How A Little Change Can Go Very FAR

Seattle’s attempt to comply with state law legalizing 4 units per lot was not crafted to add building area. Small developers told Seattle they won’t build what they proposed, so now what?

Seattle’s Draft Comprehensive Plan is out, and it is quite lame. Leaked documents showed the plan was watered down in the final months which disappointed housing advocates, state law makers, and seemingly the planning staff themselves. Worst of all, the plan undermines state law legalizing missing middle housing by holding building area hostage.

How One Number Made the Plan FAR Worse

To kill 4 and 6 unit designs, the city’s proposed plan limits Floor Area Ratio (FAR) in Seattle’s single family zoning. The state passed a bill that legalizes fourplexes in this zone and increases that to sixplexes in areas defined as “near frequent transit”. The city has no choice but to comply by allowing those 4 and 6 units. But the state didn’t set a minimum FAR threshold and Seattle seized on this by complying without adding a single square foot of building area in market rate developments.

The proposal maintains 0.9 FAR on all sites, which is currently what is legally permitted today to build 3 units. For sixplexes, only until you build an all-affordable project do you unlock the extra FAR to build a state permitted sixplex with reasonable units. This shows a reluctance to make these projects possible by imposing constraints that will kill more projects than it creates.

This is where the state legalized sixplexes, but keeping the FAR at the existing 0.9 as proposed by the planners is a virtual ban on their construction.

For decades the city allowed you to build 4,500 square feet (0.9 FAR) of building on your single-family zoned property. Before 2019, this was usually one behemoth home. But in 2019 the law changed allowing that area to be sub divided into three units with an ADU law seeking to add housing and to ban mansions. The 2024 comprehensive plan keeps building sizes the same as before but dares you to try to fit 4 or 6 units into the same space.

Shoving four or six units in the same building area will not pencil out. Builders have told the city the plan doesn’t yield a reasonable solution. The dollars per sq. ft. is too high to finance and the units are too small for the market. So instead, they’ve told the city they will keep building three homes per lot, which is already permitted. It makes you wonder if this was the outcome planners wanted all along?

Adding a Small Number Makes the Plan FAR Better

Increasing FAR by increments of 0.3 for every additional unit keeps the homes large enough for families.

Seattle has roughly 800 million square feet of site area in lots zoned single-family — or whatever they call it now — since single family zoning dominates 2/3rds of our city’s land to build on. Since FAR is the multiplier to site area, for every 0.1 FAR we add to this plan we gain 80 million square feet of possible building citywide.

Per a traditional 5,000 square feet lot, every 0.1 FAR is another 500 square feet to add to the building, allowing larger homes with more bedrooms and a financial model that pencils out. If we are daring enough to add a measly 0.3 FAR to our plan a fourplex suddenly is building 1,500 square feet units, enough for 3 or 4 bedrooms to be comfortably accommodated.

If we are serious about adding homes, then make it worthwhile. Start at 0.9 FAR if your builder wants to do the Seattle “3-pack” and grow it to 1.2 FAR if you build four units. These can be stacked flats or townhomes.

The more units you add the more FAR you should get. For every added unit, we should add 0.3 FAR. By graduating more building area the more units you add, suddenly a builder is enticed to add more homes on a lot.

• 3 units: 0.9 FAR, 1,500 sf units
• 4 units: 1.2 FAR, 1,500 sf units
• 5 units: 1.5 FAR, 1,500 sf units
• 6 units: 1.8 FAR, 1,500 sf units

Affordable provisions for fourplexes to grow to five or sixplexes are fine because that affordable bonus is just that, a bonus. Right now, for the sixplex zone, Seattle has no bonus. The proposed plan holds the additional area hostage, forcing you to build an all-affordable building before you get the additional area to build a 1.8 FAR sixplex, which is the legal bare minimum for this zone.

That isn’t a bonus; that is a mandate, and it completely undermines state law. If we want an affordable bonus for sixplexes, give them another floor and two more units like we are doing for quadplexes. This bonus would grow the building FAR to 2.4 allowing a four story eightplex. This building may sound out of the ordinary, but they exist, hiding in plain sight in many of Seattle’s leafy neighborhoods that were built before modern planning and zoning constraints.

Big Buildings Build Big Homes

Seattle’s market rate sixplex solution will create 1 bedroom small homes. Spokane’s market rate sixplex solution legally allows large 3 bedroom 2 bathroom homes.

Small changes to our FAR figures can go a long way. They can make builders consider adding more homes per lot and grow our city sustainably with family sized housing. Bigger homes lower the cost per square foot, which is a figure the banks want to see before giving out a construction loan. Framing a bedroom is cheap, building a kitchen or bathroom is expensive. By building more cheap framing for bigger living rooms and more bedrooms, suddenly we will have a better home for everyone involved in the transaction.

Density is unfairly associated with cramped living spaces and low quality of life. But before we invented modern planning that restricted what could be built and where, we built larger homes big enough for families in dense buildings all over the country. This is about restoring that flexibility and re-legalizing the family sized housing options we used to build. Hopefully the planning staff comes to their senses and realizes a small decimal of change isn’t a bridge too FAR.