Washington state just passed one of the strongest transit-oriented development bills in the nation, and in this episode, I talk with Rep. Julia Reed and Alex Brennan from Futurewise about how they got it done. We discuss why building more housing near transit is so important, what this landmark legislation entails for density and affordability, and how it positions Washington as a leader in pro-housing reform.
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David Roberts
All right, all right, all right. Hello, everyone. This is Volts for June 18, 2025, "A win for transit-oriented development in Washington state." I'm your host, David Roberts. We need significantly more housing almost everywhere in the US, but nowhere cries out for increased housing density more than the areas around transit stops. Proximity to transit is the key enabler of car-free living and where it is possible to live without a car, we should be putting in lots of housing to allow people to do so.
What's more, when a transit stop becomes a node of dense housing, an entire ecosystem of businesses and services grows up around it. It becomes a dynamic hub.
The notion of using transit stops as anchors for urban micro-communities, known as transit-oriented development, or TOD, dates back decades in the urbanist world. But the recent success of the YIMBY movement has put real legislative reform on the table for the first time in ages.
And here, once again, I find myself bragging about my home state of Washington, where the legislature recently passed one of the strongest TOD bills in the country.
To talk through that bill and TOD generally, I have two excellent guests. The first is Representative Julia Reed, a key sponsor of and advocate for the legislation. The second is Alex Brennan, who runs Futurewise, a Washington state advocacy organization that was instrumental in pushing the bill across the finish line.
We are going to talk about why TOD is important, what's in the bill, how it passed, how it compares to bills in other states, and the next steps in the housing fight.
All right, with no further ado, Representative Julia Reed and Alex Brennan, welcome to Volts. Thank you for coming.
Representative Julia Reed
Thanks for having us.
Alex Brennan
Yeah, thanks for having us.
David Roberts
Alex, I want to start with you just very quickly. So, you know, for those of us who have followed urbanism, urban issues, etc., for years, the term transit-oriented development is very familiar. TOD is something that has been discussed in this world for a long time. But I suspect lots of people listening are not particularly tuned into those issues and not familiar with the nomenclature, not familiar with the idea. So, maybe just by way of starting off here, maybe just give us like the 2-minute elevator pitch for what is TOD? Why is it important? Why is it an important focus of reform?
Alex Brennan
So, transit-oriented development is, at its core, just allowing development near transit. And why is that a good thing? You alluded to a lot of this in the introduction. Being near transit is something that is really valuable to a lot of people. It means that you're going to be able to get places you need to go. It means that you're going to be able to not have to drive a car as much, which is going to have impacts on your quality of life, on your cost of living, and on the environment, and on your greenhouse gas emissions.
Typically, when we talk about transit-oriented development, we're talking about an area that is a short, easy walk to a high-capacity or frequent transit stop. Different people can define that in different ways, but typically that's between a quarter mile and a half mile, sometimes even three-quarters of a mile from a station. Typically, you're allowing the sort of denser development within that walkshed. The types of transit that you're thinking about are light rail, commuter rail, bus rapid transit, sometimes other types of transportation like a ferry terminal.
David Roberts
Maybe, it's worth saying here that generally, these reforms are not talking about just your average bus stop. Right. Because there are like dozens and dozens of those all around any city with a bus system. And basically, if you did a half mile around every one of those, you would just be basically upzoning everything everywhere.
Alex Brennan
It would just be the whole thing.
Representative Julia Reed
Yes, actually, the original transit-oriented development bill did apply to just regular buses.
Alex Brennan
Yes, that is true.
Representative Julia Reed
But we ran into some trouble both with people saying, "That's too many places." It was both people that were like — there were a bunch of concerns. I mean, cities in our area, in Washington state, especially in the areas where there is the most transit, don't generally operate their own transit systems. So there was sort of a hue and cry from the cities about, "Well, what if Metro moves the bus stop and we've already built up all this zoning and then there is no transit to be oriented around?" And then on the other side, you kind of had an endless barrage of people trying to get their bus stop included, because it was initially buses that come every 10 minutes.
And then someone was like, "What if it was buses that came every 12 minutes? Because then this bus stop could get included." And then someone else would say, "What about buses that come every 17 minutes on weekends and every nine minutes on weekdays?" And then, just in general, there wasn't enough political support to include regular bus stops. It just became too complicated both to fight the opponents and include all the proponents. So, we narrowed that to bus rapid transit stops, which are a particular kind of bus mode.
David Roberts
Interesting. Very interesting background. So, one other part I wanted to say by way of general background too, and maybe, Alex, you're about to get into this, but like you were talking about the merits of living close to transit, the merits for people living in these places. But also, I just always want to say that, like cities need tax revenue, they need development. If you're a city, you're growing or you're dying, and these transit hubs serve as like development triggers. They are little like, they're literally like planting seeds in your city around which development grows. So just like, you know, so often when you're on the Internet, these things are framed as like do-gooders imposing these things on cities, the poor, innocent cities that are fighting back.
But like, transit-oriented development is good for cities and city budgets.
Alex Brennan
And one other point on that, I think, is really important. In Washington state, certainly in a lot of other places, we're investing billions of dollars in building out a transit system. And when we allow development to happen around those stations, then we're taking advantage of those investments and for the building up the tax base, all the benefits I was mentioning for the people there. But so often, we spend all of this money building these systems and then we don't let people be near them to actually be able to use them. And it's, you know, and it ends up being a big kind of inefficient use of all of that.
David Roberts
As a resident of North Seattle, let me just strongly endorse all those comments. We've just spent billions of dollars putting light rail stops in Northern Seattle. And like, there's one that's less than a mile from my house and one whole side of it is just a sleepy, dumpy little single-family neighborhood. Every time I see that, it just drives me insane. The amount of economic potential being wasted just in that square mile is maddening to me. But actually, this bill I think would literally upzone that area near me. So, I'm personally excited about this.
So, Representative Reed, let's talk then about this bill. This is HB 1491. There are kind of three big things about this bill I want to hit. It's the upzoning it requires, it's the affordable housing it requires, and it's the way it pays for the affordable housing. Those, as I understand it, are kind of the three big things about this bill. So first, let's just start with the upzoning. What are the sort of details here?
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, so this bill uses a form of density called floor area ratio.
David Roberts
Yes, please explain that. I've stumbled across that term a hundred times now.
