Speaking at a January 30 forum hosted by transit advocacy organization Tacoma On the Go, Casas, who is an associate professor at the University of Washington Tacoma and serves on the Tacoma Transportation Commission, referenced outgoing Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy’s letter discussing the negative health effects of social isolation, and said that he and others “live in cities by name only.”

“Really, we live in suburbs that have certain sections or islands that are true cities. […] Between them, there’s a lot of gaps, and those gaps are created because we have designed places where you need to bring a one-ton, very big piece of property with you to be anywhere you want to go,” Casas continued. “This matters because if we want to remake our society, we have to start by creating more proximity between you and the people you care about.”

That’s where the concept of a 15-minute city or neighborhood comes in. In a 15-minute neighborhood, people don’t need a car to access their basic needs — things like groceries, health care, school, or being able to meet up with a friend. Instead, all of these activities and amenities should be within a 15-minute walk or bike ride of home. 

Casas, South Sound Housing Affordability Partners program specialist Alyssa Torrez, Pierce County Planning Commission Chair Robb Krehbiel, and moderator Tanisha Jumper discussed this kind of urban layout during the forum, as Tacoma works to create its own 15-minute neighborhoods. (Note: Casas is also a boardmember at The Urbanist, which is run as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, and he has contributed articles as a freelancer.)

Carlos Moreno, a French Colombian professor, researcher, and scientist, coined the term “15-minute city” in 2016; but, Casas said, the concept is “an organic and very historical way that human settlements have been set up,” where “the neighborhood becomes the organizing principle for everyday life.”

With the rise of car culture and car-centric city planning throughout the past century, this isn’t the case for most American cities today, and certainly isn’t the case for Tacoma. But it’s where the city wants to go, with an eye towards mitigating environmental impacts in the face of rising density and population.

City-level actions

Part of this vision lies with Home in Tacoma, a housing reform vehicle the City has used to work towards its vision of 15-minute neighborhoods. Krehbiel said he thinks it’s “one of the biggest things” that’s allowed the City to progress in this direction.

“I joke with our former chair that we essentially rezoned the entire city in that update and made it so that it was easier to do more dense development in our residential areas,” Krehbiel said. “There are still areas that are low density, but along, especially, our public transit areas, we have a lot higher density in those areas to encourage more folks to live along bus routes, train routes, to reduce their dependency on [private] vehicles.”

Home in Tacoma also created designations for neighborhood centers and mixed-use centers, which allows small businesses to be located within neighborhoods. Krehbiel also noted that this year, the Tacoma Planning Commission will be discussing removing parking requirements for new developments. He explained that building off-street parking infrastructure is “a major cost,” and “that’s a lot of extra material for a space that isn’t always used.”

Removing parking mandates, he continued, encourages more development that isn’t quite so car-centric, and instead attracts people who want to use public transportation to get to those places.

Torrez said that Tacoma has already started to implement 15-minute city principles by including them in the most recent update to its Comprehensive Plan. The updated plan went into effect last year.

“Different cities throughout Pierce County […] adopted it in different ways, or might not be using the terminology ‘15-Minute Cities,’” she said, “but are still putting into effect some of the policies that are supporting that, like increasing density, increasing modes of transportation, and looking at some sub-area plans. There’s lots of different things that folks are doing throughout Pierce County that are supporting this kind of effort.”

In the Complete Neighborhoods section of its Comprehensive Plan, the City outlined Tacoma’s conditions, such as street layouts, existing development patterns, and its different business districts. Because each neighborhood in Tacoma is unique and has been shaped both by a variety of cultures and geographic features, the City intends to implement 15-minute city tenets in a neighborhood-specific way.

The City listed several goals and set out a number of policies intended to bring its 15-minute city vision a step closer to reality. These policies include creating community gathering places, prioritizing walkability, and enhancing cultural and historical visibility and expression, through things like architecture and access to culturally relevant food.

Funding needs

It’s hard to meet those goals without the financial means to do so — and the City can’t count on federal funding help in the near-term. Krehbiel noted that the current administration has all but stated that federal funds aren’t going to be available for the 15-minute cities investments Tacoma has envisioned.

“There were some federal dollars that were pulled from projects that Pierce Transit was depending on to increase public transit along Pacific Avenue,” Krehbiel continued. “The general funding situation in the state and in the city is pretty tight, and it’s unclear to me what new revenue or sources might be on the horizon outside of the city of Tacoma.”

While the City of Tacoma is not banking on federal funding for its plans, advocates want the City to get started, using funds it can raise locally.

The transportation factor

Accessible public transit is, of course, an important aspect of 15-minute cities. Pierce Transit has long struggled to meet transportation needs, primarily due to funding hurdles. One of the major ways it could address this issue is by raising the tax it collects from local sales, which makes up three-quarters of the agency’s budget. Currently, that tax sits at 0.6%. It’s the lowest amount of sales tax collected among Pierce Transit’s peer agencies, and has not changed for more than two decades. Ultimately, it would be up to voters to approve or reject any attempt to raise that tax, and the agency has not committed to bringing a measure to voters.

Jumper asked Casas whether he believes that Tacoma can still pursue its vision for 15-minute neighborhoods, even if voters reject this sales tax increase.

“Yes. Pierce Transit and what it does or doesn’t do — it’s one piece of the puzzle, but one thing I’ve learned […] volunteering as a transportation commissioner is that long-term visioning and planning for transportation requires people to envision how it could be,” he replied.

Casas considers transit “movable public space,” and for it to be successful, people have to use it, in order to create the grounds to advocate for further investment in transit — such as hiring more bus drivers and train operators.

