that when I was looking on google maps I mean just the incredible grid and a lot of small blocks with alley alleys bisecting them I mean that's I always say like that's kind of the hardest thing to fix with cities is like the street grid and so like these cities that are starting from a place with a great grid are really in a good position right absolutely and really the majority of the City I would say probably 60 70% of it actually has that like really strong pre-war grid um so it's really only once you get out toward the fringe that it starts to spread out a little bit more so I know there's been a huge amount of growth in probably I guess somewhat kind of sort of nearby cities you know boise right has had some of the most rapid growth not in any again not in any normal like american sense of close but in the general region right there's been a lot of movement away from really high cost coastal cities like Seattle and portland into this region what's been going on with span on that front yeah so I would say i' separated out into two kind of periods so I think uh prior to maybe the I don't know 2018 2019 period um I think spoken was
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Probably on a different trajectory from say boise or some of those like still larger slightly larger cities um that have maybe a stronger university base a stronger maybe tech sector uh boise actually has a lot of tech jobs spokan doesn't um so maybe it was on a little bit of a different trajectory a little bit more stagnant slower growth and then really what happened is the pandemic hit and uh of course people moving away from these high cost cities uh having the freedom to be able to go wherever and work wherever uh really supercharged uh growth in rents and housing costs so we had a period especially god 2020 into 2022 really I mean everywhere had that but spokan it was probably supercharged uh with people moving away from Seattle portland san francisco uh sometimes with like legitimate family connections in Spokane uh so it's not like they were moving away for no reason but uh moving into the Spokane area and really driving up housing costs um I don't have the stats you know super handy but I would say uh very significant growth I mean in my for my perspective I you know I was looking for a condo actually in spokan uh early in the pandemic about 2020 uh and I was looking at condos that were kind of in the 250 270 range and this would get you like a good
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Two-bedroom you know two bedroom two bath condo and uh you know the same condo today is probably going for 450 500 so and that's that's now after kind of the peak of uh housing cost so uh it's been a big runup in prices and costs for people yeah I think robin and I hearing 200 250 for a condo from where we are in sf and la is uh painful uh 45500 crying over here it's fine that's fine I'm I'm still like uh yelling at myself for not buying ben many such cases um well so I mean part of the reason why we're talking about spokan uh with you is it actually seems like right so I like many cities across the country there's been an incredible run up in home prices but not every City has I think responded with zoning reform commensurate to the scale of the problem and Spokane seems like an interesting exception so maybe let's just walk through it I mean what was the situation going into some of these reforms fairly typical zoning permitting rules like what were the big hurdles as far as you could tell yeah definitely so spokan had done a couple of things kind of nibbling around the edges is how I would describe it so uh you know had done a little bit of work around making adus a little bit easier to build but nothing maybe on the scale of some of this even the State level legislation that we've seen in some
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States uh you know had done a little bit of work to try to look at the codes to figure out like what is driving people not choosing to build you know these accessory dwelling units or uh you know the housing was one that was a really big you know popular talking point um and had done a little bit of that work but in general 70% of the City was zoned for single family homes uh our comprehensive plan which is uh in Washington State our prime governing document in planning uh you know was really oriented around these single family homes and concent trading growth along major like commercial corridors and major commercial centers uh so we called it our centers and corridors plan and I think there had been a lot of effort around trying to figure out ways to concentrate growth there and not a lot of focus on uh how do we enable more housing in the rest of the City um so that was kind of what we were coming in with was this uh comprehensive plan that probably was rooted really in kind of like the 90s early 2000s uh like it had some principles of smart growth but maybe wasn't uh at the bleeding edge uh and certainly wasn't at the bleeding edge that we see today I'm kind of curious this bleeding
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Edge you're talking about one of the things that uh you know nolan and I when you have conversations about you know massing standards height setbacks all these things what are you allowed to build on a parcel so I guess what's your kind of dream thing that gets built as a result of all these changes I'm curious if you can kind of take us through some of your what you'd like to see happen in Spokane yeah so in Spokane I think uh some of the things that you know are now legal um as a result of the changes that we made uh starting in 2022 and then make making them permanent in 202 three uh you can now build an aplex on a single family lot um which is just incredible I mean you I talk to friends in Seattle and they start like yelling at me that is the case yeah or Seattle's not a big City like spokan you know I don't know if it can handle that a level exactly uh but I mean I think one of the things that was most significant about the reforms that we made is that we kept it very simple so uh you know I think our planning director and our City Council did a really good job of reducing the level of complexity in the zoning code uh so you know there's no long we no longer have duplicate regulation of things like f setbacks uh height limits you know it's just very simple you have some setbacks you have that are fairly reasonable you
