Seattle voters favor multifamily apartments anywhere in the city for social housing

Near­ly two-thirds of Seat­tle’s most reli­able vot­ers favor allow­ing the con­struc­tion of four to six sto­ry mul­ti­fam­i­ly apart­ment build­ings any­where in the city for social hous­ing that includes dwellings for edu­ca­tors, nurs­es, and archi­tects, a poll con­duct­ed for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute ear­li­er this year shows.

65% of 651 like­ly spe­cial elec­tion vot­ers sur­veyed by Change Research for NPI in advance of Seat­tle’s Feb­ru­ary 2023 spe­cial elec­tion said they are strong­ly or some­what sup­port­ive of allow­ing mul­ti­fam­i­ly apart­ment build­ings to be built any­where in the city to pro­vide hous­ing for peo­ple work­ing in pro­fes­sions like teach­ing, while 30% said they were opposed. 5% said that they were not sure.

About four in ten Seat­tle vot­ers sur­veyed said they were strong­ly sup­port­ive, while few­er than two in ten said they were strong­ly opposed. 26% were some­what sup­port­ive, while 11% were some­what opposed.

Seat­tle vot­ers in Feb­ru­ary said yes to Ini­tia­tive 135, a social hous­ing ini­tia­tive cham­pi­oned by our friends at House Our Neigh­bors. The mea­sure autho­rized the for­ma­tion of a pub­lic devel­op­ment author­i­ty, or PDA, to build social housing.

State and city elect­ed lead­ers have since been work­ing to mar­shal fund­ing to help the PDA get set up and begin its oper­a­tions, a process that will take some time.

NPI’s research shows that a big per­cent­age of the city’s most depend­able vot­ers — the folks who can be count­ed upon to return a bal­lot regard­less of what time of year it is or how much media cov­er­age an elec­tion is get­ting — are enthu­si­as­tic about get­ting more social hous­ing built, and not just in neigh­bor­hoods that are already home to medi­um sto­ry build­ings. Here’s our ques­tion and responses:

QUESTION: Do you sup­port or oppose allow­ing the con­struc­tion of four to six sto­ry mul­ti­fam­i­ly apart­ment build­ings any­where in Seat­tle for social hous­ing that includes dwellings for edu­ca­tors, nurs­es, and architects?

ANSWERS:

• Sup­port: 65% 
  • Strong­ly sup­port: 39%
  • Some­what sup­port: 26%
• Oppose: 30%
  • Some­what oppose: 11%
  • Strong­ly oppose: 18%
• Not sure: 5%

We had a fol­low-up ques­tion that we asked of those opposed, which was:

FOLLOW-UP QUESTION: You indi­cat­ed you’re opposed to allow­ing four to six sto­ry mul­ti­fam­i­ly apart­ment build­ings to be built any­where in Seat­tle. Are there oth­er types of hous­ing units you would sup­port in your neigh­bor­hood? Check all that apply.

ANSWERS:

• Duplex­es: 43%
• Attached dwelling units (ADUs) / back­yard cot­tages: 38%
• Town­hous­es: 23%
• Triplex­es: 15%
• Four­plex­es: 13%
• Five­plex­es: 7%
• Six­plex­es: 7%
• None of these: 41%

What these fol­low-up answers show us is that even among folks who don’t want to see four to six sto­ry mul­ti­fam­i­ly apart­ment build­ings allowed any­where in Seat­tle, there’s still open­ness to oth­er miss­ing mid­dle hous­ing solutions.

Duplex­es topped the list, fol­lowed by ADUs and back­yard cottages.

There was less inter­est in town­hous­es or oth­er types. Slight­ly more peo­ple in this group of vot­ers expressed sup­port for duplex­es than checked the box that said “none of these,” a par­tic­u­lar­ly intrigu­ing result. (Remem­ber, these are the peo­ple who said they were some­what or strong­ly opposed to the first question!)

We asked a sim­i­lar fol­low-up ques­tion of our sup­port­ive vot­ers, and as you might expect, they’re extreme­ly enthu­si­as­tic about the whole range of options.

FOLLOW-UP QUESTION (ASKED OF SUPPORTIVE VOTERS): Are there oth­er types of hous­ing you’d sup­port allow­ing to be built any­where in Seat­tle? Check all that apply.

• Duplex­es: 78%
• Attached dwelling units (ADUs) / back­yard cot­tages: 72%
• Town­hous­es: 71%
• Triplex­es: 71%
• Four­plex­es: 68%
• Five­plex­es: 58%
• Six­plex­es: 58%
• None of these: 7%

Our sur­vey of 651 like­ly Feb­ru­ary 2023 spe­cial elec­tion vot­ers in Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton was in the field from Thurs­day, Jan­u­ary 26th, through Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 30th, 2023. All respon­dents par­tic­i­pat­ed online. The poll was con­duct­ed for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute by Change Research and has a mod­eled mar­gin of error of 4.2% at the 95% con­fi­dence interval.

Hous­ing pol­i­cy took front and cen­ter stage in the recent­ly-con­clud­ed 2023 leg­isla­tive ses­sion, with law­mak­ers adopt­ing sev­er­al bills that will make it eas­i­er to build miss­ing mid­dle hous­ing in com­mu­ni­ties across the state.

As we saw with the vote on I‑135, Seat­tle vot­ers are keen on a mul­ti­fac­eted strat­e­gy that embraces a range of ideas and solu­tions for mak­ing hous­ing more attain­able. Vot­ers aren’t just will­ing to say yes to more infra­struc­ture and mon­ey for hous­ing, they’re also ready to wel­come new neigh­bors so that every­one who wants to live in the City of Seat­tle can have a place to call home.