“The more we use the public spaces we have as we envision using them in the future as ideal public spaces, including transit, the more our agency partners will realize, ‘Yes, there is a reason to make these investments,’” he explained. “And then our own neighbors over time will realize […] there is a reason to make these investments through levies and bonds, etc.”

Jumper asked Casas how the Tacoma Streets Initiative plays into all of this, and what happens if the City fails to pass the second phase of the initiative again. The initiative would have used a property tax levy and utility tax hike to fund the much-needed repair of Tacoma’s unsafe street conditions, like aged arterials and corridors too dangerous for pedestrians and bikers to safely use. While voters approved the first phase of the initiative in 2015, they narrowly rejected the second phase last spring.

Casas believes that if the City sells the measure better to voters, who complain about things like potholes — which the second phase of the initiative would address — the measure will succeed. That said, he emphasized that the City needs to highlight in its pitch to voters that streets aren’t “just a monoculture” for cars, and that they are meant for people, too.

One way to do this is called a road diet, which is when municipalities narrow or remove traffic lanes in order to reduce collision rates and make the street more pedestrian friendly. Typically, a municipality can use the space it reclaims from cars to widen sidewalks, add bike lanes, and/or add trees.

Krehbiel pointed out that trees are an important part of a city’s infrastructure. It’s much more pleasant, he said, to walk under trees along the side of a busy road, so that traffic noise isn’t so intense.

“And you also get a little bit of a canopy to protect you from the rain that’s falling on days like today,” he continued. “So we’re looking at ways to encourage more trees to be planted in areas where it’s not [well-treed], to protect the trees that we have, and make sure that we are dispersing that tree canopy in an equitable way across the city.”

Krehbiel encouraged members of the public who want more tree cover to advocate for them at different committees and meetings, and that they join organizations like the Tacoma Tree Foundation, which puts trees in right-of-ways, particularly in areas where there are few.

Tacoma’s real cost of living

Torrez reminded audience members that the City’s updated Comprehensive Plan looks out 20 years into the future, and that the City also wanted to design Tacoma’s neighborhoods with youth in mind, since they will ultimately inherit the city from older generations.

Affordability — specifically, the cost to live and commute in Tacoma — is another important metric, Casas noted. When people talk about how much more affordable Tacoma is, he said, that’s only because many folks live in Tacoma and still work in Seattle. How would that affordability view change, he posited, if the cost to commute to a job or school were factored in? Such an analysis would reveal, he surmised, that neighborhoods are set up to subsidize cars, rather than human wellbeing. 

“I think sometimes people are resistant to that because we’ve become acculturated to the idea that we need a car to get everywhere,” he continued. “But another way that I invite you to think about it is, it’s a tax, right? […] You are subsidizing your own participation in everyday life and our economy. A lot of people in the world are not asked to do that, but we are, and you should at the end of the year account for how much you are paying for your own right to work.”

The post Becoming a ’15-Minute City’ Could Be Within Reach for Tacoma first appeared on The Urbanist.

Continuing his slide into fascism, Donald Trump has now unleashed federal immigration enforcement agents across our country, openly attacking, injuring, murdering, and imprisoning immigrants, citizens, advocates, children, old people, our friends and neighbors, and the people we depend upon for wellbeing.

In Seattle, three residents were kidnapped by the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this week. Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, ICE personnel executed Renee Good, an American citizen, mom, poet, and wife, who was actually trying to avoid a confrontation with ICE.

We protest, as we should, but our legislature can do much more than protest.  

In Tacoma, the state of Washington has its very own ICE penal colony, operated by the GEO company. At any one time, 1500 people are imprisoned this detention facility. Their imprisonment is in direct violation of Article 1, Section 3 of the Washington state constitution. That “personal rights” article states: “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” 

Having a private profit-making prison in our state is an insult to all of us and an assault on those who are taken prisoner with no due process. Additionally, this violates  Article 1, Section 13 of our state constitution which states: “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless in case of rebellion or invasion the public safety requires it.”  

None of the people in the ICE prison have been afforded due process. They have been forcibly picked up by ICE. We should not stand by and just watch. The state Attorney General should go after the GEO company for violation of the state’s constitution and demand due process for those incarcerated, and immediate release from imprisonment.

GEO is a private for-profit company registered to operate in Washington state as a foreign limited liability company. In 2017, then Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit against GEO for paying incarcerated people $1 a day for cleaning and maintenance work at the facility (while GEO was receiving from ICE $100 a day for each of these people). At that time, GEO’s profit from the Tacoma facility was $20 million annually.

GEO was also ordered to hand over $17 million in back wages, plus $6 million for “unjust enrichment.” What did GEO do? In typical Trumpian fashion, it appealed the decision.

Even though GEO has failed to pay back wages to incarcerated people, Washington state just renewed its license in December, with “no disciplinary action.”  

It is time for Washington Attorney General Nick Brown to review and rescind GEO’s business license. 

GEO gets $165 a day for each incarcerated person. The average stay is 64 days, before the detainee is sent out of our country or released back to his or her home in Washington. That’s over $10,500 per detainee from the federal government to GEO. That adds up to $90 million a year, to enhance GEO’s bottom line. GEO expects to have an annual profit in 2025 of between $455 million to $465 million.

In 2003, the state of Washington helped to launch this insult to humanity with a loan of $57 million from the Washington Economic Development Finance Authority. In 2011, the Washington Economic Development Finance Authority loaned GEO another $54.4 million.