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Have minimum lot size and you have a height limit and it's basically that um so for me what I'm really excited about is the potential for uh you know I think six plexes eight plexes uh like who knows how many eight plexes we'll see I don't know but uh certainly six plexes and we have developers already ready taking advantage of these rules um I go into the pering system every couple weeks just to kind of take a peek and see if anything new has dropped in and you know they're taking advantage um and especially of the kind of the interlocking pieces of the these reforms uh that really almost they multiply the level of actual density that this allows so you know I say eight plexes on a single family lot well if you have a big single family lot two eight plex buildings not crazy uh to think about so uh yeah it's it's very significant let's chunk it out and like figure out how we got here so the one of the first big reforms was eliminating parking requirements within a half mile of transit right well so the first big action that we took was uh in 2022 uh the City Council adopted uh interim rules uh Washington State has uh a system where you can actually put in place interim zoning rules for up to six
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Months and then the City Council can extend it uh that allowed up to four plexes so the original was up to four plexes um and the intent there was really to let's just go ahead and do it let's try it let's see what happens um and during that time they worked on the permanent new rules that now allow ap plexes in the middle of that time we also went ahead and made parking optional within a half mile of transit so uh we've had a number of different reforms that have kind of taken place and they all start to blur together even for me um but the I think the way that we passed our uh missing middle legislation was pretty unique because we decided to do it through an emergency ordinance which meant that we didn't need to do all of the front-ended community engagement work all of the you know sea nepa analysis all of the process basically took place after the legislation was already in place which meant that we didn't necessarily have all of these big community meetings where people come out and say oh god this is going to cause disaster uh because people recognized oh these rules are already in place so it kind of obviates the actual opposition well so what was the what was
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The political landscape like such that you could do something like that I mean in many places that would seem pretty radical I think there's a couple things so our City Council is was very unique at the time it still is very unique but it was unique at the time we have a uh in spokan we have a strong Mayor and the way many people describe it is strong Council uh form of government so our Council actually does take significant policy moves that you might not see in uh other strong Mayor cities um it at the time was split 52 between progressives and conservatives uh and the conservatives are legitimate conservatives they're republicans uh um and but at the same time the those conservatives are uh I think different from what you see in some other cities so one of them was the former uh lobbyist for our homebuilders association one of them is a conservative who is just generally much more libertarian minded um so I think that results in maybe him being more open to these types of reforms than uh one might ect and then none only one of our uh progressive City Council members was someone I would describe as maybe like coming up through like neighborhood councils uh and kind of community neighborhood boards that type of system uh the rest of them were much more rooted in uh labor housing justice
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Groups um and uh act like just straight activism so uh I think our Council itself was a little bit unique at the time in that uh we had opportunity for people to come together where they might not ordinarily um the other piece of the puzzle is that I think our Council in general and our community because we're located so close to northern idaho because we're located in a region uh we're kind of a blue dot in a sea of red is how I describe it uh people are comfortable having strange bud fellows people are comfortable you know agreeing with people on one thing even if they vehemently disagree with their you know maybe their positions on social issues or their position on uh you know other urban issues even in some cases um I think that by necessity people have to come together in a place like Spokane where they might not have to uh in a place like Seattle or san francisco or los angeles just from a political necessity perspective so in terms of the interest groups pushing one way or another what was that landscape like yeah so uh frankly I don't think we actually had any organized opposition which is pretty unique um that you know there were people who were potentially opposed uh to uh missing middle reforms but there was no organized
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Opposition uh the people who came together in support uh was a really broad coalition so uh you know most significantly we have the homebuilders on board uh historically the homebuilders in Spokane have been supportive of more conservative City Council candidates have been uh more that just in general they build sprawl developments uh so they're not you know necessarily the types of developers that would actually be taking advantage of these rules in many cases or if they are taking advantage of them they're taking advantage of them in places where some activists maybe wouldn't want them to take advantage of these rules um more toward the urban fringe uh we had a very strong contingent of uh low-income housing developers uh the habitat for humanity is very strong in Spokane so uh habitat is a good example of uh a strong supporter and then uh spokan also has a very strong very significant uh homelessness crisis like many uh west coast cities right now so a lot of the homeless services uh homelessness advocates uh were actually involved in the push for these new regulations ations because of the potential benefit uh in terms of long-term affordable housing uh creating a more a better long-term picture uh for housing costs so I think a pretty
