Seattle’s One Seattle Plan and Proposed Zoning Changes

At the time of writing, the City of Seattle is in the middle of a major update to its comprehensive plan that they’ve branded the “One Seattle Plan.”  This plan began under the Harrell Administration but is continuing with the Wilson Administration. The city is required under the state’s Growth Management Act (GMA) to go complete an update to its comprehensive plan at least once every 10 years – a forward-looking, long-term document that plans over a 20-year period. Meanwhile, the city implements minor updates every year. While updates are not uncommon, this update looks to be more consequential for neighborhoods like Wedgwood for the amount of changes to zoning that is proposed.

The Wedgwood Community Council understands that change is difficult for everyone, but easier for some. Depending upon your perspective, the change proposed by the City in the One Seattle Plan may be much needed, way too drastic, or somewhere in the middle. Either way, we want those in our community to be as informed as practical so they can engage as much as they want in the process.

To date, the City’s housing goals have not led to greater affordability and have impacted on our most diverse neighbors who have been historically excluded from home ownership and have been displaced out of the city, as reported by the Seattle Times. However, the City’s draft One Seattle Plan has new policies and goals resulting in proposed zoning legislation and, along with zoning changes required by the state legislature, will have an effect on every parcel in the city.  We encourage you to see how this effects you and your neighbors.

One Seattle Plan 

Mayor Harrell’s administration put forward the Draft One Seattle Plan back in May 2025. The draft plan is organized around overarching Goals with corresponding Policies intended to achieve those Goals. Along with the draft plan, the City has released:

• The Final Environmental Impact Statement of the policy.
• An anti-displacement memo summarizing the potential displacement that may result from the One Seattle Plan and strategies intended to mitigate or reduce this displacement.
• A draft zoning ordinance titled “Centers and Corridors” published back in March 2025 (CLICK to read the draft ordinance; CLICK to read the Director’s Report on the ordinance; CLICK to explore an interactive mapping tool showing the proposed zoning changes) which accompanies the One Seattle Plan and would implement zoning changes intended to comply with the Goals and Policies of the One Seattle Plan.

It’s important to note that the One Seattle Plan addresses so much more than just housing and growth.  It provides Goals and Policies focused on transportation, capital facilities, utilities, economic development, climate and the environment, parks and open space, arts and culture, our container port, our shoreline areas, and community involvement. All of these issues are vital to a thriving city like Seattle and will guide decision-making and investments in the years ahead. If these other issues are important to you, please review the Draft One Seattle Plan for further information. While these topics are super important, they are arguably less directly or clearly impactful on our neighborhood in the shorter term.  Therefore, we won’t discuss these topics further here.

The topics in the One Seattle Plan that are most controversial and likely most impactful to our community are the Growth Strategy and Land Use elements of the comprehensive plan. One of the central Goals of the Growth Strategy element is as follows:

GS G2. Seattle’s development pattern, as shaped by the Future Land Use Map, results in a range of vibrant places that all play a role in accommodating housing and jobs.

This goal is then followed by multiple goal-wide policies with further policies specific to the different place types defined in the One Seattle Plan, which generally follows an organization like the Urban Village strategy of previous comprehensive plans. However, new to the One Seattle Plan is the creation of both “Neighborhood Centers” and “Urban Neighborhoods.”

Phase 1 and House Bill 1110 in Wedgwood

The One Seattle Plan has 4 phases. Phase 1 has been approved and implemented which included the mandatory passage of zoning legislation included in House Bill 1110 past by the state legislature. These revisions have resulted in allowing 4 housing units (1 unit per 1,250 square feet) on all parcels zoned Neighborhood Residential and 6 housing units on Neighborhood Residential parcels within 1/4 mile of a major transit stop. In Phase 1, the City also adopted greater lot coverage and height limits and reduced setbacks exceeding what was included in House Bill 1110. The City opted for a more ambitious housing target of 330,000 new units over what was required in House Bill 1110 (120,000 units).

Phase 1 also identified 30 “Neighborhood Centers,” a new classification of places in the One Seattle Plan of which Wedgwood is one. There are four policies specific to this new Neighborhood Center classification to help define the geography, zoning, and character of the 30 new Neighborhood Centers which are proposed. In general, these new Neighborhood Centers should be:

1. Neighborhood serving commercial core areas with diverse housing options centered around frequency transit.
2. The core of these areas will be dominated by commercial with residential uses located around the perimeter.
3. Zoning should accommodate 3-6 story buildings, particularly 5-6 story residential buildings to accommodate apartments and condos.
4. The geography of these Neighborhood Centers should be approximately 800 feet from the core (an estimated 3-minute walkshed)

Phase 2 – “Centers and Corridors” Legislation 

Under Phase 2, the City has proposed zoning legislation to implement the Goals of the One Seattle Plan passed in Phase 1, which is referred to as “Centers and Corridors,” developed under Mayor Harrell’s administration.

