Seattle's budget hole is close to half a billion dollars. Meanwhile, a planning document is on ice, and a city office still wants to tear out a highway. Friday's got range. This is Seattle Politics and Urbanism Daily. Today — what a $500 million deficit does to a reform agenda that's already stuck in court, and whether OPCD's South Park highway pitch survives the math. Devin, where do you want to start? From West Seattle Blog:
City Councilmember Eddie Lin, who’s chairing the committee reviewing Phase 2 of the city Comprehensive Plan – aka“Centers and Corridors”– says it’s on hold until next year because of legal action related to environmental appeals. Lin announced the delay in a news release, saying that “a handful of homeowners and business interests are weaponizing State Environmental Policy Act appeals to challenge proposed zoning and development legislation, including that which would help protect the environment.”
Eddie Lin, who's chairing the Phase 2 review of the Comprehensive Plan — the Centers and Corridors piece — tells West Seattle Blog it's on hold until next year. And that lands right on top of the Court of Appeals decision earlier this month that sent the plan back. So now we've got two separate things pushing to the same place. The ruling stalled the 30 neighborhood centers, and the Phase 2 review that was supposed to follow isn't starting until 2027. The delay is starting to stack up. Honestly? This is the whole week snapping into place. We kept asking whether City Hall had levers to slow-walk middle housing under 1110. Well, here's your answer in writing — the planning framework itself is officially parked till next year. You can't slow-walk a process much harder than just turning it off. From 570 KVI:
According to city projections, Seattle is now facing a budget shortfall of approximately $488 million over the next three years, roughly $100 million higher than previous estimates. The city expects a deficit of approximately $175 million next year alone.
Here's the budget number hanging over all of this. 570 KVI puts Seattle's shortfall at $488 million over three years — about a hundred million worse than the last estimate, with $175 million hitting next year alone. And we just heard the Comp Plan Phase 2 piece — punted to next year. That timing matters. This is how a budget hole turns into a policy delay. Wilson's framing is interesting — she called it a structural deficit that 'goes back years.' Six months in, and it's already inherited. Probably even true. Fine, say 'nothing's off the table' on revenue — capital gains tax, expanding JumpStart. But every reform we've talked about this week — CARE responders, housing speed — runs straight into this hole. You can't staff what you can't fund. And it makes Wednesday's county human-services fight feel a lot less theoretical. Treatment contracts hit differently when the city is staring at $175 million in red ink next year alone. From The Urbanist:
The agency projects that the most ambitious "reclaim + reroute" option would bring the most benefits: up to 100 acres of land opened up – and room for at least 400 units of housing – along with significant gains for the environment and public health. Removing this stretch of SR 99 would mean 64% less traffic diverted through South Park, and the amount of "pollution generating impervious surface" (PGIS) could be reduced by as much as 86%.
So, in the same week we learn the city's staring down a near-half-billion-dollar deficit, OPCD puts out a report making the case to tear out a stretch of SR 99 through South Park. The 'reclaim and reroute' option pencils out to a hundred acres opened up, room for 400 units of housing, and 86% less of that pollution-generating pavement. And right now, that highway physically separates the neighborhood's elementary school from its public library. That's South Park kids having to go around a state highway to get a book. Tear it out — I'm with the report on the why. I buy the why. It's the 'very few negative impacts' line I want to sit with. That's the city's own planning office grading its own homework, and it's landing right as Comp Plan Phase 2 gets punted to next year. Right — so who funds a highway removal when the same City Hall can't even finish its planning document? 64% less traffic through South Park sounds great on a slide. Show me the capital line that pays for it against a $500 million hole. Those four futures — boulevard, pedestrian bridges, full reroute, all of it — run into the same problem: a price tag the city doesn't currently have. John McKay, writing in The Center Square:
This week, the totals (June 12-19) the total was 10, no data reported for June 19 due to the Federal holiday. June 18th had no reported deaths. Of those, half were over the age of 49, 1 was 68 and another male victim who died from meth and fentanyl was 75.
Week two of The Center Square's overdose tracker — 10 dead in King County, June 12 to 19. Every single one involved fentanyl. All ten. And the part that jumps out this week: half were over 49. One man was 75, dead from meth and fentanyl. That cuts against the picture a lot of people carry around of this crisis. The ages jump out. We just hit the county budget fight earlier, and the city's nearly half-billion-dollar deficit. These are the harm-reduction and treatment contracts that end up on the chopping block. Right. The county was floating cuts to programs the reporting itself called successful — and the CDC already has Washington among the worst states per capita. You really want to cut into that math? Ten deaths in one week, in one county. And it's a partial count — no data was reported for the 19th because of the federal holiday. The real number's higher. Got thoughts on today’s briefing, or a story idea or correction we should chase? Send us a note at seattledailyfix at lantern podcasts dot com. We’d love to hear from you.
Links to everything we covered today are in the show notes. If a story stuck with you, take a minute to read a little deeper there.
That’s Seattle Politics and Urbanism Daily for this Friday. This is a Lantern Podcast.