Going into 2026, Washington state faces a lot of uncertainty. Housing costs have continued climbing year after year, climate change is creating more unpredictable extreme weather, and we’re still working to make every community equitable and accessible. While we’ve made great progress over the past years, our work isn’t done! We’re back in action on the top issues impacting your community, making sure communities are connected to transit, farms are protected from sprawl, and more.
Our top priorities this session are:
1. Tackling Homelessness – Often the most difficult housing to site are permanent supportive housing, emergency shelters, and transitional housing, so we’re working to remove barriers to building this housing; things like additional costly but unnecessary regulations often driven by stigma or neighborhood opposition. This is a follow-up from our successful passage of HB 1220, and will make it easier to site this housing as outlined by state law.
2. Encouraging middle housing – Landmark missing-middle housing legislation was passed in 2023, but big, complex legislation like HB 1110 needs careful implementation, and often follow-up bills to support its successful implementation. This year, we’re working both with the legislature and the building codes council to make sure building codes are updated to make it feasible to implement this bill while maintaining critical quality and safety standards.
3. Balancing Rural Housing and the Environment – Growing equitably and intentionally in rural areas has always been extremely complex – requiring a careful balance of protecting agricultural, farm, and resource-lands from sprawl while providing affordable housing options that folks need, while still maintaining rural areas. There is no silver bullet solution, but you can always count on Futurewise to have everyone’s interest in mind and be a careful, thoughtful partner in this area.
As the steward of Washington’s Growth Management Act (GMA), Futurewise advocates with people like you to pass state legislation that reflects our vision for the future and fight bad bills that would increase sprawl and pollution.
Our recent victories include closing the adding housing justice to the GMA (HB 1220), passing Middle Housing to allow more homes in all neighborhoods (HB 1110), adding planning for the climate to the GMA (HB 1181), and passing transit-oriented development to allow more homes near transit (HB 1491).
Research Futurewise conducted in 2024 is relevant to the 2025 Transit-Oriented Development bill in the Washington Legislature.
Exploring the Potential Impact of the Community and Transit-Oriented Housing Development Bill HB 2160 Across Washington State’s Central Puget Sound Region
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