Transit Oriented Communities Bill a Win-win for Neighborhoods and the Environment

There may be no greater challenges that our state faces today than the threat of global warming and the lack of sufficient affordable housing. While they may appear to be unrelated issues, the lack of affordable housing pushes people to live further from jobs and community services, creating longer commutes. More time spent in cars increases vehicle miles traveled, which leads to greater greenhouse gas emissions. Development at the urban fringe converts working farms and forests to urban uses, resulting in less carbon-sequestering open space and tree canopy.

Compounding problems, loss of rural and resource lands threatens local food security, eliminates wildlife habitat and has been linked to the degradation of Puget Sound. Lack of housing affordable to low and moderate income earners exacerbates poverty issues, adding pricey transportation costs to household expenses. On the economic side the increased infrastructure costs to expand roads and build sewer lines to urban fringe development is an enormous economic burden on all taxpayers.

To solve these problems, countless recent planning processes and reports, including efforts by the state's Climate Action Team and Land Use and Climate Change committees, Puget Sound Regional Council, Puget Sound Partnership, Seattle Planning Commission, and the Urban Land Institute, have come to the same conclusion: walkable, mixed-use communities offering good transit and biking opportunities, as well as housing affordable to a range of incomes, is key to keeping our state environmentally, socially and economically sustainable. Fortunately, these "transit-oriented communities" are exactly what more people are seeking. "Walkability" has become a top real estate amenity as people look for vibrant neighborhoods where they can live, work, shop and play without relying on a car.

To address these plans, House Bill 1490 introduced by Futurewise, Transportation Choices Coalition and the Washington Low-Income Housing Alliance strives to do just that. The "Creating Transit-Oriented Communities" legislation has also been selected as one of the priorities for the Washington State environmental community. Central components of the bill include:

• Requiring jurisdictions to consider climate impacts of land use and transportation. Meeting state greenhouse gas and vehicle miles travelled reduction requirements will necessitate more compact and walkable development in our cities, and more preservation of our rural and resource lands. Local jurisdictions will decide, through their comprehensive plans, how to best meet these goals.
• Maximizing land use potential near high capacity transit stations. What better way to leverage the multi-billion dollar transit investments made by the region's taxpayers than to provide more opportunities for people to live and work near transit? Local neighborhoods will decide the shape and character of these compact and walkable communities.
• Strengthening affordability requirements in cities. New guidelines will require cities to protect existing affordable housing stock and direct more affordability programs to new development in transit station areas. Local jurisdictions can decide what best mix of programs and incentives will meet the requirements.

The bill will support and strengthen the work already being done by many cities. To name a few: Tacoma, Spokane and Lynnwood are leaders on looking at climate impacts of land use and transportation; Seattle, Bellevue and Redmond already have "transit-oriented community"-supportive zoning in most of their transit station areas; and Kirkland and Seattle are making progress on providing housing to low and moderate income earners. For these and other jurisdictions, the bill will provide the necessary framework to address climate change and housing affordability in their local policy-making.

The "Creating Transit-Oriented Communities" bill will be a win for communities and a win for the environment. And with the challenges of global warming and housing affordability growing larger by the day, we need to act now if we want to leave future generations with a state that is environmentally, socially and economically sound.

Dan Cantrell, Rob Johnson and Rachael Myers