Representative Julia Reed
It's okay. I really worked hard on, "How are we going to explain this to legislators? Do we have diagrams?" So, basically, the idea of floor area ratio is it's a division problem between the number of floors you have in a building and the amount of developable land you have on a plot. So, if you have a one-story building that takes up the entire area of the plot, all of the land that is possible to be developed on that plot, that's a floor area ratio of one. You could also have a two-story building that takes up half of the land on the plot or a six-story building that takes up a third of the land on the plot.
Does that sort of make sense?
David Roberts
And those are all a FAR of one?
Representative Julia Reed
Yes. So, those are all different types of FARs. So, that's one of the things that people ask a lot about is like, "Well, how many floors specifically does this allow?" And the answer is, "It kind of depends." And we did that on purpose because every plot and lot is going to be a little bit different, and the way that it makes sense to develop that land is going to be a little bit different. So, instead of telling developers, like "Every plot in the TOD zone can have up to a six-story building," you can kind of choose the level of density and development that you want to apply in each area.
David Roberts
So just to clarify, a one-story building covering 100% of the lot is a FAR of one, right? So, does that mean a two-story building covering 100% of the lot would be a FAR of two just because it's two divided by one?
Alex Brennan
Yeah, exactly.
David Roberts
So, let's talk about the FARs that this bill allows.
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, so within this bill, it has different FAR levels depending on whether you are close to a light rail station or a bus rapid transit station. So, if you are near a light rail station or a rail station, you have to allow a FAR of 3.5 on average. So again, that could be a 3.5-story building — I don't know what you do with that half story that covers a hundred percent of the lot. It could be a six, seven-story building that covers half of a lot. You know, in theory, you could go up and up and up, but there's physics that are going to limit exactly how many floors you can have on a lot.
David Roberts
And so, as you're going up and up, you're shrinking your footprint on the lot to stay within your FAR. So, if you wanted more than six stories, you would be building an extremely narrow building at that point.
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, exactly. And this, I should say, this is setting a floor that cities are allowed to permit. So, a city has to permit at least 3.5 FAR within a rail station area. So that's within half a mile of a light rail or heavy rail stop or commuter rail stop essentially. Or a density of at least 2.5 FAR within a bus station area, which is within a quarter mile of a stop on bus rapid transit. There are provisions in the bill that allow cities to average that FAR. So, like if within a half mile of the station doesn't really make sense, maybe a city wants to say, "Okay, we're going to actually allow much higher FARs in this area, like on this block and we're going to allow lower FARs on this block. But, across that half-mile around the station area, it's going to be an average of at least 3.5 FAR."
David Roberts
And that's the minimum. And so, 3.5, a FAR of 3.5, is approximately six stories.
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, we're talking six-story, eight-story buildings. And this bill is really focused on building that really large-scale building that you see around transit. So, if you went to like the Capitol Hill light rail station, I know it happened many years after we actually opened the light rail station, but eventually we did build those like taller, denser buildings right on top of the station. That's what we're talking about here.
David Roberts
Of course, we say a six-story building is some giant, hulking building. But of course, if you go up to like Vancouver. Yeah, we go outside of Vancouver at their rail stops. Yeah, they're building skyscrapers around there.
Representative Julia Reed
So, this is a floor, not a ceiling. So, we could be doing more and then also with a 2.5 FAR. Cities are allowed to exempt some bus rapid transit stops, up to 25% of the stops, from this TOD. But if they do that, then the FAR in the remaining areas, the remaining bus stops, has to be higher. It has to be a 3.0 FAR.
David Roberts
Ah, I see.
Representative Julia Reed
So, it's between a 2.5 and 3.5 FAR, depending on the mode of transit that the area is surrounding.
David Roberts
So, for approximate purposes, this is around four stories within a quarter mile of bus stops. Around six stories within a half mile of rail transit stops.
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, exactly. And if you do a building that is all affordable, so to people earning an income below 30% of AMI, or what we think of as accessible housing, for example, which is people earning an income below 80% AMI — so that's your kind of teacher, firefighter cohort. If the whole building is tagged as being affordable for one of those groups, you can get an additional 1.5 FAR.
David Roberts
Interesting. So, you can build up even higher.
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, and you're also, I mean, this is kind of moot because we did end up passing the parking reform bill for the state, but there's no parking minimums allowed within the TOD zones under the bill.
David Roberts
Yeah, I was going to say, it seems like we already did this with parking reform, but honestly, if you have to kill parking minimums twice, you can kill them as many times as you want. And I'm going to cheer every time.
Representative Julia Reed
At the start of the session, we were very unsure if parking reform was going to pass. My first year, I was the prime sponsor of the statewide parking reform bill and it was a rough crash to a fiery landing. So, I think we wanted to be sure, in case we can't do statewide reform, we want to continue to chip away at these places where we can do parking reform.
David Roberts
So, in these walksheds around transit stops, parking minimums have been doubly killed. I know that, like in the course of hashing out legislation, you make compromises that are opportunistic, etc. But like, is there any logic to — well, like for instance, half a mile around rail, quarter mile around bus transit. Is there a logic there?
Representative Julia Reed
There is a logic there. Whether or not it's a logic I personally agree with is a different conversation. But the kind of logic is that rail stops are fixed. They tend to be in areas where cities are already planning for a large amount of density and half a mile felt like a reasonable amount of walking space. The argument was that bus stops tend to be more in neighborhoods. They're not necessarily in the kind of places that cities typically think of as high-density corridors. Some of the bus rapid transit stop examples, some of the cities brought up, were in quite rural parts of their city or like places in between where two cities meet sort of in that unincorporated county area.
And so, there was a thinking that a more gentle form of density would be more appropriate around a bus stop.
David Roberts
But you know, like, if I'm a developer, I'm not going to go build a six-story building next to a rural bus stop. Just because you enable these things with zoning doesn't mean people have to go do them or will do them, against all economic sense.
Representative Julia Reed
Yes, again, I agree with you. But as one vote out of 98 in a legislative body, I have to convince a lot of people who have varying levels of attention and interest in this topic.
David Roberts
Fair enough. Fair enough.
Representative Julia Reed
It's sort of one of the challenges in this is like getting legislators of all stripes, Republicans, Democrats, to say, "The market can drive here" is a very tough sell because, you know, we're sort of here to try to ensure that the markets are well regulated and operating effectively. And sometimes, I think it's funny that only in housing density conversations are progressive Democrats very committed to supply-side theory. So sometimes, you find yourselves in these really weird, roundabout conversations.