As mentioned, Wedgwood includes one of the Neighborhood Centers, focused around the 35th Ave NE and NE 75th Street node. Ravenna, Bryant, and Maple Leaf are also included in list of 30 areas to be given this designation. As shown in the image below (CLICK for PDF), Wedgwood’s Neighborhood Center would extend north to NE 77th Street, south to NE 70th Street, and 1-2 blocks east and west of 35th Ave NE. At the core of the Neighborhood Center, zoning changes to parcels along 35th Ave NE would generally increase from 4-5 story buildings to 5-6 story buildings around the 35th Ave NE and NE 75th Street intersection.

Also included in the Centers and Corridors zoning legislation are zoning changes to almost all parcels along 35th Ave NE within Wedgwood. As you can see in the image below, there are multiple zoning types and heights proposed that are challenging to describe without pictures. We strongly encourage you to review the zoning changes on the City’s Centers and Corridors’ interactive mapping tool by clicking HERE or click on the picture below. A few notable changes though include the following:

• Those parcels immediately adjacent to the 35th Ave NE and NE 85th Street node would increase from 4-5 story buildings to 5-6 story buildings, including the Wedgwood Center property which would be increased to 6 stories. Note that the current Wedgwood Center development proposal already intends to develop the property into a 6-story building with 5 floors of residential above commercial along the ground floor (including a grocery and daycare facility).
• Those parcels immediately adjacent to the 35th Ave NE and NE 95th Street node would similarly increase from 3-4 story buildings to 5 story buildings.
• The narrow strip of parcels along the west side of 35th Ave NE, between NE 81st Street and NE 84th Street, which are setback from the dense line of conifers opposite of the Wedgwood Center property, would be changed from Neighborhood Residential to Neighborhood Commercial-2 with a maximum height of 55 feet (5 stories). Neighborhood Commercial-2 is for moderately-sized multifamily housing type with commercial uses on the ground floor with no requirement for off-street parking.
• Most Neighborhood Residential parcels between the NE 85th Street and NE 95th Street nodes would be changed to Lowrise 3, for moderately-sized multifamily housing type, with no requirements for off-street parking.

What’s Next

The timeline for adopting the One Seattle Plan and its Phase 2, Centers and Corridors zoning legislation remains uncertain as of this writing due to a successful appeal challenging the Final Environmental Impact Statement. At this time, Phase 2 of the One Seattle Plan is on hold until there is a resolution to the appeal.

Additionally, Mayor Wilson’s announced her intent to expedite future phases of the One Seattle Plan to build “Taller, denser, faster.” It appears that Mayor Wilson will look to evaluate measures to allow for more housing units through a Supplement EIS process. What this means for Wedgwood is not currently clear.

Ways to Engage

We encourage you to share your feedback with our District 4 City Councilmember, Maritza Rivera (Maritza.rivera@seattle.gov), at-large Councilmembers Alexis Mercedes Rinck (AlexisMercedes.Rinck@seattle.gov) and Dionna Foster (Dionne.Foster@seattle.gov), and Mayor Wilson (mayor@seattle.gov).

If you’d like to sign up for updates and notifications from the City, CLICK HERE.

Further Relevant Background Regarding the Comprehensive Planning Process

The goal of the Growth Management Act is to direct growth to urban areas in order to protect those areas that we deem important to preserve (e.g., rural areas, farmland, forests and timber lands, and critical areas). In response to this, Seattle developed a concept for “urban villages” under Mayor Norm Rice in 1990s within their earlier comprehensive plans to focus growth. There were a few different flavors of “urban villages,” but they were those areas that already had a decent mix of retail and commercial areas – neighborhoods like Ballard, Wallingford, Lake City, downtown, and more. At the time, the city was considering additional flavor to its “urban village” strategy which they called “neighborhood anchors,” which Wedgwood was considered for. However, as I understand it, my predecessors in the Wedgwood Community Council and other single-family dominated neighborhoods did not want to be included in this “urban village” strategy and the city relented. In fact, for many years, the city’s comprehensive plans included policies that prevented the possibility of any changes to any property zoned “single-family residential,” a zoning designation that was renamed in 2021 to “neighborhood residential.” Such was the political power of groups like ours at the time. As a result, under these policies, new housing units have generally been focused in these “urban villages” over the past 36 years despite the majority of the city being zoned as “single-family” or “residential neighborhood.”  As a result, zoning changes in the past have generally left Wedgwood alone with some exceptions (e.g., the citywide rezone in 2019 associated with the Mandatory Housing Affordability Act that upzoned all commercial properties in the city, including along 35th Ave NE).