Dan Bertolet

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Dan Bertolet

Dan Bertolet

@danbertolet

Director of Housing and Urbanism @Sightline. Before that, worked as an urban planning consultant. Before that, was an electrical engineer. Views here just mine.

Seattle เข้าร่วม Kasım 2010
744 กำลังติดตาม3.8K ผู้ติดตาม
Dan Bertolet
Dan Bertolet@danbertolet·
Thank you @GovBobFerguson, Sen. Alvarado, @davinaduerr, and many others! Here’s Sightline’s writeup on WA’s bill to legalize housing in commercial zones and make ground-floor retail optional: sightline.org/2026/03/11/was…
Governor Bob Ferguson@GovBobFerguson

We need to get creative to build more housing, faster. I requested a bill with Sen. Alvarado to allow residential development on land zoned for commercial uses, unlocking new development opportunities. Today, I signed it into law.

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Dan Bertolet
Dan Bertolet@danbertolet·
@michael_wiebe @mattyglesias So each land purchase for redevelopment would involve a negotiation between the buyer, seller, and city to set a unique affordability requirement that would allow the buyer to offer enough to induce the sale? Sorry, but to me that seems like an absurdly unworkable policy.
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Michael Wiebe
Michael Wiebe@michael_wiebe·
@danbertolet @mattyglesias Yes, I'm assuming that the IZ tax is tailored to each parcel. A blanket IZ policy would almost surely be miscalibrated.
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Dan Bertolet
Dan Bertolet@danbertolet·
@michael_wiebe @mattyglesias Yes I understand how that could work for an individual case. What I'm saying is that on average for all properties across a city, the IZ cost will mean that fewer landowners will be induced to sell because developers can't offer them as much for their land.
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Michael Wiebe
Michael Wiebe@michael_wiebe·
@danbertolet @mattyglesias I'm saying we can pick a LVT/IZ amount such that developers still offer enough to landowners to induce them to sell. We're effectively taxing the upzoning surplus from landowners (without changing their behavior).
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Dan Bertolet
Dan Bertolet@danbertolet·
@maxdubler Hmm Max, methinks you're being too kind. "Works" also means that all rents/prices will stay higher than they would have been absent IZ, no?
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Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈
Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈@maxdubler·
So-called “inclusionary zoning” acts as a tax on new housing by requiring homebuilders to sell or rent some of the new homes at a loss. Unfunded IZ only “works” when the market price of new housing is significantly higher than construction costs. Glad to see OR rolling it back.
Andrew Damitio 🏗️ (🏬🚝☢️🔆🔋♨️)@AndrewDamitio

Great piece of legislation passed the Oregon Senate. SB 1521 bans inclusionary zoning UNLESS Portland-area govts create a pay-for to compensate builders for being forced to provide affordable units. NIMBY local governments won't be able to use IZ to block new housing supply.

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Dan Bertolet
Dan Bertolet@danbertolet·
@michael_wiebe @mattyglesias But if there's no IZ, developers can pay more, which means they are more likely to exceed landowners' reservation prices, and the result is more development than the scenario with IZ. What am I missing?
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Michael Wiebe
Michael Wiebe@michael_wiebe·
@danbertolet @mattyglesias If it's equal to the surplus land value created, then the developer pays less to the landowner, while exceeding their reservation price. This is equivalent to a LVT.
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Dan Bertolet
Dan Bertolet@danbertolet·
@michael_wiebe @mattyglesias If by calibrated you mean the cost of the affordability mandate matches the value of the upzone, I still don't understand how you would expect the same level of development in that scenario versus the scenario of the same upzone with no affordability mandate.
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Michael Wiebe
Michael Wiebe@michael_wiebe·
@danbertolet @mattyglesias Yes, that it would be actually calibrated. I doubt planners will be able to achieve that. Given how widespread IZ is, seems worth talking about so people understand the best-case scenario. Won't be able to improve without meeting people where they are.
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Dan Bertolet
Dan Bertolet@danbertolet·
@michael_wiebe @mattyglesias What does "working" mean? That the same amount of redevelopment would happen after an upzone with IZ versus an upzone without IZ, all else equal? In any case, if it likely won't work in practice, talking about it as a solution isn't helping us get good policy passed.
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Michael Wiebe
Michael Wiebe@michael_wiebe·
@danbertolet @mattyglesias I agree that calibrated IZ likely won't work in practice, but I don't see an argument against it working in principle.
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Dan Bertolet รีทวีตแล้ว
David Roberts
David Roberts@drvolts·
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.
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Dan Bertolet
Dan Bertolet@danbertolet·
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: sightline.org/2025/05/16/how…
Dan Bertolet@danbertolet

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. sightline.org/2025/05/15/was…

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Dan Bertolet
Dan Bertolet@danbertolet·
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. sightline.org/2025/05/15/was…
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Dan Bertolet
Dan Bertolet@danbertolet·
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
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Dan Bertolet
Dan Bertolet@danbertolet·
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. sightline.org/2024/10/01/was…
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Dan Bertolet
Dan Bertolet@danbertolet·
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. lu.ma/un5mc0qz
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Dan Bertolet
Dan Bertolet@danbertolet·
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. seattletimes.com/business/real-…
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Dan Bertolet
Dan Bertolet@danbertolet·
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!
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Dan Bertolet
Dan Bertolet@danbertolet·
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.
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Dan Bertolet
Dan Bertolet@danbertolet·
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. sightline.org/2024/10/28/to-…
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ค้นพบ

@GovBobFerguson @davinaduerr @michael_wiebe @mattyglesias @maxdubler @Sightline @elonmusk @BarackObama