David Roberts
Well, let me ask a couple of questions about this upzoning then. So, like when I think of Washington state, I don't necessarily think of it as a particularly transit-rich state. So, I'm sort of curious. Has anyone done the math on, like, what is the total, like how big of a deal is this? What is the total amount of land that's going to get upzoned? How much transit do we really have in this state?
Representative Julia Reed
Futurewise actually did do a study on that last year when we were doing the build. Do you want to talk about that, Alex?
Yeah. So, this was from last year. We were trying to answer that exact question. How much total added residential capacity would this bill create? And it's a lot. We looked at all the station areas, the amount of the current zoning compared to what these new minimums would be, and it added up to 1.8 billion square feet of additional residential capacity.
David Roberts
That must mostly be around bus rapid transit. Because, are there a bunch of light rail systems in our state that I'm not aware of? Like, it's Seattle and who else?
Alex Brennan
Well, I mean, it is mostly in the — actually, I should even caveat this. We only did this analysis for the Seattle metro area. We didn't do the other parts of the state that have bus rapid transit. So, this is just in the Seattle metro. There's more in other parts of the state and a lot of it is bus rapid transit. But, you know, we included not just the light rail stations that are already built, but the ones that are going to come online. We have the second biggest light rail system expansion plan in the country in the Seattle metro area after Los Angeles.
And so, there are a growing number of stations and station areas, and I think a half-mile radius around all of the rail stations, plus the commuter rail stations, which I think people sometimes don't think about as much.
David Roberts
But it's fair to say that the bulk of the effect of this legislation is going to be felt in the Seattle metro area.
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, kind of in the Puget Sound area. But I think one of the things that was really interesting about the Futurewise study for me was how much this unlocks and development on the east side of Lake Washington. And not just in residential, but like this also applies to — it's residential and mixed-use development. Right. So that's more spaces for childcare centers, more spaces for small businesses.
David Roberts
Oh, wait, wait. You're jumping ahead to one of my future questions.
Representative Julia Reed
Oh, sorry, I will get there. But it's also more housing for people and not just for tech workers, but for all the people that make those businesses run, like the bus drivers, the cafeteria workers, the custodial staff. There are a lot of people who I think, when we think of Eastside technology hubs, worker housing, we think of the folks on sort of the highest end of the spectrum. And I hope this will help them too. But there are a lot of people who work at those companies and support those companies who want to live near transit on the Eastside.
And there's a ton of opportunity to unlock there. And like Alex said, that study didn't even include what we could potentially unlock in Vancouver and Spokane and eventually probably the Bellingham area. I know they're looking into bus rapid transit. And also, you know, it's not just King County, but Snohomish County also has a fair amount of bus rapid transit as well. And there's some opportunities in Pierce County too. So, I would say kind of all across the sort of Puget Sound corridor and then in the major urban areas, south and north and east.
David Roberts
Yes, this gets to a question. This is, I guess, a political question for you, Representative Reed. Which is, you know, there's a lot of fighting over transit. There's a lot of resistance to transit. And now, is it the case that if I go add a bus rapid transit stop, I am also automatically upzoning the area around it?
Representative Julia Reed
Yes.
David Roberts
And if so, do you worry that that's going to increase the already substantial resistance to new transit stops? You know, like this makes accepting a transit stop in your area a bigger deal, I guess I would say.
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, I think we looked at that as this is a risk that we're willing to take. When we're planning a transit system, it's a long-term plan. You're investing a lot of money into it and there's a lot of demand for transit and a need to kind of meet transit goals that are connected to climate goals that are connected to budget issues that are just connected to what residents themselves are demanding. So, you know, will this, could this potentially like add some of the fuel to a fire? Yeah, but like those folks that are going to oppose transit stops in their neighborhood are going to do it whether or not, like they'll assume that the transit stop is going to lead to more housing and you know, more of "those" people moving in. Insert, you know, whoever "those" people are for whichever community you're in.
And so, you know, and if not moving in there, it's going to be easier for them to get here. I mean, look at all the fights that were had — not to pick on Bellevue, but all the fights that were had with the Kempers and, or, sorry, the Freemans over like bringing light rail to Bellevue Square.
David Roberts
Yes, when you say this opens up a bunch of new opportunities for the east side, that's the first thing I thought of was like, "Have you checked with the wealthy residents of the east side about that?"
Representative Julia Reed
They came to meet with me. Don't worry. Actually, I will say this bill — we had a lot of collaboration from Eastside cities on this. So, I had several meetings and tours. We had a lot of support from Kirkland and did a lot of work with Bellevue. We really worked hard to try to get the cities to a place where at least they could sort of have enthusiastic neutrality about this. And I think that was reflected in some of the give and take we had on the bill.
Alex Brennan
The politics around transit in East King County, I think, has really changed a lot from a decade or more ago when there were those fights about extending light rail in ways that you wouldn't expect. There can actually be more support sometimes in those cities.
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, people are excited about light rail and bus rapid transit and what it is going to mean for their communities. And you know, I find that if you kind of paint the picture for them, they're like, "Oh yeah, this is something that we want. This is something our businesses support, our cities support." At least on paper. And then it's kind of getting down to like, okay, what are the actual, like, nitty-gritty pieces of this?
David Roberts
Right. Well, this gets to the next question then, which you hinted at a little bit before, which is one of my main questions about all this, which is, you know, you're trying to paint a picture for them and when you're doing that, you're painting a picture of density, the kind of density that you and I like. Right. There's like, there's open spaces, there's parks, there's green space. There's mixed-use communities with shops sprinkled in. People are walking around. You know, we're painting a picture of a nice little European city. But I think like if I live in Seattle — I was just talking with Alex about this before we started recording.
If I live in Seattle, like, well, I do live in Seattle. Up in North Seattle, up on very north, very north Greenwood. And this is one of those areas where Seattle is zoned for density. But it's just a strip. It's just a big stroad with density along either side of the stroad. And then immediately beyond that, you have single-family homes. So you have density. But like, it's not nice. It's not something I would want to paint a picture of. There's nowhere for any of these people to walk. Like, they have access to bus stops.
Yes, but like, it's not nice density. Two questions. One is like, is there anything in the bill that says anything about what kind of density we're going to get here, or is it just more housing? You know what I mean? Like, is there any requirement that you include walkability or shops or mixed use or green space or any of the other parts of density that make density nice?