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Broad mix of supporters and then you had of course all of the typical people you know I was out there uh you know on twitter pushing people to go to City Council meetings uh getting people to send letters uh and you know I would describe myself as kind of a typical urbanist advocate um but in general I think one of the biggest things is uh we did not have organized opposition uh in any real way um that we might have had if we had taken a more traditional approach uh to passing the legislation I'm curious if that's sprung up after having passed this I would say uh we might be getting certainly not organized opposition but right now we might be seeing uh some of kind of the first wave of uh questions in the community would be how I would describe it um people like developers are actually getting permits for uh you know fourplexes and six plexes in single family neighborhoods and you know you are seeing more posts on next door more posts on reddit uh about it so and the posts are all I'm really happy this is happening near me this is great right more neighbors yay certainly not on next door uh on renit yes actually which is good but uh certainly not on next door has there been a divide in kind of the reaction from different neighborhoods I'm curious you know I'm thinking like
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Correct me if I'm wrong but like kind of some southern neighborhoods of Spokane are more well off then there's the north and east and so I'm curious if it's been geographically located by like more wealthier single family homeowner neighborhoods or not I we see that sometimes and I'm curious for that breakdown along similar lines certainly the opposition I've seen on next door is coming more from uh you know residents on the south hill um and those are yes it's it's more you have some historic neighborhoods quote unquote historic uh neighborhoods down there um and definitely more off more affluent uh probably disproportionately whiter although spokan in general is fairly white um and but with that said one of the interesting things is uh a lot of people before I shouldn't say a lot of people there were some people before the legislation passed that were concerned that uh you actually wouldn't see any sixplex or fourplex development on the south hill because the land costs would be so high and then you would be concentrating the growth in neighborhoods that maybe are lower opportunity um you know lower fewer like access to amenities these types of things um but we what we have seen is applications have come in across the City so and permits are being issued across the City so it there isn't necessarily a geographic concentration of uh these missing middle units in terms of what's being applied for as of
[00:23:01]
Right now that could still change and we could see that trend start to develop but as of now uh at the very least it's actually really good that we're seeing uh applications coming in on the south hill to because it shows that you know really when you unlock these options across the City they will be developed across the City so let's let's get a little bit more into the nitty-gritty on some of the policy stuff so parking requirements removed within a half mile of transit up to eight units allowed on a typical lot could you unpack that a little bit more I mean what's the geography of that what are the restrictions like what are the massing provisions you know that was a big issue some places that have legalized single family or eliminated single family zoning uh is they changed the use but they don't change the massing rules so like I think the listenership of this podcast is keen to hear like the some of the details here I think yeah definitely so and that's kind of where I live uh in a good and bad way um so one of the things that's significant is uh so I can just kind of jam through them real quick um there's actually no f regulation at all um for uh our single family quote unquote single family now they're called r1 neighborhoods um there actually is a minimum density of four units per acre pretty small pretty typical um minimum lot size 1,200 square fet which is pretty small um that kind of works out about to what would that be 80 feet deep is the minimum lot depth and then 15 feet is the minimum lot width um we have a
[00:24:43]
Maximum total building coverage of 65% so you can cover 65% of the land area of that lot uh with that said if you're located within a certain radius of transit or a commercial zone you actually can go up to 80% um and uh if you provide at le a few affordable units you can go up to 80% uh in terms of setbacks uh the front setback is 10 feet the side setback is three feet on narrow lots and five feet on lots that are at least 40 feet wide and then in the rear it's uh 15 feet or zero if you include an ADU uh in the back um now that's all kind of for detached housing you also can do zero lot line uh development row homes uh that don't have any side setbacks um it's just kind of governed under a different provision of our uh zoning code but in general the big things that uh people keep in mind is uh no f uh 1,200 sq foot minimum lot size and then there's a 40 foot height limit so you can go up all the way to 40 feet in a single family neighborhood formerly single family now r1 neighborhood uh which means you can get up to really four stories um now people if they do include parking it gets a little bit
[00:26:20]
More complicated but uh that's kind of the the general uh rules that we have in place I was reading up on it and one part that I thought was interesting is the maximum footprint for a building uh I was wondering if you could share a bit more about that and if that's been like how that came about or if it's been an impediment to yeah so I my understanding is that's basically getting at one of the things that the our planners have and our Plan Commission was were trying to balance is trying to maintain that there some level of outdoor space uh in particular for uh you know these larger units that may be going in uh you know you want to have some gathering space outside uh you want to have like whether it's trees or uh even just lawn space for people um that's the big thing that people are trying to maintain with that uh maximum building footprint um and also the fact that you may have uh on a larger lot uh part of it is trying to get it at that issue on larger lot but no to date I have not heard any concerns from uh developers about the maximum building footprint uh we also have fairly generous rules in terms of lot splitting so uh what I have seen is some developers will actually if they have a large lot they may actually just divide the lot and then uh do you know one type of middle housing on one lot
