What is One Seattle?

One Seattle is the title and guiding principal for the major update to Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan that is currently underway and will be completed in 2024. The Plan will guide the city over the next twenty years. As outlined on the City’s One Seattle Plan website:

The updated Seattle Comprehensive Plan will guide City decisions about where we locate housing and jobs, and where and how we invest in transportation, utilities, parks, and other public assets. The goal is to make the city more equitable, livable, sustainable, and resilient for today’s communities and future residents.

The Plan will address challenges new and old: racial equity, housing costs, access to economic opportunity and education, climate change, and more. While the Plan evolves from our existing Seattle 2035 Comprehensive Plan adopted in 2016 as required by the Growth Management Act, we will explore different approaches to growth and investment, along with new strategies to reduce displacement pressures.

The students’ work

In the context of the crippling housing crisis Seattle faces as a city, students were challenged to imagine how the Comprehensive Plan major update could create new opportunities for housing. The Seattle Metro Area had a shortfall of 81,000 housing units (5% of all housing) and this will only get worse as the Puget Sound Regional Council projects that our region will grow by 1.8 million residents over the next thirty years. But we lack more than a quantity of housing. We also lack a diversity of housing types as we have detached single-family homes, large apartment buildings and very little in-between.

The classes focused on re-establishing so-called “missing middle” housing types, such as courtyard housing, small apartment buildings, and small mixed-use buildings above that can be found in older Seattle neighborhoods but are now prohibited throughout most of our city by the zoning code. Students have also proposed entirely new “missing middle” housing types as well. The goal is to connect the public to the Comprehensive Plan Major Update process through the creative work of students designing innovative housing.

The Studio

The studio and seminar class were developed by Professor Rick Mohler and the studio was taught by Rick and colleague Matt Hutchins in 2022. Fifteen students participated – Anastasia Ciorici, Azita Footohi, Alina Garrity, Haodong Gong, Raymond Gonzales, Carrie Kamakaala, Michelle Loyola, Kennedy Nicoara, Addison Peabody, Matthew Simmons, Jian Sun, Lara Tedrow, Logan White, Jake Woll and Miggi Wu. While the studio and seminar worked closely with staff from Seattle’s Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD), the work shown here is wholly independent of OPCD and its work on the Comprehensive Plan major update. The studio focused on five Seattle neighborhoods – Delridge, Hillman City/Seward Park, Loyal Heights, Madison Park and Wedgwood. The projects are all located within what are currently Neighborhood Residential (formerly Single-Family) areas with good access to public transit.