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, the bill does apply to an FAR for housing and mixed-use development. I think anytime you're doing statewide housing legislation like this, there is that challenge around how do you guarantee the most positive outcomes given that this is going to apply to very different types of cities and communities. Also, you have to keep in mind that any requirement you layer on is going to cause developers, urbanists, and other folks to point out that meeting that requirement is increasing the cost of building this housing, which could decrease the likelihood the housing gets built at all.
We'll get to that in a minute because we had a lot of rounds on this, on the bill. So, there aren't kind of like specifically like, "Okay, every one of these has to be a courtyard apartment with this much green space." But the idea is that this density is part of your comprehensive plan. So, that's kind of what this is connected to is that in your comprehensive plan, you must plan for this. And then within that kind of broader work of the comprehensive plan is where cities are supposed to be doing that work of thinking about like, "How do we not just meet the requirements but actually like build the kind of community we want and plan for the kind of communities we want?"
David Roberts
I mean, this is my worry about, like, you know, you mentioned this before, but like when you think of this as new housing for "those" people, you know, like you're just going to build it as a bunch of warehouses, right? I'm worried about whether cities are going to do this well. I guess, I mean, it's only partially under your control.
Representative Julia Reed
I mean, that is a worry that I have too. And I think you kind of lightly alluded to this, but I think we have a severe lack of vision within the city of Seattle from both the executive and the city council about creating a city that works and is centered around people and building a city that puts people ahead of parking and ahead of punishment and ahead of other challenges. You can see this in kind of all of the sort of Sturm and Drang on the Seattle Comprehensive Plan. I regret that my city is not showing a level of leadership and vision on this issue that I would like them to see.
Now that being said, you know, I'm a state representative so I can pass statewide laws that provide a kind of container within which this work can happen. But I'm not a member of the city council. I no longer work in the mayor's office. I can't guarantee you that your city is going to create this kind of planning. But that's where organizations like Futurewise are really important as well because they are trying to hold cities accountable to this work. And we are also going to be creating, as part of this bill, the Department of Commerce is required to create model code that cities can adopt just like they have model code for House Bill 1110, the Middle Housing Bill.
And so, in that model code work too, there may be opportunities to kind of bring out more about the quality of the neighborhood and the housing, not just the sheer amount.
David Roberts
Interesting. So, the other pieces are affordability requirements. I'll briefly set the scene. Right. There's a long-standing fight in the urbanist world where I guess what you would call progressives or lefties want to say, "If you're going to build, you are required to include some affordable housing, meet certain environmental standards, use urban labor, etc.," all these sort of requirements they want to put on the zoning. This is called inclusionary zoning. It's sort of, "Yes, you can build density, but we have a lot to say about exactly how you build density."
That's the left. And then you have the sort of kind of more center-left YIMBYs who say, "When you put all these requirements on new building, you make new building more expensive and you get less of it, which is what's happening." So this is a long-standing, very vicious, very heated, endless fight in the urbanism world. And this bill actually includes the first interesting, you know, sort of innovative way of cutting through that Gordian knot that I've heard. So I want to talk about it. So maybe just start, Representative Reed, with what are the affordable housing requirements in this?
Representative Julia Reed
It's a very complicated issue. And, you know, I very much enjoyed when this bill passed, being feted by the very people who, the year before, were calling me a climate arsonist for including affordability measures. It was a lovely lesson on legislative life.
David Roberts
Yes. Can't take anything too seriously.
Representative Julia Reed
No, you just have to keep it moving. Stay focused on the goal. So, basically, what this bill says is that for buildings that are constructed in a station area where it is newly up-zoned for housing. So, this is not all of the land in the station area because some of that land has already been up-zoned to or above this level. So, it is not everywhere.
David Roberts
Oh, so if I have a, like a four-story building that's in one of these areas already when the upzoning happens, these affordability requirements do not retroactively apply to me. So, it's only new building.
Representative Julia Reed
Correct. And if a city has already up-zoned the area around transit and there's just not a building there, but like it's already been up-zoned to and above the level, let's say they're like, "Oh, we already allow 4.0 FAR around our light rail stops." Those buildings aren't required to implement the affordability requirements either. It's new construction in newly up-zoned areas.
David Roberts
Got it.
Representative Julia Reed
So, in those areas, at least 10% of the units, if they're rental housing, have to be affordable to families making 60% AMI or below. Or, at least 20% of the units have to be affordable to households earning 80% AMI or below.
David Roberts
That's Area Median Income.
Representative Julia Reed
Area Median Income. So, just to put that in context, if you have a building with 10 units, that's one unit that's affordable. If you have a building with 200 units, that's 20 units that are affordable.
David Roberts
And when we say you have to offer an affordable unit, that just means for that unit, you're capping the rent at a lower level.
Representative Julia Reed
Yes, at least for 50 years. And so, this was a huge area of contention with the bill. I strongly believe that it is important that people of all income levels be able to take advantage of the transit utopia that we are trying to build. I'm unapologetic about that. I think that yes, that does slightly increase the cost of building, but we're talking about building in the most profitable, most desirable, most in-demand property areas in the entire state of Washington. So, there is room to accommodate a modest amount of affordability to ensure at least some people can either remain in areas that are going to be up zoned or can come to those areas for the first time.
And I think that's especially important because of where we put our transit stops, often on these busy corridors, and because of where we have already pushed low-income people. And there is an element of race to this as well. So, low-income communities and communities of color are closer and closer to these busy, noisy corridors where we also often have transit that we're talking about upzoning. I see that as being different than middle housing, which is really actually about helping more low-income people come into neighborhoods that they have been excluded from because of exclusionary zoning practices.
So, I'm very unapologetic and always have been about having this inclusion exclusionary zoning level. But I've always been flexible about how we do it. I try to be outcomes-oriented in this, about like, how do we guarantee that some of the units built in these new areas are going to be affordable.
David Roberts
But do you concede the premise though that it is possible for inclusionary zoning requirements to slow building?
Representative Julia Reed
It's possible. I will say again, the balance of that is this is a very high-demand building area. So it's possible. I mean, if a developer wants to build in Yelm where they don't have inclusionary zoning requirements, then they're welcome to do so. But I think that it is possible. But I also think that that's what you do in policymaking. We make trade-offs like that all the time. Like, having a minimum wage means it's going to slow down hiring, but we should still have a minimum wage. You know, requiring hospitals to provide emergency care to anyone who comes in the door is going to increase the cost of providing hospital care.