[00:28:00]
Another type on another maybe they'll they'll do the same type of building on both um but that's another way to kind of get around that maximum building footprint if you have a large lot that's interesting so you can subdivide the lot and then do up to the maximum number of units on each lot huh technically no maximum unit count so the only thing governing the unit count is how many you can fit in so you could in theory do micro units um and do you know I mean I guess in theory you could do like you know 20 30 units if you did like a really small uh setup but uh yeah that's the idea that's interesting yeah I mean the minimum lot size stuff is near and dear to my heart done a lot of work on this and I mean just as a way to stimulate more small lot homes and town homes is a lot of the reform so far has done a good job at making it easier to build multif family housing rentals uh most and that's good but you also have a lot of communities that really want to stimulate the supply of new owner occupancy opportunities and many states condo defect laws and other rules make that a big issue so you can't be condos but so you can do town houses and small atart homes and um I'm curious if there's been sort of what's what kind of action you've seen there I think that's probably one of the biggest things that you'll see happen in spokan is town homes um and I think one of the reasons for that is Washington State's condo law um so we have it's not exactly the same condo uh defect law issues as california where it's much more complicated but uh we have those issues so uh I think we're
[00:29:39]
Gonna end up seeing a lot of uh developers take advantage of these rules to do zero lot line to do town homes um I think you know we will see a significant number of things like stacked flats uh because we do have a number of developers that are really interested in that concepts that are kind of frankly a lot of Seattle developers who wish that they could develop in Seattle that are uh now maybe not entirely by choice going over to Spokane to do it um but I think what I've seen so far in the permitting system is you know we're getting a lot of people taking advantage of these lot split rules um so they will divide the lot and then maybe they'll do four town homes on each new lot that they've created um so there's I think a significant amount of flexibility that comes uh with these new rules in terms of the types of products that you can build uh it'll take some time to see what really works uh and what sells of course but you know we have a good amount of precedent in spokan for people purchasing town homes uh we have a couple neighborhoods uh newer build neighborhoods where those are more common so I think we're going to see a significant number of those there's a pretty substantial industry already going on doing those zero lot line ones in Seattle as well or at least there was a boom in 2019 so are you guys kind of jump chopping up those developers too I think that's part of it yeah I think we're g I think you're gonna see I mean Seattle I mean and maybe some of this is
[00:31:19]
Uh maybe some of this is where Seattle see some uh nism take place as there people freaking out about town homes but uh yeah I think we are probably on that path of seeing many more of those uh in spokan well so I'm curious is spokan subject to this similar like fiveyear rents rule on condos so like you have to rent them for five years and then they can be available for sale I don't know if it's five years uh specifically but same condo laws in general uh apply in Spokane um you know I think there have been some movements at actually at the State legislature to try to reform some of the condo laws in Washington we've done a little bit of that uh but it really and it's been particularly for uh buildings with fewer than 12 units and honestly it hasn't really gone far enough for especially the banks and the like the financing to work out for the development uh like the banks need to feel comfortable fundamentally and they're not there yet uh but you do see I think in Seattle yeah you do see people building um you know a a apartment building and then you know after you know five seven years they will sell um and I think we will see some of that in Spokane as well one of the things that I think was a talking point earlier on uh in the last legislative session around some of these condo reform rules is you know you if
[00:32:58]
You did it in spokan you know some of the liability concerns in eastern Washington might be mitigated just by nature of it being in eastern Washington uh you might not have to worry about earthquakes as much you might not worry as much about mold um so I think there's potential maybe even to do like some sort of bifurcated system it's not great for Seattle but you could potentially do a some sort of bifurcated system uh on both sides of the State let's talk a little bit more about the output of some of these changes I mean just looking at the us census data and um you gotta be careful with it because a lot of times it's imputed but when you have these big jumps like you did in 2023 in Spokane I mean kind of remarkable and I mean a few things jump out at me is first it's almost the total inversion of typology from 20 years prior it's like the City was almost exclusively building single family homes for a period there well I guess not it's almost building a lot of multif family but mostly single family homes now that's flipped it's mostly multif family and there's a pretty robust amount of duplexes and three to four plexes being built I mean not nearly at the scale that I think we would like to see it someday but far more than you know according to the sensus 72 the building permit survey data 72 duplexes and 22 units and triplexes and fourplexes that's a lot by like a us standard that's uh and I mean just an overall amount of housing production that's on like almost like sun belt yeah um do you want to provides more color with that like what types of
