Seattle's Sodo rezoning bill thrown out by state land-use board

A Washington state land-use board last week threw out a bill passed by the city of Seattle that would rezone an industrial district in Sodo to allow housing.

The bill, passed by the City Council 6-3 in March, would have allowed apartment development in a several-block area just south of T-Mobile Park, half of which would have been affordable housing.

But the Growth Management Hearings Board ruled that the city incorrectly relied on a 2022 environmental assessment in determining the impacts of housing in the area, instead of conducting a new review.

The board also found that the city did not allow for sufficient public participation, did not notify state officials properly over the zoning changes, and violated the State Environmental Policy Act, all of which led it to invalidate the measure.

City officials have the option to appeal the decision to a Superior Court judge within 30 days or reset the process from square one, according to the board ruling.

However, it's unclear if the city will take up the effort again. In passing the measure, city officials encountered harsh opposition from maritime groups led by the Port of Seattle, the agency that filed the complaint alongside the BNSF Railway with the Growth Management board. The port also filed a land-use petition in April with the King County Superior Court. That lawsuit is still pending.

Tim Robinson, a spokesperson for the City's Attorney's Office, said that officials are "reviewing" the decision to "determine next steps and are considering all options."

"The Board's ruling today, which invalidates Ordinance 127191 in its entirety, is the next step to righting the City's missteps in this land use process," a spokesperson for the Port of Seattle said in a prepared statement.

The fight over the Sodo stadium district this year reinvigorated a debate over where new housing should be located in Seattle, as the city continues to grapple with a housing crunch.

In Sodo, the proposed housing would have been on land that is largely owned by the hedge-fund billionaire Chris Hansen. At one point Hansen wanted to build an NBA stadium on those properties, which are largely occupied by warehouses. But those plans were halted by a prior council after heavy opposition by the port.

Proponents of the measure, including the Seattle Mariners and nearby neighborhood alliances, have argued that housing could help invigorate an area by creating a "Makers District" where small-scale industrial businesses can operate on the ground-floor of the mixed-use buildings. Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson, who sponsored the measure, had made the proposed spaces a core part of her reelection campaign, which she lost this month.

Opponents argued in court that allowing housing in Sodo would serve as a handout to Hansen. The port also argued that added foot traffic to the corridor would disrupt its operations and could lead to job losses in the maritime industry.

Members of the board, however, did not buy all of the port's arguments. They wrote in the ruling that there was not enough evidence that housing would severely disrupt port operations.

They also found that in the district where housing was proposed only about 7.5 acres could actually be developed, which would only lead to about 375 units, significantly less than the up to 990 repeated by the measure's largest proponents and detractors.