But, I still think we should make sure that emergency departments are open to everyone. So, yeah, inclusionary zoning requirements can slow down production and add some of the cost. But, it can also mean that the neighborhoods we're building are actually the neighborhoods we want. And, I think if we dial those dials appropriately, we can ensure that we're getting there.
David Roberts
Let's talk about our clever solution here.
Representative Julia Reed
Yes, so developers get a lot out of this too. They're not just required to do inclusionary zoning. First of all, let's remind ourselves: developers are getting an upzone, which means there's a ton of areas in these TOD zones where currently, you can only build single-family housing. So, you can't build businesses, you can't build mixed-use, you can't build any type of multifamily housing. So, developers are getting a significant upzone. That's, I think, the first thing that they're getting. They're also going to be getting, in this deal for areas that have this mandatory inclusionary zoning, an extended tax exemption for their building.
So, this is actually work — I want to give credit to the city of Shoreline. They successfully piloted this in their city.
David Roberts
Oh, interesting. I was going to ask, who came up with this?
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, so it was actually the city of Shoreline. They have a higher inclusionary zoning requirement than what's in the bill they require. I think it's 20%. Well, anyway, it's higher than what we have in the bill. And they came up with this idea that instead of, I believe, it's 12 years that you typically get a multifamily tax exemption. If you're a developer, we're going to give you 20 years. So, you're going to get a longer tax exemption if you build buildings that are in these areas.
David Roberts
So, that means you pay no property tax on that building for 20 years.
Representative Julia Reed
Correct.
David Roberts
That seems like, what do I know? But that seems like a pretty big subsidy to me.
Representative Julia Reed
It's a pretty big deal.
David Roberts
Who did the calculation that that equals the value?
Representative Julia Reed
It's something that developers sat in my office and said, "Like, this is our number one priority." And then we were like, oh, but I think they did that expecting we wouldn't give it to them. And then when we gave it to them, they were like, "Oh, no, we want to veto this whole bill." So, I thought that was kind of funny. And then, in addition, I would note Senator Bateman added this in the Senate version that any property that's claiming this 20-year MFTE, the city also has to provide a 50% reduction for impact fees. So, impact fees we haven't talked about yet.
Typically, when you're building a development in a new city, a city will assess an impact fee to the developer. This is supposed to kind of address the impact that having all these new people move to the neighborhood is going to have on sewers, water, or schools. Now, there is a lively debate about whether or not those impact fees are actually connected to any kind of data.
David Roberts
Yes, and they definitely do slow down development. They definitely do deter development.
Representative Julia Reed
And cities that don't want to have density, but lawmakers who want to look like they're, at least in theory, in favor of density, frequently do things where they say, "Well, we're going to allow upzoning, but we're going to put a huge impact fee on every development." That's going to make it impossible. So then they can say like, "Well, actually we changed the lots. It's the developer's fault that they're not doing it."
David Roberts
Right. So, this is a 20-year tax exemption from property taxes and a 50% reduction in impact fees.
Representative Julia Reed
Yes, if they are providing the affordable units.
David Roberts
Right. I mean, that seems, as you say, they're in your office saying that that's what they wanted. I have a couple of questions about this. One is, do we know from Shoreline's experience whether this is enough to pull developers in? Because part of what I'm wondering is, like, everyone, I've been sort of traumatized recently watching federal policy flail around wildly from one direction to another. So, like, part of what comes to mind is just like, this is a 20-year commitment. Are developers going to trust that this policy is going to stay in place for 20 years? Do you know what I mean?
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, I mean, I think that's always part of the risk when you're dealing with public policy. There can be changes. I like to say that, you know, they can take my word to the bank. So, as long as I'm still here in 20 years, we can be sure of that. I think that in Shoreline's experience, it did spur development in their areas. So, they had higher inclusionary zoning levels. They combined that with a tax exemption and incentive for developers to build despite those additional costs from the inclusionary zoning, and they saw greater development. I think I also saw a study that similar work had happened in Los Angeles, for example.
So, there's definitely places where this is happening and where we know that it's going to work. And yeah, I mean, I think in my office, we also have developers saying, "Well, it's impossible, it will never pencil." But there's no pro forma to show that. There's no, like, data to back that. And I asked them, you know, again, to be outcomes-oriented. I was like, "If you have a better idea or if you have a suggestion about how we should dial the inclusionary zoning, like, I'm all ears." Like, I'm not saying it has to be this or it has to be that, but you got to come to the table with something.
And there just wasn't a willingness to really engage, even though, as I said, developers are getting like 80% of what they wanted, 90% of what they wanted in this bill. So, it's a little frustrating to feel like you're getting a lot of what you wanted. You're not getting a hundred percent of what you wanted. But I'm not getting 100% of what I wanted. Like, no one's getting 100% of what they wanted. That's not how this policymaking works. And to sort of just continue to kind of fold your arms and say, "Well, we're not going to play ball unless we get 100% of what we want" means that you're going to have policy happen to you, not with you.
David Roberts
They're used to just winning. They're used to just being able to fend this stuff off.
Representative Julia Reed
Well, it's a new day in Olympia.
David Roberts
It's a new day. Alright, okay. So, these are the three big pieces of the bill I wanted to go over. It increases the density around transit stations. It requires 10% affordable units. And somewhat innovatively, basically the community is paying for those affordable units rather than the developer, via a 20-year tax exemption.
Representative Julia Reed
The state is paying.
David Roberts
The state is paying, taxpayers ultimately. So, a couple of other little bells and whistles I wanted to mention before we move on. One, I think we touched on this earlier. It also eliminates off-street parking requirements. A double shot to the head of the —
Representative Julia Reed
Which is just requirements, not eliminating parking.
David Roberts
They can, of course. I said it 50 times: you can still build parking. It's not illegal. Another thing that I think is really cool, multifamily units that have at least three bedrooms are not counted toward the FAR limits. So, this means you can stick a bunch of family-size units in your building without triggering these FAR requirements. Basically, trying to induce developers to build more family-sized units, which I just think is great because every city needs more of those. This is something that I feel like Vancouver has done a really good job on. You know, you go walk around downtown Vancouver, there's schools, there's elementary school kids or kids everywhere.
There's lots of family units there. But, like those, they are hard to find in a lot of other cities.
Representative Julia Reed
So yeah, there's kind of a bias in our area where it's like, "Oh well, single people live in apartments and families live in houses." You know, that's not the reality. Speaking as someone who's 38, like that's not the reality for me and a lot of my peers.
