HOP Passes Unanimously, 9-0!

Our first effort, Housing Opportunities, heads to Mayor Wilson's desk

We made HOP real

Tuesday afternoon, the Seattle City Council passed the Housing Opportunities Zoning Amendments (aka HOP) unanimously, 9-0.

If you’ve been with us through this, you already know what a moment this is. In April, a roomful of For Seattle members walked into City Hall to testify on a piece of legislation most of them had only learned about a few weeks before. On May 20th, it cleared committee. On Tuesday, all nine Councilmembers voted yes.

This was For Seattle’s first major legislative push. We could not be more grateful for how this community showed up to make it happen.

Thanks where it’s due

First, a thank-you to Mayor Wilson for putting HOP on Council’s desk in the first place. We’re looking forward to seeing her sign it into law in the weeks ahead.

Real thanks too to Land Use Committee Chair Eddie Lin for sponsoring HOP and shepherding it through committee, and to co-sponsor Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck for putting her full weight behind it from day one. And thanks to Council President Joy Hollingsworth and all eight other Councilmembers for getting to yes together. A unanimous vote on a piece of housing legislation in Seattle is not a small thing, and it reflects work that started long before any of us walked into the chamber.

Bigger thanks still to our community who kept showing up, hearing after hearing. On Tuesday at the mic with Marta and me: Bob, Elizabeth, Evan, Michael, and Jess. And to those who took the time to write in: Emily, Lisa, Adam, Marc, Korey, and Justin. Thank you.

And to the folks who came in-person to testify on HOP at any point across these three hearings, this was always your win as much as anyone’s: Ben, Vinay, Trevor, Becca, Bob, Elizabeth, Lisa, Ian, Kyler, Oliver, Evan, Michael, and Jess. Many of you were first-time public commenters when this started. You came back. That’s the whole thing.

Thanks too to the coalition partners who carried this alongside us: the North Coast Carpenters Union, Futurewise, Sightline, the Housing Development Consortium, Habitat for Humanity Seattle-King County, Master Builders, Seattle YIMBY, Tech4Housing, Housing Roundtable, Purpose. Dignity. Action. and others. None of us did this alone.

What HOP actually does

If you want the full picture, our first Substack on HOP lays it out. The short version: HOP makes it easier to turn underused commercial buildings into homes, removes code barriers that have blocked mass timber and modular construction, and expands housing capacity on land near jobs, transit, and on publicly and nonprofit-owned parcels. It is a concrete first step toward putting more homes where they’re needed.

What’s next

Passing HOP is a milestone, not a finish line. The work now is implementation. We will be tracking whether HOP actually translates into permits, projects, and homes people can move into, and we will share what we find. If it’s working, we’ll say so. If it stalls, we’ll say that too. That kind of honest accounting is the whole reason this project exists.

We will also keep building from here. HOP is one piece of a longer housing agenda, and there’s more focused, concrete work to come that will make our city more affordable, accessible, livable, and accountable.

Come build with us

If you’ve been on the fence about getting involved, this is a good week to jump in. Subscribe to follow along as we track what happens next, or send us a note if you want to be more active. Marta (our new Network and Organizing Lead) is building the bench of folks who want to show up at the next hearing and take on discrete projects that help accelerate and improve implementation of the things we need more of.

This is what it looks like when our community decides to get serious about having enough homes for the people who have built this city and for the people who want and need to live here.

Onward!