[00:34:37]
Projects are we seeing uh who's building them are banks like kind of rediscovering these missing metal typologies that they maybe they've forgotten how to finance there's like seven different questions there but I'm fasc by the answer to everyone yeah definitely um so I think one of the things that's interesting about spokan is that uh we have a couple of areas that just outside of City limits where uh Spokane County which is in general much more conservative much more uh maybe quote unquote developer friendly but that might be the not be the exactly the right frame to think about them um so right outside of the City we have a lot of uh apartment development happening um and a little bit also happening in spokan valley which is a separate jurisdiction uh a good number amount of apartment development in liberty lake uh and then a good amount in airway heights as well which is kind of another suburb um so I think a lot of what you probably see in that census data is uh apartment development that's happening honestly probably more outside of the City of spokan uh than uh you might expect uh assuming you're looking at County level data um the with that said uh I think we are seeing a good number of applications coming in for uh missing middle uh type housing uh you know I think one of the earlier updates earlier this year I think in January they said they had received 150
[00:36:17]
Applications roughly 150 applications um with you know significant number of units as a result of that uh I don't think they gave the unit count of that point uh but also seeing a significant amount of you know I think smaller apartment development so not so much like the 300 unit apartment buildings the 400 unit apartment buildings these big five over tws uh you know that you see in Seattle portland san francisco well maybe not san francisco san jose uh los angeles uh not so many of those but you're seeing a lot of uh redevelopment of old historic downtown buildings uh old brick buildings being converted into from offices we actually have a good number of office conversions in downtown spokan um you're seeing a number of smaller developments happening down there and then we're also seeing uh a good amount of that of interest in that type of development in what I was referencing ear our centers and corridors um so I think it's an a mix I think you know we will see I think a significant pickup in activity for our missing middle rule uh development over the next year I'm going to be really interested in seeing the 2024 numbers in particular because there'll have been more time for the developers to get a sense of like oh it's possible you know what might I be able to develop on
[00:37:55]
The these properties that I own I don't think they had that ability yet and we're starting to see that happen now um but what we have seen is just this supercharge uh of development of small apartment buildings and uh you know redeveloped apartment buildings in the core uh and a lot of that is as a result of Washington states uh multif family tax exemption program so we have a program that gives develop v opers uh a property tax break if they develop multif family housing um it's kind of interesting because it actually results in a pseudo land value tax but uh if you develop affordable housing in spokan and affordable in spokan we define that very broadly up to 115% AMI uh you can get a property tax break if you're building uh multif family housing and a lot of developers are taking advantage of that right now so walk me through that a little bit more is the State kicking in money to offset that or how does that like what how does that not distort fiscal incentives for local governments it does distort fiscal incentives for local government uh no for State government especially but uh it's actually just one of the biggest tools that Washington State has uh to incentivize housing development we don't have uh in Washington State uh tax inurement financing so we're one of the few states in the country that doesn't have that tool um which of course there like it's
[00:39:34]
Been abused in some cases but uh can be a really powerful tool for investing in infrastructure development um we don't have incentive tools that other states have for housing this is the only one we have um and it really is intended for uh yeah these big multif family project small and big but midsize and bigger uh multif family projects in the cores of cities um it's used I think very well in cities like Seattle belleview uh they actually have stricter rules and Spokane has around affordability with those units um but Spokane has kept it relatively loose in part because of I think the consensus that we have on our Council around just build baby build like any units are good units at this point um let's let's talk about the State here in a minute but kind of wrapping up on a reflection on some of the local stuff uh what are the lessons learned for cities that might be looking to spokan as maybe a pure City what would you what's worked maybe more importantly what's not worked I think that I think they're probably three things I think uh one is uh it really helps to be comfortable having strange bed fellows um I think spokan like that's just been one of the unique factors that and we talked about it that resulted in us being able to pass missing middle legislation uh I witness the same fights in Seattle that I think are much more
[00:41:15]
Political because people just don't want to be on the same side as someone else on an issue um because they disagree with them on other things and I just I think that's fundamentally the wrong place to go on housing so you need to be comfortable you know having agreeing with you know the in spokan the greater spok chamber like the chamber of commerce you need to agree with them uh if they're right on housing you need to agree with uh labor organizations if they're right on housing you need to just be comfortable having a really big tent uh I think that's really important um you know one of the other things is uh you know the process if you have a tool that lets you uh you know invert your typical process and pass things on an interim basis and then do all of the rigma rooll and process and environmental review and analysis on the back end take advantage of it um because that's a really great tool to kind of dissuade people from you know blowing up about a particular issue because you can test the waters and that you know things aren't going to change overnight uh and then third I think uh and you know really importantly for spokan and I haven't mentioned this is we have a really strong planning team a really strong planning department uh that is comfortable making strong recommendations to City Council I think we have uh planning in this country has uh maybe been too willing to take a back