David Roberts
I mean, I would have loved to live in a big flat with my family if I could have ever found one that I could afford. One other bell and whistle, which I thought was really cool, they say you have to allow increased density if you're using all mass timber. I'm sort of curious who stuck that one in. You know, we love mass timber around here.
Representative Julia Reed
That's a great question. I don't actually remember who put in the mass timber piece. Alex, do you remember?
Alex Brennan
I don't remember that either. It's been in there for a while. I mean, I think part of the conversation about the types of buildings we're getting, there's a lot of interest in having more flexibility in — we have a lot of this sort of very standard height, kind of mid-rise buildings. And people wanted an option for slightly taller, more slender buildings with more green space on the lot. And our building code isn't very set up to do that. And so, mass timber is a way to build at that height and to help kind of take advantage of the flexibility that the floor area ratio offers.
David Roberts
Excellent. Love it. The other thing is, this bill exempts cities under 15,000 people. Again, this is true in the parking bill too. I'm assuming there's no substantive rationale for that other than just like a bunch of rural people are upset.
Representative Julia Reed
Oh, never, never make assumptions, Dave. That's what I call the Sumner exemption. The city of Sumner, which has a commuter rail stop, had some very strong feelings about how — but a very small kind of footprint — had some sort of very strong feelings about how much of their city would be impacted by this. And sometimes in legislating, you make compromises in order to bring people on board and bring legislators on board. And that seemed like a fairly small one. So there's a very limited number of cities that are impacted by that because the cities that are impacted by TOD to begin with are mostly large cities.
David Roberts
Right. So, whatever, whoever that developer was who was so keen to go build a skyscraper in Sumner...
Representative Julia Reed
To build a skyscraper next to the Sounder commuter rail stop in Sumner, it's just, it's going to have to wait until the trailer bill.
David Roberts
All right, let me ask about enforcement. I generally love this idea that I think has really taken root in the YIMBY world. It makes more sense to move the level of legislating up to the state level because at the local level, you just have disproportionate representation of certain populations, let's say, getting in your way and protesting everything. So, I think there's a good argument to be made that doing things at the state level is not only more effective, it's also more democratic, in a way. You are representing the needs of more people. But when you have a state mandate and you have a bunch of sort of smaller mid-sized cities that are vaguely resentful about it, I feel like you're going to have a lot of efforts to wiggle out of this in various ways or find loopholes. So, what is the mechanism of enforcement?
Alex Brennan
Well, we're one of the mechanisms of enforcement. One of the things Futurewise does is we bring legal appeals when cities and counties don't follow state land use law, you know, and then the courts make sure that those folks come into line. I think the other piece though is that this is just going to go into effect. I guess there's some work to do to figure out exactly the process — Representative Reed might know more about how commerce is going to do this — but with the Middle Housing Bill that we passed a few years ago, if you don't adopt your own zoning code to implement the state requirements, then there's a model state code that just goes into effect that you can permit under.
And I assume that we'll have something like that will happen for this legislation too.
David Roberts
Got it. Okay. Before I leave the bill behind, my last question, Representative Reed, is — and probably worth the whole pod too — but I'm curious a little bit about, you know, when I talk about the parking reform, the sort of sentiment was like, "This was impossible not very long ago." Things have changed quickly and made this possible. I assume that something similar is true of this, that this is a result of big shifts in opinion and power and coalitions, et cetera. So maybe just talk a little bit about, how did you assemble a coalition to get this across the finish line when it was so, so difficult not even very long ago?
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, I mean, part of this is that housing is a problem now in every community. And it's the number one thing that legislators hear about in most cases. And that's not just Democrats, it's also Republican legislators. So right away, you have a cross-cutting issue that is very important to many different groups of people and that legislators are hearing about. So that automatically kind of increases interest. Futurewise was a huge foundational partner for this. And honestly, the people that every time I was like, "I'm going to give up, this is too hard," kind of kept me going and kept me pushing along.
So, shout out to Alex and your team for their incredible work and research.
David Roberts
Dealing with NIMBYs is life-draining. I can attest to that. So, kudos to you.
Representative Julia Reed
There are a lot of ways to have your life force drained in the legislature. Labor was a really important component of this. This is about building housing for working people and increasing their access to housing and their ability to live near housing.
David Roberts
And so they're on board, they were a force in favor?
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, they were very supportive. The labor council came and testified this year, especially at all of our committee hearings. They were there at the bill signing. So, I really appreciated the support of organized labor. I would say cities themselves, even though, like, cities are not known to be the most excited about statewide zoning preemption.
David Roberts
That came up in the parking pod, too. What is the organization of cities?
Representative Julia Reed
The Association of Washington Cities.
David Roberts
This was our sole opponent, was this organization of cities, is that true here too?
Representative Julia Reed
And the Association of Washington Cities, we could have a whole other podcast about my thoughts and opinions on them. While the Association of Washington Cities was not supportive of this bill, individual cities who are actually the ones that are impacted by transit-oriented development largely were supportive, or at least we were able to work with them to get to neutral. So, I had a lot of meetings, I went on tours. I really dialed into who are the city proponents and what makes them support this. And then for the opponents, who are the opponents that have, like, real substantive issues that we could try to speak to in the bill, and who are the opponents that are just, you know, never going to be down for any of this.
And so, you know, really working with the cities because legislators listen to their city councils, they listen to their mayors, they listen to their residents. So it was important, especially for suburban legislators, it was important that their cities at least feel heard in this process. So that was an important part of the coalition building. And we were able to work in their changes. The realtors and the business community, again, that was a community where even though if you ask the Washington Association of Realtors, they'll tell you transit-oriented development is one of their top priorities, they were opposed to this bill because they don't like the inclusionary zoning aspects.
And even though, again, they're getting a lot of what they asked for.
David Roberts
Come on.
Representative Julia Reed
It's the same with NAOP, which is like the commercial developer lobbying group. Even though they were getting 85, 90% of what they asked for, they continued right up until that bill was on the governor's desk to push for a veto, the inclusionary zoning requirement.
David Roberts
I mean, this is so obviously better than the status quo.
Representative Julia Reed
But, and I think that being said, sometimes with folks that are like that, where they're just never going to come around, I just try to listen as much as I can to what they need, incorporate as much as I can, and then just keep pushing forward. And, you know, the door's always open, the table's always open. I want everyone to be a part of this conversation. But if you don't want to work collaboratively and fairly, then, you know, we go forward. Like, the work doesn't stop just because some people want to take their toys and go home.