Our state government can not only loan money to dubious entities, it can also tax these entities. That’s exactly what our legislators should be doing… next week. The state Legislature should penalize GEO by making imprisonment without due process untenable in Washington. The Legislature could tax GEO $50 a day for every person in their custody, all of whom are victims of GEO’s violation of due process. That would be easy to track, as GEO has to keep an “inventory” of the people it locks up. Such a tax would bring in over $25 million annually. This could even force GEO to close up shop in Washington to protect their profits.    

Such a tax could be replicated by states across the country. We could launch this effort to bankrupt GEO, ICE’s accomplice, across our country. Such a move would show the constitution is still in force, and it still is our country.  

As patriotic Washingtonians, we must stand up to ICE. We also must stand up to GEO. Our own state government financed their facility. So, now our legislature must tax GEO, ICE’s private sector profiteering partner in beating down immigrants. Diminishing the profits of corporate imprisoners should be at the top of our agenda, for our Governor, our Legislature, and everyone else.

The post Op-Ed: It’s Time to Uproot ICE Penal Colonies Like Tacoma’s GEO first appeared on The Urbanist.

However, the idea of increasing the cost of construction just as reforms intended to increase housing availability and affordability in the City of Destiny, particularly the Home in Tacoma rezones, start to take effect has drawn opposition.

Impact fees on new development have been legal under Washington law for decades, approved as a method to fund transportation projects, add school and park space, and increase fire department capacity. That said, some of the state’s most populous cities have held off on implementing them.

With the ostensible goal of ensuring that “growth pays for growth,” transportation impact fees can only be used to pay for upgrades that increase a transportation system’s capacity, and not to correct any existing deficiencies or basic maintenance. That capacity can come from new vehicle space, or from new multimodal facilities like protected bike lanes and sidewalks.

Tacoma is eyeing impact fees to pay for portions of long-planned street upgrades that would have a big impact on the ability for city residents and visitors to get around without a car, including pedestrian and bicycle upgrades to 6th Avenue through the busy 6th Avenue business district, and a protected bikeway on Tyler Street in South Tacoma. Transportation advocacy group Tacoma On The Go backed the impact fee plan, and encouraged allies to speak in support at Council.

Unlike cities like Spokane, where an impact fee is levied based on the type of development planned — with denser housing projects charged less per unit than single lot projects or car-oriented retail uses — Tacoma’s new impact fee is blunter and varies only by the area of the city where a project is located.

Projects in North Tacoma will be charged $5,286 for every PM peak hour car trip that the City expects the development to generate, projects in South Tacoma will pay $5,208. Projects in the northeast quadrant of the city, near Federal Way, will only pay $764 per PM trip, due to the lack of planned transportation projects in that area of the city.

In defending the new fees, City leaders have been pointing to the fact that collectively, charges to build new multifamily development in Tacoma remain much lower than in nearby cities, including unincorporated Pierce County. Inclusive of all charges, including wastewater and storm water fees, a developer of a new eight-unit apartment building in Tacoma would be expected to pay around $50,000 after the transportation impact fee program takes effect, compared to nearly $120,000 in Pierce County and around $150,000 in Puyallup.

But even if the fees remain low by comparison to nearby cities, additional costs could make some housing projects within Tacoma infeasible, particularly during the current environment of high interest rates and increasing materials costs. As a city aiming to grow to 325,000 people in the next 15 years, a comparison to Fife will only go so far.

“We wanted to make sure that we weren’t making Tacoma’s fees enormously different than others, but we’re still coming in low on the graph there,” Councilmember Kristina Walker, who sponsored the proposal, told The Urbanist. “The other piece of this is that we are taking advantage of the development exemptions, specifically those for [transit-oriented development] and for affordable housing. So keeping an eye to that always, so that we continue to have especially affordable, transit-friendly housing built in our city.”

Under HB 1491, the transit-oriented development bill approved by the legislature earlier this year, Tacoma can authorize a 50% discount on impact fees within a half-mile of current and future rail stations, including the Tacoma Dome Sounder station, the T Line streetcar and its future extension to Tacoma Community College, along with a planned light rail station on Puyallup Avenue as part of the extension between Federal Way and Tacoma Dome. The City could authorize other exemptions, but under state law they would be required to make up the discount.

As co-chair of the Tacoma Transportation Commission, Matt Stevens had a front row seat for the development of the impact fee program, with meetings taking place on the topic between 2021 and 2025. He credited the City with taking out its pencils and developing a program that was more attentive to concerns around adding costs to housing, an issue that was also raised by Tacoma’s Permit Advisory Task Force.

“I would say that the Transportation Commission was very concerned with the initial proposal,” Stevens told The Urbanist. “I will commend the City, they did a lot of drafts to evaluate this. Because the improvements are the most needed in the historically disadvantaged south end and the Eastside, additional bedrooms — which which translate to additional trips — the more improvements we did in those areas, means it was going to cost a lot more. And so the city did a lot of analysis to understand that: how do we make it so it’s much more equal across the city, so that those areas that’ve been historically under-invested in, that they’re not having to pay for so much more, when they’re already on a much lower level on the scale.”

But that work apparently didn’t go far enough for three councilmembers, with concerns raised ahead of the final vote on both the impact of higher fees on housing but also potential legal risks to the city.

Councilmember Sandesh Sadalge, who opposed the ordinance, brought up the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision Sheetz v. County of El Dorado as creating a potential risk to the city’s new program. A challenge to a local impact fee program in Colorado, the Supreme Court didn’t overturn the ability of local governments to collect impact fees, but did rule that such fees are required to have an “essential nexus” to a legitimate government interest and be “roughly proportional” to the impact of planned development.