[00:42:56]
Seat uh to uh elected officials uh maybe a little bit too willing to say well what do you want and I think we need to be comfortable planners need to be comfortable making strong recommendations um and you know show all the data behind it show all of the uh thinking behind it show that you have uh you know thought about this in your professional capacity uh and are making a rec recommendation that's backed up uh but make a strong recommendation to your Council make a strong recommendation to your City manager City leadership I think that's really important planners play a significant role in this process and uh on both sides they can speed things up and slow things down um so I think we planner should not be slowing things down I think that's important so those are my three biggest takeaways um and I you know I hope to god places like san francisco and los angeles uh can uh take them some of those things to heart uh but if not we definitely are will relish permitting sorry more housing units than you all did in the first half of the year yeah we have great planners at least here in la uh we definitely cannot do coalitions um and I don't think we can iate reform without squel but very good principles and certainly some that folks
[00:44:35]
In some of the cities and states that we work with can take to heart yeah I'm curious uh you know takeaways from any relational with like other City neighbors you know you talked a bit about how there was apartment building going on you know in you know along the I90 corridor leading to idaho right where all those communities are and I'm curious kind of are they worried you're going to eat their lunch on housing development and are they is your reform sporing more reform over there or kind of I'm curious how that's playing out with your neighbors well so I think uh what's really interesting is some of the neighbors actually are probably on the opposite end of the spectrum uh spoken valley uh before Washington State passed its uh fourplex law um spoken valley actually uh made duplexes illegal they originally were legal across the entire City but they made them illegal uh which is so they actually moved backward which is a little bit unique um but I think some of the I think you probably will see a little bit of that but I think it'll be as a result of State action and I think State action in Washington State has been really strong and will result in cities like liberty lake spoken valley uh airway heights to a certain extent uh actually have to go back and in spoken valley's case rel legalize uh some of these uh missing biddle housing types um but yeah I think part of the challenge with our region is that once you get outside of
[00:46:14]
Spokane City limits you end up encountering a much more uh conservative much more and much more socially conservative uh political environment and I think that results in uh I don't know maybe some culture war issues starting to play into the conversation about missing middle you were um I actually believe in property rights and deregulation republicans and more keep your government hands off my single family zoning uh republicans yeah much more like agenda 21 uh oh god go yeah it goes that extreme the closer you get to idaho exactly um well so I one quick thing more on spokan you know what's what's next I mean there's been a lot of amazing stuff but of course there's still probably great work to do so to your mind what's next for zoning reform and housing affordability more broadly and spokan yeah so one of the things that I think uh I'm really excited about is we're we are about to launch a comprehensive plan update Washington State requires update updates every 10 years and we are about to launch that process in spokan I think uh we have a lot of potential around kind of inverting our growth paradigm uh historically we've really put a lot of attention into these centers and corridors uh I think we still will probably put some attention into them but I think we're g to probably start to think a little bit more about uh growing in our neighborhoods uh so paying more attention to these missing middle
[00:47:53]
Housing types I really am interested in figuring out if we can embed neighborhood commercial at a greater scale uh we actually are probably a little bit more permissive on neighborhood commercial than some cities but I think we can go further um I personally would really like to see something like accessory commercial units uh something like uh you know a corner store uh legislation would really like to see neighborhood cafes at greater scale in Spokane these types of spaces are really popular where we do have them in Spokane and so I think we could do it really easily I don't think we'd have opposition nearly at the level that you see in some cities uh so that's one thing I'm I'm personally really excited for and then the second piece is uh we have a lot of work to do around uh transportation and transit um so you know we've gotten rid of parking requirements for housing but I think we have some potential to do that for commercial um commercial parking requirements drive me crazy uh because they result in the like most ridiculous uh like outcomes you can imagine uh I think about you know the restaurants during COVID that couldn't put in outdoor dining areas into their parking lots because their parking like had to be there or in some cases uh even if they weren't taking over a parking lot they were adding space to
[00:49:32]