David Roberts
But it's fair to say. And this makes me happy, so I'm suspicious of it. But it's fair to say then that really the motive force for this was housing people. Like the housing people now are organized enough that they are making actual bills happen. This is not some bank shot where you, like, sold it under other cover. It really is a housing thing.
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, and I think similar to rent stabilization, similar to the Middle Housing Bill, you also have this growing cohort of legislators coming in. You know, my cohort, the cohort that just came in this year, who are people in their 30s and 40s who are directly connected to generations of folks who are trying to buy homes or rent homes, trying to build families and lives here and who are more impacted by the way the housing market is now, as opposed to some of my colleagues who maybe bought their houses in the 90s.
David Roberts
This is such a generation gap on housing specifically; there is such a generation gap.
Representative Julia Reed
And I think the newer folks coming in are more open to different ways of living that are not just like every family in a single-family home in a picket fence neighborhood. And that's been great. I don't want to run down all my colleagues, all of my older colleagues, because we had many supporters, many housing folks, been working on this for a long time. But I think it's both like the constant pressure on legislators to figure out housing solutions that feel big and impactful to constituents and then the kind of growing number of legislators for whom these kind of housing solutions — like, for me, doing this kind of work is the whole reason I decided to run for the legislature.
It's the whole reason that I wanted to come in because I didn't feel like there were enough people in the legislature from my age group and generation — again, I'm 38 — that understand what it's like out there for us and are acting with an urgency to address that issue.
David Roberts
It's funny, the Republican woman in Montana who sponsored a ton of Montana's recent very progressive housing legislation is, I think, 28, like one of the youngest legislators ever in Montana. I think that's definitely no coincidence.
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, and Republicans care about this issue, too. I mean, I got some Republican votes for this bill out of committee, not on the floor. But then, I tend to be one of the more outspoken members of the caucus. I'm not heavily endeared to the Republican leadership.
David Roberts
They don't want to give you a victory.
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, they're not so excited about all the dunking that I do on them on Bluesky.
David Roberts
But on the substance, behind the scenes, some of them get it.
Representative Julia Reed
Behind the scenes, I definitely had Republican partners and allies and people who, you know, wanted to be involved in the bill, who had reasonable requests. And you know, I think that's great. I want to work with my Republican colleagues if they have a similar goal as I do on these issues. And so, you know, it wasn't a full-throated "rah rah," but definitely a lot of support behind the scenes. Sometimes it's not even the yes vote you need so much as the like, "Can you just get everybody to chill out a little bit and not make like 50 speeches against the bill?" So this bill eats up a ton of time. Time is always something we're managing in part-time legislatures where we only meet...
David Roberts
Tell me if this resonates: Is another thing you want from your Republican colleagues just like, "Don't go yelling to Fox News. Don't draw the eye of Sauron." Because then, they'll make the whole country full of conservatives hate it.
Representative Julia Reed
I don't want to be written off in the Daily Mail.
David Roberts
If they're just quiet about it, you know, just don't draw a ton of attention. That's maybe their best contribution.
Representative Julia Reed
We like low-drama legislating. That's what this is for.
David Roberts
Alex, I didn't leave a ton of time for this, but I am curious to hear from you. You know, this is like the YIMBY movement has just gone from 0 to 60 in an incredibly short span of time. They're fanning out across the nation, winning all kinds of victories. So, maybe give us a little sense of how this TOD bill in Washington compares to TOD bills either passed or sort of on the table in other states. How well are we doing here?
Alex Brennan
Yeah, I mean, I think the exciting thing is that Washington state is really setting the bar on TOD.
David Roberts
You think this is the best state bill on TOD that's passed anywhere?
Alex Brennan
Yes, yes, I do. And I think it's a credit to Representative Reed's leadership on this and all of the work that she was just describing to make a really impactful, big deal policy happen and that this is something that the rest of the country is going to be looking at. When we look around at other states and what they're doing, a lot of places are trying to do something similar, which is great.
David Roberts
And these are all basically along the basic model of allowing more density around transit stops. Like, they're all versions of that, basically?
Alex Brennan
Yeah, so there are two states that have done something kind of similar, Colorado and Massachusetts. And I think that the big difference is in the amount of density that we're seeing. In Washington state, we're using this wonky metric, floor area ratio. The other states use units per acre. So we tried to do kind of an estimate of how the floor area ratio translated into units per acre so that we could compare these a little bit better. And based on those estimates, we're getting a lot more density than those previous policies that were passed in those states. We estimate it's about 175 homes per acre for the rail stations and about 125 for the bus rapid transit stations.
That compares to, you know, in Massachusetts, we're talking about 15 homes per acre as the minimum around transit.
David Roberts
Wait, on the far side of reform, because, like, what was it before?
Alex Brennan
Yeah, well, so like, a typical single-family neighborhood is maybe five units per acre. So, you're getting an increase.
David Roberts
Yeah, I guess.
Alex Brennan
But it's, you know —
Representative Julia Reed
Hey, those patriots need their space, Dave.
Alex Brennan
And obviously, these are the floors, right? So, I think they're spurring, hopefully, folks, other opportunities to organize around doing more. And then in Colorado, it's 40 units per acre.
David Roberts
So, we're winning — I mean, that's not a small margin. Then, we're quite a bit ahead of the other competitors here.
Alex Brennan
Yeah, it's a big amount more. And I think there were criticisms during the advocacy process. One of the things that we had to do was convince people that this really was a big deal, because I think particularly with the floor area ratio, people hear 3.5 and they think, "Well, that's like three and a half stories. That doesn't sound that big." And they go to Vancouver, B.C., and they see these tall skyscrapers and they think, "Why can't we do that?" So, doing some of this comparison research and the analysis of the overall total capacity we were adding was really important to emphasize, "No, this is a big deal."
David Roberts
You could say, if I just throw this in here as a political economy note, that legislation that appears like no big deal to the casual observer, but is a big deal to the people who know, care, and understand, is really like the ideal political sweet spot for getting your legislation through.
Alex Brennan
Yeah, for sure. But at the same time, we did have a problem where we needed the advocates to keep showing up, and so we had to show that this was a big deal. And it was worth investing time in. So, it's sort of a fine balance. You don't want to energize the other side too much, but you want to make sure that your people are energized, that this is going to be worth putting all the time and energy into. And the other comparison that I think is helpful on this front, California has been working on passing a similar type of policy for a number of years.
