Montlake Rezoning Task Force Update

Written By Montlake Community

Author: Janice Sears

Phase Two (Neighborhood Centers and Corridors) of the One Seattle Plan is now on “indefinite pause”!

  • “Long story short, there are two separate appeals on the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the One Seattle Plan: one about environmental impacts in Puget Sound, and the other on traffic congestion, parking, property values, and historic buildings.” (This quote is from CM Hollingsworth’s office.)

  • For more information on these appeals you can read this article from the Urbanist, a pro density publication. Court Ruling Against Seattle Growth Plan Undercuts State Housing Reforms

  • One of the appeals is driven by the Ravenna Community, also an Historic District as designated by the Department of the Interior, like Montlake, so it will be interesting to watch what/if anything happens before we finalize our Neighborhood Center!

  • Interesting to also note that the City Council, driven by CM Linn, Chair of the One Seattle Plan, has already met about changing laws so that appeals like this won’t halt work in the future. More on this topic can be found in this Seattle Times article, Seattle City Council begins debate on proposal to protect development legislation from environmental appeals.

  • Phase One of the One Seattle Plan is still final!

    • As you may recall, the State’s HB 1110 was passed in 2023 effectively eliminating single family zoning for cities over 25,000 population in the entire state of WA to increase density and accommodate growth while making housing affordable.

    • On December 16, 2025 Seattle City Council finally and formally voted to adopt the One Seattle Plan (Council Bill 120985) and the Neighborhood Residential Update (Council Bill 120993) to satisfy the State’s HB1110. Mayor Harrell signed it into law.

    • So, in the end the city is requiring significantly more density than required by HB1110 based on questionable growth numbers! Montlake will now be zoned for duplexes, fourplexes and sixplexes (in addition to ADU’s) in our formerly single-family (NR) neighborhood with potentially little or no off-street parking.  Things such as Seattle’s healthy and coveted tree canopy are at risk with major “setback” reductions! Heights are planned to significantly increase along with Floor Area Ratio (FAR). Historical Design Reviews (and standards) will be gone. Seattle and Montlake’s old infrastructure will most certainly be “stretched”.  

  • Montlake’s Neighborhood Center (NC) update

    • Once again recall that we were able to reduce the boundaries of our NC somewhat back in Phase One. Click here and scroll to page 7 to view Montlake’s current NC compared to the original.

    • The heights/zoning of NC’s, including Montlake’s, will be finalized in Phase Two, which is on indefinite pause.

    • The Montlake Rezoning Task Force (MRTF) met with CM Hollingsworth’s office in December and then again on April 2nd to share our detailed counterproposal to reduce the currently planned heights in our NC. CM Hollingsworth had previously stated that she would work with us on getting our NC more in scale with the historic Montlake neighborhood.

  • What can you do?

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