Their restaurant so that increased the amount of parking that they were technically required to have so uh from my perspective we just need to completely get rid of commercial parking requirements and I think that's something as well that uh our City Council is going to be looking at in the next several months and hopefully years uh we take advantage of that so a lot of work to do but I think I'm I'm really excited about the potential I would love it if you all could lead on accessory commercial units because it's just such a great it's such a cool next sort of frontier issue uh and just key for reducing vmt um okay robin do we want to do a quick lightning round before we turn to State stuff best place to get lunch and spoke in oh god that's impossible uh I'm really right now I'm a huge fan of taco uh which is this kind of hole in the wall uh breakfast taco place in uh kind of the it's on northwest boulevard in spokan what's the next City you hope to visit for the first time oh that's so hard I'm doing ait trip to detroit uh next week I've been there before but haven't spent a ton of time there and haven't really met people there so I'm I'm looking forward to detroit um I actually have never been to new york City though so for me uh I feel like I need to experience like the like quote unquote urban capital of the united states uh so that's
[00:51:12]
Definitely on my list um what's your favorite you know you talked about transit history and Spokane and transit projects what's your favorite transit idea for Spokane oh pipe dream would be uh highspeed rails to Seattle um yeah slightly less pipe dreamy would be uh you know you could create a really great uh regional uh train system in Washington State just by investing a little bit of money I say little but it's still probably on the order of $200 million but some money in uh some additional train sets and more operations uh if you could have four trains a day uh from spokan to Seattle uh and a couple of them probably going through like yakama tri cities pasco uh you could do something really incredible in terms of connecting the State um so for me I go back and forth way too often so uh I'm I'm definitely interested in better train service in the I think I broke the lightning round rules noan I apologize back actual lightning round uh it's no problem at all perfectly good answer um favorite uh day trip outside of spokan uh I'm a huge skier so uh I spend a ton of time at schwitzer in north idaho uh it's north idaho but it's awesome it's great skiing uh in the interest of cross State unity could you say something nice about
[00:52:54]
Seattle the silence def it it has a growing light rail system know if it's not growing fast enough it has a growing light rail system and I like that we'll get to east west it's fine north south's good it's good uh very good uh okay on the way of wrapping up here let's talk about the State uh Washington State's been doing a lot of really exciting State level zoning reform uh what's happened so far what still needs to happen and what potentially can they learn from spokan yeah so uh last year last calendar year uh two legislative sessions ago uh Washington State passed uh a bill uh hb110 which uh legalizes four plexes across the State uh and six plexes in certain areas uh close to transit um and in kind of our bigger cities uh that is a huge step forward um and I think really significant uh we've also done a lot of good work around uh in making it a little bit easier to build different types of housing so we were one of the first dates to pass a single stair uh bill which I'm personally very excited about as someone who uh you know spent time in germany lived in germany for a little bit uh in a single stair building um that concept I'm just stoked about um we've also done some really good stuff around adus we have a really good ADU bill that passed again a couple
[00:54:33]
Legislative sessions ago we have a lot of work to do though to implement those laws um Seattle's comp plan update is a really good example of that uh they have released a draft right now that really just does not go nearly far enough and I would argue in some sense actually violates the spirit and intent of hb110 because while in theory it legalizes uh fourplexes and six plexes across Seattle uh in practice because of the zoning code rules that they have uh how many are going to buil be built probably very few so we need to do some work I think around uh making sure that the cities are actually implementing what they've been required to implement by the State and doing it uh well and in a way that in practice results in the types of missing middle housing that we need um you know so we've had uh a concept uh and a actually legislation in the past legisl legislative session uh that would put in a form of a builder's remedy if states cities are not actually implementing their hb11 10 and other State law uh required rules uh I think there's a lot of complexity around california's version of a builder's remedy so I'm not sure if that's exactly the right solution uh but we need to definitely do some work uh to
[00:56:12]
Make sure at the very least that the cities are implementing the rules that they need to implement um so whether it's a builder remedy or some other form of accountability for cities I think we really need at the State level uh to do some work to make sure that cities like Seattle uh or eastern Washington spoken valley uh aren't shering their responsibility uh even while cities like spokan are trying to take full advantage this is one of the big challenges in california too it's it's easy to pass a lot of good laws but if local jurisdictions are still basically in the driver's seat on implementing and they still do not actually want to do what the State's proposing to do you're kind of playing a game of enforcement whacka all right and I mean that's kind of where we're at now in california where it's like if a jurisdiction grossly violates the law you know the attorney general and the housing accountability unit all of that will come in but you know right a lot of jurisdictions still fly under the radar you know I suspect that as in california where the big cities or the cities that are that want a fight like the huntington beaches they get a fight but so many cities just fly under the radar and I suspect that is true in Washington as well your se Seattle's probably to a certain extent going to be under a microscope and it's it's showing up a lot in my newsfeed from all the great yimes and urbanists there uh but it's like man you know like ideally you get to a system that doesn't rely on this like every City staying under a microscope well and I think it results
[00:57:50]