“Transportation impact fees are kind of similar to tariffs — developers aren’t paying these. The end users: the renters, the triple-net lease on a commercial property, or homeowners, will eventually pay this,” Sadalge said. “But recent federal court cases have shown that there is an opportunity now for those developers to come back within 10 years and sue us and get that money back due to the nexus and proportionality requirement. I think right now, where we have both offsite improvement requirements on developments, plus this idea of nexus and proportionality, plus this fee on top of it, not only does it add a barrier, it is creating a legal liability where we’re just going to end up giving this money back eventually.”

Deputy Mayor Kiara Daniels, who left office at the end of 2025 after declining to run for an additional term on the council, honed in on the issue of looking holistically at how costs get added to housing, a basic need that everyone agrees should be more affordable.

“I’ve spent the last four years advocating for housing in this community, housing affordability, and I feel like we are neglecting some really hard conversations about what that looks like and what it really means to not just think about the regulation of housing, but also the supply of housing and how we balance that with our environment and our infrastructure,” Daniels said.

While wholesale reform of how local governments, especially under-resourced cities like Tacoma, fund transportation improvements is surely overdue, a broad swath of the city’s multimodal transportation advocates see the impact fee program as a positive step, at least in the context of the tools that are available.

“The goal here is to mitigate for more trips and continue the city’s vision of making it easier to walk bike and transit both for safety reasons, but also in terms of quality of life and helping people get around the city no matter mode what they’re on,” Walker said. “This is not separate from all our other transportation work. It’s built-in, based in Vision Zero and safety and equity.”

The post Tacoma Turns to Builder Impact Fees to Bolster Transportation Funding first appeared on The Urbanist.

Council’s newly passed biennial budget also allows the County to use the tax to backfill federal support it expects to lose at existing facilities, following funding cuts. Though the County has not lost any federal funding aside from a FEMA grant, County Executive Ryan Mello told The Urbanist they want to be prepared, given the “signals coming out of Washington, D.C.”

Named for long-time housing advocate and Tacoma resident Maureen Howard, who died following a battle with cancer in 2023, the act set a one-tenth of 1% tax on sales within Pierce County to generate revenue for affordable housing. That works out to 1 cent for every $10.

The tax is the County’s primary source of affordable housing dollars. Mello said it’s “a meaningful stream of revenue,” but “does not come close to meeting the scale of need in Pierce County. We have families, seniors, and workers who are being priced out of the market, and federal uncertainty only heightens that challenge.”

On the whole, Pierce County — the second-largest county in the state, behind only King — lags woefully behind in its affordable housing needs, and it takes many years for housing projects to come to fruition. As part of its 2022 Housing Action Strategy, the County estimated that it would need to produce an average of 2,300 units per year through 2044 to meet its housing goals. More than half of these are needed for extremely-low income households. The County is exploring new options—some of which the Housing Action Strategy outlined—to try to meet the need.

Maureen Howard Affordable Housing Act

The county started collecting revenue from the tax created by the Maureen Howard Act in July 2023. The County had anticipated the tax to generate a little more than $18 million for affordable housing over the first year. By November 2025, the County had brought in more than $31 million from the tax.

In total, the County has estimated that the tax will contribute to the creation of 1,700 affordable units over a period of six years, based on an historical estimate of needing to provide about $50,000 in County funding per low-income housing unit built. That’s a fraction of overall building costs; so developers braid County funding with outside funding, such as state grants, philanthropic funds or low-interest loans, and federal tax credits.

The six-year plan for the tax specifies that 30% of revenues will go towards developing and preserving housing for those households at extremely-low income levels (30% AMI). This includes permanent supportive housing. An additional 20% of the revenue will be used for housing-related services, including wraparound services for people living in permanent supportive housing.

The Maureen Howard fund has already contributed to the creation of more than 1,300 affordable units, alongside other funding streams.

“The increase in the number of units is reflective of the awarded projects having more outside funding and a lower amount of County dollars per unit,” Mello said, noting that local public funding is important for developers to attract outside funding. “We’ve been able to get more new units than estimated due to strategic investments in projects that leverage a large amount of outside funding. This has allowed the County to stretch its dollars further and exceed the original estimate.”

The four housing projects funded this year

At its Sept. 2 meeting, the county council approved $12.2 million from the tax revenue to go towards four more housing projects in unincorporated Pierce County: Cedar Flats in South Hill/Frederickson, Chateau Rainier in Fife, FFC Homes XIV in Buckley, and Fairway at Dupont in Dupont. The County based its awards on funding criteria, awarding the first three projects all requested funding, and partially funding the fourth. The County denied six other projects from some of the same applicants that won awards.

The tax will fund about 650 affordable homes split among the four projects, with different developers handling the projects.

Macdonald Ladd Development, LLC, is leading the Cedar Flats development and the Fairway at Dupont developments. The 276-unit development at Cedar Flats development is projected to cost nearly $109 million, while Fairway at Dupont’s estimated cost for 113 new homes stands at just over $52 million. The County will contribute $7 million towards the Cedar Flats project and $69,752 to the Fairway at Dupont project.

The Pierce County Housing Authority (PCHA) will helm the rehabilitation of Chateau Rainier in Fife. The PCHA already owns the 248-unit building—but while it has been kept “naturally affordable,” it is not deed-restricted, and requires “significant capital repairs,” including new roofs, interiors, and windows, all of which will require tenants to relocate. 

