Today on Volts: parking is the "dark matter" of land use, invisibly making everything worse, but most municipalities continue to mandate minimum levels of it. WA state just passed some awesome parking reform & I dig into it with the folks at @Sightline.

One big reason Washington now leads the pack on statewide housing abundance legislation is that it just passed the nation's strongest parking reform bill. Here's what made that possible: https://t.co/Uh3kfbAS8J

I'm calling it: Washington has now accomplished more on statewide zoning reform than any other US state. In the just ended 2025 legislative session, Washington lawmakers knocked out nation-leading parking and TOD bills, and more. https://t.co/spDWQSbpe3

WA has a bill for that: https://t.co/QJYAInyDyd More about it over at the blue place

If you followed this account to track housing bills in the Washington state legislature, I'm now posting over at the blue new place. #waleg

A parking reform bill is in the works for WA's 2025 session. We know parking mandates worsen affordability, climate, and sprawl. On top of that, the parking rules in WA cities are an arbitrary, inconsistent cluster that begs for a state fix. https://t.co/x7sfob0JWl

Ahoy parking policy nerds of Washington state! Tommorow at noon @Citizen_Cate will give a rundown of just how bonkers and damaging local parking rules are in cities all across WA. It's even worse than you thought. https://t.co/h19JzbkcnY

This, legal on every city lot everywhere:

The important story here is that market-rate rentals can be affordable if enough new housing is getting built to meet demand. The couple got a market-rate 1-bed for $1,500/month, which is cheaper than the 60% AMI housing provided by MHA. https://t.co/0hwurWYfgW

Creating mixed-income communities around WA's transit investments is totally doable with funded IZ. The state already has an optional version to start with. Apply Baltimore's method for basing the abatement on actual costs, make it mandatory in station areas, problem solved!

WA state was way ahead of the game when almost 30 years ago it launched a program that grants tax exemptions on buildings that set aside a certain portion of affordable units. Known as MFTE, this optional version of funded IZ has created thousands of affordable apartments.

WA state law lets local gov'ts decide whether to add the abated value of buildings to their tax base. #WAleg could ensure that affordable housing funded with abatements is progressive and doesn't cause revenue loss by requiring that. https://t.co/8cKxEfg0Gd

In WA, IZ can be funded with property tax abatements without reducing property tax revenue. It's a relatively progressive way to fund affordable housing, because all property owners pay a little more tax to cover what's not collected on the IZ building. https://t.co/8SRydBfeNF

Ahoy inclusionary zoning nerds! This table shows all the examples of mandatory IZ with significant funding that I could find. Any others out there? https://t.co/8SRydBfeNF

Baltimore's funded IZ also elegantly avoids the problem of relying on upfront fuzzy math to set IZ parameters. The tax abatement is based on the actual rent that is forgone on the required affordable units, updated every year. Read more about here: https://t.co/8SRydBfeNF

The good news is there's a solution to the fatal flaws of unfunded IZ and it's up and running in Baltimore. Baltimore mandates affordability but makes up for the forgone rent with property tax abatements. A win-win: more housing overall, with a portion guaranteed affordable.

Another totally flawed idea is that you can fund IZ by capturing the value of upzones and making landowners buy lunch. Nope. Lower residual land value means fewer existing uses become new housing, and as always, renters end up paying the bill. https://t.co/Sub5l3Uyrc

The idea that you can do some fancy math in advance and come up with a magic formula for an IZ mandate that will have no impact on homebuilding is a massive failure of the urban planning profession that ranks right up there with the abusurdity of off-street parking minimums.

The problem with unfunded IZ is there's no such thing as a free lunch. Lunch is paid for by higher rents for everyone, and that hurts the poor the most. For funded IZ, all owners pay a tiny bit more property tax. In return we get more homes, both market-rate and affordable.

TOD is a major piece of unfinished business on statewide zoning reform for WA and many other states. One big reason: the policy and political pitfalls of inclusionary zoning that's typically also mandated by TOD bills. There's a solution: Funded IZ. https://t.co/8SRydBfeNF