David Roberts
They just did?
Alex Brennan
It just passed the Senate and still has to pass the House and get signed by the Governor. But, I've heard from folks in California that they thought the Senate was their biggest hurdle.
David Roberts
That's what I hear too.
Alex Brennan
Fingers crossed that they're able to get their policy across the finish line this year, too. But that is similarly my understanding: around rail stations, a range of 60 to 120 units per acre; bus stations, 60 to 100 units per acre. I hope we can be some motivation to them, too, to bump up some of those density levels as well.
David Roberts
So you said Colorado, Massachusetts, California, anywhere else of note?
Alex Brennan
These are the states that are doing the most specifically connected to transit. I think there's a lot of other places that are doing other types of housing reform that'll make it easier to build apartment buildings. There's a bunch of states that have passed laws that legalize apartments in commercial areas. So, like, you know, allowing, making it legal so that a shopping mall could start building apartments on top of the stores, things like that. That's also going to cover a lot of places. And so, you know, we've seen reforms like that in Montana, Texas, Connecticut, Arizona to different extents. There's some other policies happening in New Hampshire, in Hawaii.
We're seeing city-level changes in New York City, which obviously is bigger than most states in the country. So, there's a lot of places where we're seeing exciting progress kind of on related but slightly different fronts.
David Roberts
Speaking of related but slightly different fronts, I guess now Washington has done middle density. They've sort of enabled a bunch of middle density. They have now killed parking minimums for the most part. We've legalized transit-oriented development now. Is there an obvious next — and Representative Reed, please feel free to hop in here too — is there an obvious next target?
Representative Julia Reed
It is a topic of strong debate. Go ahead, Alex.
Alex Brennan
Well, I mean, I think there's a couple of places that we're kind of digging into. I mean, one thing, a lot of stuff happened this last legislative session and so we're in a good position of getting to think now about what's next. I think some of the stuff that you guys were talking about earlier in terms of how do we not just have the density but create great neighborhoods?
David Roberts
Yes, this is what I'm trying to lead to. Is there a clear, state-level lever that you can pull that affects the quality of the density? I'm not really sure what it would be.
Representative Julia Reed
I'm really interested in that question.
Alex Brennan
Well, no, I mean, I think it's something we're trying to figure out. I think that typically that's where we've done more work at the local level and really thinking about the local context. And so, I think as we've tried to scale up to the state level so that we can have this bigger statewide impact, it's a little harder to figure out how do you scale up those things into state legislation? The one thing that we got a little bit of with the TOD bill this year that I think we're really interested in more of is state investment in the infrastructure for those neighborhoods.
So, bicycle and pedestrian improvements, utility improvements, public space placemaking investments, those kinds of things. And so, I think that's one area for sure.
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, I think that's an area of big interest. There is a fund that's created within this bill related to capital improvements for cities in TOD zones. And we'd like to see that grow to be a larger investment that cities can tap into. That's obviously something cities are very interested in as well. So, I think that that is an area that we're going to continue to look at. We had some significant budget challenges this year, so there wasn't really a big pool of money we could tap into. But I think that's something where we want to kind of see that continue to grow, especially as the law begins to take effect and these TOD zones and planning zones come online.
David Roberts
I mean, a lot of the objections, a lot of the resistance to bills like this, you get people who live in one of these proposed areas who look around and say, "Well, like, there's a transit stop, yeah, but otherwise we're not really set up for this. We're not really set up for car-free living."
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, and it's a little bit of a chicken and egg problem, right? Like, cities haven't invested in sidewalks in a particular area because they're not expecting a lot of housing to be in that space. You know, water tables, drainage, sewage, that always comes up a lot. So, some of it is if we never plan for the housing there, we will never have the investment to support the infrastructure. But of course, if you're a city and you're worried about kind of being caught in that crunch, it's obviously a topic of big concern. And I think there's a way that, like the state and cities, can try to partner better on that.
David Roberts
Interesting, interesting stuff. What a great problem to have. Like, we did the big things.
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of what we're working on now is implementation. You know, anytime you put a bill together, you're like, "This is how I think this bill is going to play out in real life."
David Roberts
Exactly.
Representative Julia Reed
But as I used to work on the executive side before I switched over or I joined the legislature, and I know having implemented or tried to implement many pieces of legislation, there are always challenges that are unforeseen. So, we're excited about that. I'm excited about kind of the bigger question that you raised too, about enforcement. You know, do we need — I love our folks at Futurewise, they do such incredible work. But do we need a state housing office? Do we need to kind of break some of this housing work and enforcement out of the Department of Commerce?
How do we create more teeth and enforcement for these housing laws? So, there's a lot of work to be done on the enforcement implementation piece now that we've gotten some of these big hits on the books. And then also, kind of dialing those things, like as we start to see middle housing and eventually TOD take hold, is 3.5 FAR too low? You know, once you establish the principle, it's a lot easier to do a bill. Say, "Oh, we're just going to bump the FAR up 0.5."
David Roberts
Yes, we'll get those skyscrapers eventually.
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, skyscrapers and center one day. But, you know, or maybe not. Maybe it's like, "Oh, that was too much. We gotta, we gotta scale back." So, I'm excited to be a part of those implementation conversations and that legislation going forward.
David Roberts
Awesome. And Alex, that's probably next for Futurewise too. I guess it's just trying to make sure this all goes off well.
Alex Brennan
You know, it's always going to be an iterative process. And I think one of the lessons we've learned is passing the bill is just the first step and seeing things through to actually homes on the ground, neighborhoods for people is the work. And so there's always more to do. But I think this is a huge step to make all of that possible.
David Roberts
Amen. Thank you both. This has been super fascinating, and I really can't wait to see what you come up with next. I can't wait for the next session. What a weird — having these positive feelings about politics is so unnatural. It feels so unnatural to me. What is this feeling? So, thank you. Thank you both for coming on and walking through those.
Representative Julia Reed
Yeah, it was great to be here with you. Thanks for having me.
Alex Brennan
Thanks for having us.
David Roberts
Thank you for listening to Volts. It takes a village to make this podcast work. Shout out, especially, to my super producer, Kyle McDonald, who makes me and my guests sound smart every week. And it is all supported entirely by listeners like you. So, if you value conversations like this, please consider joining our community of paid subscribers at volts.wtf. Or, leaving a nice review, or telling a friend about Volts. Or all three. Thanks so much, and I'll see you next time.
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