The PCHA stated that it plans to add 76 project-based vouchers to the building, in order to make it more affordable. Of the 248 units, 96 will be for extremely-low income households, who are families or individuals earning 30% or less of the area median income (AMI).

Foundation for the Challenged, a nonprofit that supports people with disabilities, received $166,800 to buy three different 3-bedroom, single-family homes in the Buckley area, with the aim of rehabilitating and converting them into group homes for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities living at 30% AMI.

The Washington State Housing Trust fund will finance the full project, which will cost a little more than $3 million, the Tacoma News Tribune reported, while the other three projects will be funded through combining their Maureen Howard Act awards with low-income housing tax credits, tax-exempt bond financing, and private sources.

More flexible tax revenue use

Council Chair Jani Hitchen said that the County sees stable housing as a way to reduce the number of people in crisis or caught in crisis cycles. In order to get to a place where people experience homelessness once, instead of repeatedly, she said, the County needs to “build capacity.” This also helps service providers by reducing the burden of need, which allows them to work more quickly with those experiencing homelessness for the first time.

“Some of the most challenging to serve require the most services from the county and community when they are not receiving services,” Hitchen said of the Council’s decision to prioritize tax dollars for vulnerable populations.

Because the County is working on increasing density along its transit corridors, the Council also added language to the budget to prioritize funding affordable housing developments along SR 7, the main highway that runs through Pierce County and Pierce Transit’s busiest bus route. The Council additionally added a specific proviso that allows the County to prioritize using the affordable housing tax funds for development and preservation projects located in urban growth areas. Within those areas, the County will “especially prioritize projects located within ½ mile of State Route 7 south of South 38^th St.”

Backfilling federal funding loss

For the last 10 years, the County has received nearly $200 million in federal support, and about 50 of its programs rely on federal funding for at least 75% of their budgets, the County said. These programs include transportation, healthcare, and affordable housing. Handling significant federal funding cuts will be a serious challenge for Pierce County.

While the County has yet to lose federal grants save for a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant for its Department of Emergency Management, Mello said that “the signals coming out of Washington, D.C., make it clear that we need to be prepared. We can’t wait until cuts occur to start planning; our responsibility is to safeguard critical programs before disruptions reach our communities.”

This is why, Hitchen said, the County opted to add a proviso to the Maureen Howard Act that makes an exception for the County to use tax revenue to backfill lost federal funding.

“At the end of the day it is about keeping people housed,” Hitchen said. “I do not want to foot the bill for the federal government, for a service that should be paid for through programs from [Housing and Urban Development] or other agencies. But, if we find that the federal government is going to harm our residents by cutting programs, especially if we are seeing the potential for people who are stably housed to end [up] out on the street, we have left some flexibility in our budget to respond.”

Urgent need for more affordable housing

The affordable housing tax is currently the County’s only source of affordable housing revenue, but it’s clear there need to be additional revenue sources and strategies. The County has produced less than half of the affordable housing needed, according to its Housing Action Strategy (HAS).

The HAS, developed by Seattle-based consulting firm BERK, contains some bleak statistics. At the time of the strategy’s release, more than a third of the County’s residents were cost-burdened, which is defined as spending more than 30% of household income on housing. Of those, a little less than half spent more than half their income on housing. In order to meet this need, the County must produce more than 2,300 new affordable housing units through 2044, according to the study, adding  “addressing this challenge will require significant resources.” 

“Pierce County has access to funding tools for raising another $44 million in annual revenue for affordable housing production. This additional investment would make an important and meaningful impact,” the HAS states. “However much more funding will be needed. BERK estimates a remaining funding gap of $624 million to fully address the needs of households at or below 50% AMI.”

The study recommended the County utilize both the Maureen Howard Act and add an Affordable Housing Property Tax Levy to generate needed funds, as well as dedicate dollars from the General Fund to affordable housing. The County does not currently have an affordable housing levy, which would need to go before voters and earn majority approval. 

The study also advised attempts to attract private investments in affordable housing through tax credit programs and outreach, and establish a regional, coordinated housing effort, which it suggested an existing intergovernmental roundtable, the South Sound Housing Affordability Partners, could oversee.

Additionally, the study suggested the County expand its Multi-Family Housing Tax Exemption (MFTE), lower overall costs for developers to create affordable housing by making it easier to use surplus public land and assisting builders on “challenging” sites, and encourage “middle housing” development.

“At the Council level, we have been working with intentionality around focusing the various tools that we have, and potentially new tools like MFTE (Multi Family Tax Exemption) programs that the county has only used once,” Hitchen said. “In 2026, the Health and Human Services will be looking at establishing some MFTE zones in unincorporated Pierce county, and hope that this will be an additional incentive to get more housing in our urban/suburban areas, especially along our transit lines.”

Mello told The Urbanist that, in addition to its affordable housing tax, the County is considering other tools and revenue streams to bolster its housing strategy.

“The County is working with partner organizations, and governments on identifying public land for affordable housing development,” Mello said.

He said that the County has secured two public properties for affordable housing—Frederickson South in Frederickson, and a forested, undeveloped land in East Tacoma, both of which are owned by the Department of Natural Resources. The Frederickson development can hold 28 new homes, and will be geared towards households earning 80% area median income, while the undeveloped land will hold 24 new affordable units.

The County said it is coordinating three transfers of public property for affordable development and looking to acquire “additional” pieces of land in 2026 for affordable housing purposes.

Mello said a newer initiative aims to provide technical support for smaller developers and faith-based organizations interested in creating affordable housing. The County will host a developer open house or forum this coming spring, as well as technical workshops for prospective affordable housing developers.

