Mosqueda celebrates key boosts to housing, childcare, and equitable communities in the updated Comprehensive Plan

December 10, 2024

The King County Council on Tuesday gave final approval to the 2024 King County Comprehensive Plan, the County’s guiding document for growth over the next 20 years. Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda celebrated the inclusion of over 60 items she sponsored to support affordable housing and childcare, workers and small businesses, healthcare and social services, and climate resilience.

“Over the last year, I have heard from unincorporated King County communities about what they need most—affordable housing, childcare, access to health services, support for small businesses, and livable, resilient neighborhoods—and have worked to translate that into detailed planning policy,” Mosqueda said. “I’m thrilled that this plan reflects those priorities and sets King County on a path towards more sustainable, equitable growth over the next 20 years with support for housing, health, and childcare. It will have a positive impact for generations to come.”

Mosqueda engaged with community members on the plan in unincorporated areas like Vashon-Maury Island, White Center and North Highline, the South Park “Sliver” by the river and communities across the County. The Comprehensive Plan guides development for unincorporated King County over the next 20 years, including where and what kind of homes, services, businesses and buildings can be constructed. It further lays out how the county protects the environment, including farmland, open spaces and forests, and sets policies and priorities related to community planning and local economic development.

Mosqueda’s amendments spanned county-wide, rural and urban unincorporated areas. For more detailed information, see Mosqueda’s Comprehensive Plan amendments overview. Highlights include:

• Increasing Housing Opportunities - Removing barriers to housing development and incentivizing affordable housing in new developments, encouraging diverse housing types like ADUs, duplexes, triplexes, small apartment buildings and shared-equity co-ops, and initiating the development of more tools to support affordable housing
• Incentivizing Childcare - Sponsoring a suite of amendments to reduce barriers to siting in-home and facilities childcare, and working with colleagues to craft a brand-new childcare incentive for King County
• Supporting Small Businesses - Shoring up neighborhood small businesses in White Center and beyond by requiring new development to provide space suitable for small businesses, allowing for more corner stores and neighborhood cafes, banning big box stores, large chains, and self-storage facilities, and teeing up a Legacy Business Program to support community-serving businesses at risk of displacement
• Combatting Displacement - Initiating regulations on short-term rentals like Airbnbs and VRBOs, adding new policy disapproving of rent-gouging through software like RealPage, discouraging McMansion and large estate development in urban neighborhoods and agricultural land, and speeding up Community Preference policy to prioritize new affordable housing for long-time community members facing displacement
• Advancing Climate Equity and Resilience - Initiating the creation of Climate Resilience Hubs, supporting career pathways into living wage, green jobs, removing code barriers to heat pump retrofits to enable multifamily cooling retrofits, encouraging climate resilient landscaping, and advancing a suite of items to support the health and resilience of King County water systems
• Creating Healthy and Livable Communities - Making it easier to site healthcare and therapeutic services in high-density residential zones, boosting the accessibility of housing near parks, encouraging healthy housing free of toxic materials, supporting small-scale animal rescue, and discouraging vacant and derelict properties

Community Leader Quotes:

Councilmember Sarah Perry, Chair of the Local Services and Land Use Committee: “I am very grateful to Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda and all of my other colleagues serving on the Local Services and Land Use committee for their thoughtful and engaged participation in this once-in-a-decade Comprehensive Plan update. I’m honored to have had the opportunity to visit Vashon Island earlier this year to hear from residents on areas of importance to them: affordable housing, environmental preservation, small business support, and health services. Thanks to the valuable input from so many dedicated community members, we were able to put the best plan forward to help all our residents thrive!”

Aaron Garcia, Executive Director of White Center Community Development Association: “White Center CDA works to build a community where economic and racial justice are at the forefront, ensuring families have access to affordable housing and essential resources. We envision a vibrant local economy driven from the bottom up, where BIPOC entrepreneurs, residents, and youth shape policies that affect their lives and maintain their cultural roots in the neighborhood. We are proud to have shaped this Comprehensive Plan, which stems from deep community engagement and advances our mission by protecting small businesses, preventing displacement, and expanding vital services like childcare and healthcare. This plan advocates for zoning reforms that enable diverse housing options - from duplexes to small apartment buildings - making it easier to build the missing middle housing our community needs. By supporting multigenerational housing options and removing barriers to housing development, we're helping families stay rooted in White Center. This plan also bans corporate chains, prioritizing independent small businesses that maintain White Center's unique character and keep economic power within the community.”

Tricia Schroeder, President of SEIU 925: “Childcare is crucial to supporting working families and ensuring the sustainability of our local economy, and we need to make it easier to create more spaces to provide care. The suite of childcare amendments included in this comprehensive plan update will not only make it easier to site both in-home and facilities childcare, but will create a new King County incentive to further encourage new childcare spaces across the county. These changes will make it faster and less costly to bring new childcare online—a win for our communities, economy, and local workforce.”

Kari Dohn Decker, Executive Director of Vashon Household: “Vashon-Maury Island, like communities across the county and state, is suffering from a shortage of affordable housing that has a deep impact on the health of our community and our local economy. As Vashon Household and our partners work to create more quality, affordable housing opportunities for households with low and moderate incomes on Vashon, the deep focus on housing in this Comprehensive Plan update will support that mission – while also working to preserve our island’s unique rural nature. At Vashon Household, we see every day how planning and development policies can make or break affordable housing projects.  This plan should have a real, positive impact on our efforts to create the housing our community needs—from grocery store and post office workers, to seniors and growing families, and our neighbors who make Vashon a wonderful place to live and visit.”

Alejandra Tres, Co-founder of Comunidad Latina de Vashon: “Comunidad listens to over 1,000 Latinos annually across urban and rural King County, and the message is clear: Jobs and the environment are top priorities. Through thousands of hours of conversations, their lived experiences offer unmatched insight into the solutions our county needs. We extend our gratitude to Councilmember Mosqueda for championing green workforce initiatives and removing code barriers that pave the way for more climate-friendly communities. Together, we are shaping an inclusive and sustainable future.”