Friends and neighbors,
We just passed the halfway mark of the 2025 legislative session, and we are rapidly approaching the house of origin cutoff when bills must be passed off the House floor to still be viable. I wanted to provide you with an update on my housing legislation, women’s history month and an upcoming in-person town hall.
Building our way out of the housing crisis.
One million, that is the number of housing units we have to build in the next 20 years to meet Washington’s housing needs. Currently, our state is 250,000 units short. Over the last few years, we’ve passed numerous bills to expedite and encourage housing construction. This session, I sponsored three bills to help with this goal.
In previous sessions, I have successfully passed legislation to allow the conversion of existing commercial properties for housing. Those rules only applied to conversions in commercial and mixed-use zones. House Bill 1757 extends these allowances to commercial buildings in primarily residential zones. I believe we must continue to find creative avenues to increase housing supply. Using existing spaces makes a lot of sense.
I inherited a bill from Rep Joan McBride on allowing religious organizations to build more affordable units on their land. This session I handed the legislation, House Bill 1859 to my new seatmate, Rep. Osman Salahuddin.
Design review for housing developments can sometimes take years to get approval. Sometimes these developments just stall in the review process. I sponsored of House Bill 1160 to address this problem. It requires cities and counties to create and stick to clear and objective administrative design review criteria when approving housing developments. Unreasonable and subjective delays mean delays in housing our neighbors. They deserve better.
We also passed a transit-oriented development bill to increase housing around our public transit hubs. This is something I have worked on extensively in the past. Though this specific bill still needs work, I am committed to fixing concerns in Senate as it moves through the process.
Talking with Rep. Kristine Reeves for women’s history month.
I recently had the opportunity to sit down for a conversation with my dear friend and colleague Rep. Kristine Reeves to celebrate women’s history month. This Lawmaker-to-Lawmaker video offers great insight into how Rep. Reeves and I think. I hope it is informative.
48th District In-Person Town Hall
I’d also like to invite you to join my seatmates and me for an in-person town hall in Redmond on Sunday, March 23 from 2:30-3:30 PM at the Together Center, 16305 NE 87th St., Suite 110. I would love to hear from you. I hope I see you there.
As always, please reach out with thoughts, ideas, questions or concerns.
Thank you,
Rep. Amy Walen