The County is also working to help affordable housing builders acquire private property for affordable development via loans through the Pierce County Community Development Corporation (PCCDC). The PCCDC has already approved two loans for organizations to acquire land in Lakewood and Puyallup for future development, the County noted. Both properties will support units for elders, multifamily workforce housing, and people with disabilities.

The PCCDC already loaned the Olga Dor Cooperative mobile home park $750,000 to preserve 48 affordable units for elders in Parkland.

On the whole, Pierce County’s housing needs currently far outstrip its existing supply and planned stock of affordable housing. Mello did not say whether the County would pursue an affordable housing tax levy, but the County’s revamped Comprehensive Plan has begun pursuing some elements that the Housing Action Strategy suggested, including zoning updates to allow multifamily development in more places.

Pierce County includes a large number of urban incorporated areas, which the County council oversees and controls zoning policy. Nearly half of Pierce County’s roughly 960,000 residents live in unincorporated areas, and the County’s Comprehensive Plan update aims to continue growing in these areas, particularly in transit corridors, with 32,000 net new homes targeted by 2044. The County also aims to spur affordable housing creation, but has not set a specific target for affordable homes.

“We continue to look at working smarter and with broader partnerships,” Hitchen said of the County’s efforts to create more affordable housing. “The needs for affordable housing in our county far outpace what this one source [the tax] can do, but without it, we would be even further behind. If we truly want a thriving Pierce County, where everyone has a place to call home, we have to have a large and diverse inventory of homes.”

The post Pierce County Boosts Affordable Housing Creation, Leveraging New Maureen Howard Fund first appeared on The Urbanist.

One of the reasons newly elected Tacoma City Councilmember Latasha Palmer thinks she won is that Tacomans were looking for “something different.”

“The results came as a pleasant surprise,” she told The Urbanist. “I think it really served as reassurance that the voters are … looking for not the status quo and something that’s going to be a little bit more effective.”

Palmer isn’t the only “different” Pierce County candidate to win, either. Anders Ibsen beat out sitting councilmember John Hines, even though Hines outstripped Ibsen in funding by at least $100,000.

Both candidates are strong advocates for middle and supportive housing, and transit-oriented development and earned the endorsement of The Urbanist Elections Committee. They also told The Urbanist they want to tackle traffic safety, which Laura Svancarek, executive director of Tacoma On the Go, said is much needed and within reach with the right approach.

Both leaders bring direct housing experience to the table. Palmer is a founding board member of Aya Community Land Trust, focused on preventing displacement and building wealth for Pierce County’s Black community. Ibsen is a managing broker at Windermere real estate. He also served as a Tacoma City Councilmember from 2012 to 2019.

Housing affordability

Tacoma has been chipping away at its affordable housing crisis for years, including implementing phases of its Affordable Housing Action Strategy and, more recently, updating its Comprehensive Plan to increase housing opportunities citywide, in compliance with a state mandate that went into effect this summer. The City’s plan targets about 59,000 net new homes by 2050.

A major part of this plan is called Home in Tacoma, a reform allowing a broader range of housing in former single family zones. The change is intended to foster the creation of “middle housing,” ranging from duplexes to townhomes to small apartment buildings. Proponents argue middle housing will promote family-sized housing attainable to middle-income households, foster walkable neighborhoods, support local businesses, and encourage transit use and upgrades.

Palmer told The Urbanist that a major part of her campaign that appears to have resonated with voters is focusing on housing from both an affordability perspective and a “housing first” approach to homelessness.

“We see what’s happening now with a camping ban and things like that aren’t working,” Palmer said, referring to the city’s recently expanded ban on camping that the council enacted in 2022. “[These policies are] just moving the problem from one place to another, and we’re seeing people need more options, as far as shelter goes. When that happens, it’s effective in other cities.”

She said her campaign approached affordable housing “from a place of permanently affordable housing — not just housing that stays affordable for a couple years and then goes back to the market [rate], but other solutions that have had success.”

Ibsen attributed his victory to his campaign’s focus not only on affordability, but on community collaboration. While door-knocking, one of the things he recalled hearing over and over again was concern over a responsible regional approach to housing stability and homelessness.

“People have concerns about […] having a real plan for affordability and economic development,” Ibsen said. “But just as important as addressing the issues was the level of follow-through, attentiveness and collaboration. I think that’s what people are really hungry for, and it’s going to be a major priority of my administration.”

Ibsen supports Home in Tacoma — but he doesn’t think the city should stop there, and should in the long term, pursue social housing.

While he admitted the city doesn’t have the same tax base as some other cities to support such an initiative, Ibsen doesn’t see that as an insurmountable obstacle. In addition to having “a more in-depth conversation” with existing non-profit housing authorities and Pierce County, he believes that the city should work more closely with the Puyallup Tribe.

“The Puyallup Tribe has done some amazing work diversifying their portfolio,” Ibsen said of the tribe’s different property ventures, such as waterfront restaurant Woven, and an in-progress shipping terminal in the Port of Tacoma. “Integrating our partnership with them for economic development and community building is something I’m really going to focus a lot on because the Puyallup Nation are great neighbors. I’m very, very much committed to not simply undoing the mistakes and the injustices of the past, but working together to build a better future for all of our community, tribal and non-tribal.”

Focusing in the nearer term on Home in Tacoma, Ibsen said the city should seek to encourage affordability through the land use and building codes, in cooperation with the Board of Building Appeals and community groups. His goal is to “ensure that we’re aligning the standards we have for the actual physical improvements themselves, along with the land, so that we’re doing everything we can to to encourage affordability [and] as many meaningful options for homeowners and builders and others as we can, while also being cognizant of our environmental standards and not sacrificing those and other important social goods.”