In a lot of uh so results in a lot of money for lawyers and the court system and I just I don't think that's the right solution to this problem um you know it can get results absolutely um but I think there's there's probably some work to do to figure out you know does there need to be some form of State level agency that like is like more in the driver's seat we actually in Washington State don't have a dedicated department of housing um which is something that is being talked about uh our commerce department handled a lot of housing related issues but uh they're kind of the everything department so uh is there potential to do something a little bit more like hcd where you have a little bit more authority uh to come in but yeah again I don't think the using the legal system necessarily as a tool uh is going to result in the right outcomes at least fast enough um and that's another big piece of it another thing I'd like to see at the State level I have to say is uh and you know I'm sure this will be something that you all are on board with but uh we need fundamental uh environmental law reform so uh our State environmental policy act does some good things and is well intentioned uh but it also does some bad things uh not as bad as in california but I think it can result in some perverse outcomes and reviews for things that just absolutely
[00:59:29]
Should not require reviews one of the things that Seattle had to review they had to do a sea review on turning over the downtown Seattle transit tunnel from king County metro to sound transit like just the ownership change needed a sea review which just is insane to me that's wild I had thought that Washington State did a better job here in terms of most infil being really exempted from that ss that we've done a good job of but yeah but I didn't realize that there was still some games like you know famously our environmental quality act sequel was used to toh stop bike lanes for example yeah I didn't realize there were some shenanigans in Washington like that's a and maybe it's just we wanna we continue to want to do better right like maybe it's just you know we have our eyes on like oh like it's good perfect yeah but uh yeah it's definitely it's not as bad as california I will say that it's okay to want to be perfect uh you know you don't have to apologize for that um yeah I mean in terms of uh bigger picture from maybe the states what what's been the big thing that really has worked at the State level and what would you know I one of the things that I situation we're in now is you know Washington oregon california we've kind of been wrestling with this stuff for a while but you know of course this housing affordability is who has exploded into a whole bunch of other states montana was probably one of the biggest movers last year what are some of the other what would be your
[01:01:06]
Recommendations as somebody who's watched what's happened in Washington be for other states that are considering State levels zoning reform for the first time I would say one thing that uh was really important with hb110 which was our fourplex law is you if you need to make compromises to get something past take the win um I think uh hb 1110 was not perfect I think the original version was six plexes statewide and much there were fewer uh like caveats in terms of like the cities where it applies and the affordable housing like in some cases requirements if you want to do six instead of four um take the win um you know I think if you can a duplex law in your State but you can't don't think you can get up to four plexes do the duplex law right uh if you can get really good ADU laws on the books in your State uh but you don't think you can go to the duplex rules take the win um I think you know we so often like I said like want the perfect solution and we should strive to that absolutely uh but we also have to be strategic and I think we have to think a little bit about what is going to be politically acceptable politically valid politically viable in your State you know montana's a great example they created a bill that is uniquely montana um and you know oregon did something similar with their bill you
[01:02:44]
Know uh arizona is something similar so uh take into account you know what is unique to your State uh if you need to and if that means having some caveats for now you know those could be stripped out later that's the other piece like you can make amendments in future years and future uh iterations and that's one of the things that we've done in Washington State like hb 1110 was not our first attempt at you know uh missing middle bill in the State we had tried doing ADU rules across the State before uh and you know it made some changes around the edges it did definitely uh improve the situation for people on the margins for developers on the margins of viability uh maybe didn't go as far as we needed it to but then we came back in the next session and we passed a better bill so I think uh don't underestimate the power of progress uh and momentum I think uh once you can kind of start the process I think it starts to become a little bit more of a role um and people who might have been opposed before start to see oh you know not much has really changed or it hasn't changed as quickly as uh I maybe would have been led to believe maybe I don't need to oppose this next piece of bill of legislation as significantly or as strongly um so there's a lot of potential I think just just
[01:04:21]
Around taking advantage of the wins that you can uh you know a bill in arkansas is not going to look the same as a bill in Washington and that's fine cool well anthony I think I speak for yimes all across the country and I say thanks for your continued leadership along with a lot of great coalition partners in spokan I think the progress that you all are making is revealing to a lot of other cities that hey we can do these reforms uh and you know this is not just a new york or a Seattle or an la phenomenon this is something that needs to happen in a range of cities uh and to the extent that spokan I think is pushing the boundaries of what's possible uh already I'm it's incredibly exciting and what's coming I'm you know I'm excited to see you all legalized accessory commercial units so I have model and I can uh we can spread this across the country but in any case uh thanks again and thanks for joining the abundance podcast absolutely thank you so much happy to talk to you [music]