He also zeroed in on ensuring that there are both enough incentives for developers to create affordable housing, and that they are actually serving their purpose. 

“If we’re trying to encourage more ADUs [accessory dwelling units] or small multifamily missing middle conversions in our single-family areas, are there incentives that we can imagine for just average homeowners?” he said. He added that incentives should be available to households to allow them to age in place without “breaking the bank” and create more multi-generational households.

Palmer said that ideas like community land trusts and social housing were key elements that her campaign proposed, and that they built on things she heard the community asking for.

“The city has done studies in the past as to what can we do, and things like land trusts have come up in those studies,” Palmer said, referring to information included in Affordable Housing Action Strategy work, “but we just haven’t followed through, and I think people are ready for follow-through.”

Palmer said that she is particularly excited about Home in Tacoma, because it opens up several middle housing options for people who already live and want to stay in Tacoma.

“There’s so much opportunity for the city to support our residents in creating additional housing for their youth that are becoming young adults and find it difficult to afford a place on their own,” Palmer said. “You can build more housing in the backyard for your son or daughter. Same thing with the folks that are taking care of their elders, and having that opportunity to move closer to home.”

Palmer also sees the need to create housing incentives for community members, not just developers, particularly so that elders — who are increasingly experiencing homelessness and who are bearing much of the brunt of rising health care costs — can have stable care and housing.

“Home in Tacoma reforms made it so that […] it should be easier to make more middle housing, when it comes to things like ADUs,” Palmer said. “It’s making sure that those allowances in the zoning are accessible to our everyday residents and not folks just coming in and wanting to take advantage of those changes from the outside.”

Traffic safety issues

Tacoma’s traffic collision rate, as well as traffic fatalities, remains exceedingly high, with more than 4,000 crashes reported in 2023 and in 2024. The city is currently on track to exceed that number again this year, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation’s traffic crash portal. Dozens of those crashes are fatal, and hundreds result in significant injuries.

In a special election this April, the City came up short in passing the Tacoma Streets Initiative II, a levy that would have funded investments in safer streets, through increased maintenance work, spot safety fixes, and broader street redesigns that would have included pedestrian crossing upgrades and traffic calming features. Voters nixed the levy, which called for a 0.5% increase in utility taxes and a property tax increase of 5 cents per every $1,000 of assessed property value.

Svancarek said that even though this measure failed, how to make Tacoma’s streets safer is at the forefront of voters’ minds, particularly with a tight budget and the city facing a significant budget shortfall. She said that it is “critically important” for the new council to bring the levy back to voters, and that the ballot language needs to be clearer.

“I think people were confused by the ballot language, and we all can come together to do a better job to articulate what this is and what it will do for folks, especially how the city has been able to increase the value of taxpayer dollars through accessing grants,” Svancarek said, referring to the city’s ability to leverage matching funds the tune of $2.27 for every $1 approved by voters. “I think this is an example of how the city can really well-steward taxpayer dollars for issues that are very, very critically important. My hope is that the council and Mayor Ibsen will come out in significant support, and really get out there and speak to the people of their district and the city as a whole.”

She also pointed out that even though there was a one-time allotment of real estate excise tax (REET) towards the city’s Vision Zero plan, it wasn’t enough. Last year, the city council contemplated cutting the plan’s budget by 90%. However, Councilmember Kristina Walker (who formerly led Tacoma On The Go) successfully added an amendment dedicating $1 million in grant funding to Vision Zero, but long-term funding is uncertain, and the funding levels remain below peer cities.

“We need a clear plan on how we’re going to maintain at least the current amount of funding for Vision Zero in the next biennium, otherwise, we lose any momentum that we have,” she said. “Having dedicated Vision Zero dollars gives the city flexibility, to be able to fix things as they come up and be ready to move on bigger issues.”

Palmer said that even though Tacoma residents know traffic safety is an issue, they don’t necessarily want to shoulder another cost. While she is not opposed to resident-funded levies, she said that it “seems like there could be already existing dollars that we can move from some of the other things we’re doing in the city over to support that type of safer infrastructure.”

“I would be open to looking at that first and seeing what our opportunities are, how to make the dollars that we already have more effective,” Palmer said. While Tacoma residents know that money for safer streets has to come from somewhere, she said, “from what I’ve seen knocking doors and talking to folks, people aren’t very secure in the idea that what they’re paying for now in their taxes is going towards the things that they would like to see it go towards. I think there’s a lot of work to be done building trust before we would put something on the ballot again to pay for these types of things.”

She also floated the idea of other revenue streams that the city could consider, such as surtaxes on blighted buildings — “we could maybe bring in some more revenue that doesn’t just fall on the backs of our working folks.”

Ibsen said that one of the reasons the measure failed is because “we weren’t ambitious enough and we weren’t broad enough in who we were talking to.”

If the city were to “take another bite at the apple,” he said, the conversation would have to be multijurisdictional and multifaceted — in other words, not just approached as a roads package, but as a package that demonstrates infrastructure meant for social good. This includes activating neighborhood business districts and areas for transit-oriented development, bringing greater connectivity to downtown Tacoma, and making school and parks spaces safer.

“How can we achieve as many multiple mutual wins as possible, when we look at these things, instead of thinking of it as a monolith, like a street measure, and thinking more multilaterally?” Ibsen said. “How can we use infrastructure to activate space, enhance affordability, make neighborhoods safer and cleaner and just increase the wealth building opportunities for it?”

Public transit

Pierce County transit has faced consistent budget woes that bus riders, in particular, feel, as they wait for infrequent buses along county routes. Svancarek said that while Pierce County Transit is a “scrappy agency,” they still receive half the level of local funding as peer agencies in the region. Without additional funding, service improvements will be minimal.

In addition to successful advocacy for public transit funding, Svancarek said, local leaders need to be “fully invested in and understand the importance of it and be able to communicate to their districts and to the city as a whole why this matters, even for people that don’t ride the bus every day.”

“Pierce Transit … [gives] people access to opportunities, jobs, healthcare, community — all of these things, that are the health of our community as a whole,” Svancarek said.

The agency has been mulling a ballot measure that would bring additional funds to transit, and Svancarek said she would support such a measure, but added that “we all want to see that tax dollars are used smartly.”

“What we hear time and time again from folks out in the community is that they want to see higher [bus] frequencies, that go later into the evening and, especially, better service on weekends and weekend evenings,” she said. “What I would love to see start to come back into the conversation is bus rapid transit service or high capacity transit service in general — but that currently is not part of Pierce Transit’s long range plan due to those funding constraints.”

Pierce Transit’s bus rapid transit (BRT) plans died on the vine a couple years ago, due to escalating costs and budget constraints. The agency replaced it with the Stream Community Line, an express bus which does come with BRT-esque amenities, such as real-time arrival information.

“As we look at what it could mean to bring BRT back into the picture, I think it’s a really good thing to ask, ‘How can we start including those amenities throughout the system even without full BRT lines?’” Svancarek said. “How can we slowly build up?”

Thanks to her ridealong interview with Tacoma On the Go, Palmer specifically noticed that bus schedules in traditional bus stations along Pierce Transit’s routes were not regularly posted. She said they need to be, and also said that she noticed several smaller issues that need to be addressed to create a better transit experience.

Again, though, she wouldn’t want to put funding transit on Tacoma residents without looking at other funding sources, first.

“Everything’s so tight. Some of the things that the money has been going to in times of more abundance, we need to look at those things and see [if we can] allocate those […] so that our basic needs and the more pressing issues are being addressed,” Palmer said. “I think we look at the budget and see where we can move things around. And then if we have to, as a last resort, put an initiative on the ballot and bring people along with that process and have them understand [that] we tried to find the money in these other areas, but it’s not there. […] I say, yes, after other things first.”

Ibsen acknowledged that “transit is woefully underfunded,” and that “we have to have a thorough conversation about what does it mean to sustainably fund the services people care about, while also being mindful of the budget constraint that a lot of working families are facing in Tacoma.” He said he would work closely with Pierce Transit, in his role as mayor and try to be as forward-facing as possible to gather community input.

Correction: The original version of this article misspelled Laura Svancarek’s last name. It had also once stated that Tacoma’s camping ban was recently killed, when it was in fact recently expanded. We regret the errors.

The post Ibsen and Palmer Prevail in Tacoma, Pledging Housing, Safe Streets Push first appeared on The Urbanist.

With over half a year since becoming official city policy, what impact have Home in Tacoma’s housing policy changes actually had? While the progress of individual housing developments to final completion can be hard to measure, construction permits offer us a window allowing some educated predictions on the rate of new housing development in Tacoma.

Analysis of recent permitting data highlights a small uptick in new housing developments, but it has not yet put Tacoma on pace to keep up with estimated population growth and demand. The City of Tacoma will need to do more in order to increase the rate of development, both in private and public sectors. 

Like many cities in the United States, Tacoma finds itself in a housing crisis, with a particularly acute shortage of affordable housing. The situation is likely to worsen, as estimates anticipate massive population growth in the upcoming decades. 

Pierce County projects that Tacoma will grow from 222,906 residents in 2023 to 325,000 by the year 2050. Tacoma’s August 2024 update to the City’s Comprehensive Plan sought to plan housing growth to accommodate that expected population growth. Tacoma had 94,531 housing units at the end of 2023, the plan noted. This growth of more than 100,000 new residents would require around 59,000 new housing units to meet demand. The Comprehensive Plan states that the 59,000 units should come from a mix of housing types allowed under the Home in Tacoma initiative.

Home in Tacoma seeks to tackle the housing crisis through the allowance of medium density housing, or ‘Missing Middle’ housing, a wide variety of housing types between single family homes and large apartment blocks. This is a category lacking in recent construction in many cities, hence the “missing” descriptor. After years of public feedback and revisions, the City Council approved Home in Tacoma in November 2024, with zoning changes going into effect at the start of February 2025.

Housing by the numbers

After Home in Tacoma’s passage in November 2024, the City’s Planning and Development Services (PDS) office opened up for special Home in Tacoma pre-development reviews on December 1, 2024. This review process was intended for property owners and developers early in the building planning process to have their plans reviewed for compliance with Home in Tacoma regulations before they actually submitted applications. 

With that review process in mind, this analysis includes permit applications from January 1st, 2025 through August 31, 2025 to include applications that did go through the review process or were submitted in anticipation of Home in Tacoma coming into effect. Permits submitted between January 2024 through August 2024 were also pulled for comparison. Tacoma divides permits between commercial and residential developments, a distinction that was kept to examine those differences. Note, that “commercial” developments refers to buildings falling under the commercial code, but it includes both mixed-use and residential only multifamily buildings. 

Keep in mind, permits do not always ultimately lead to housing being built. As a result, these figures are rough estimates and cannot fully account for future shifts in economic or political conditions that could impact homebuilding. Further, this permits discussed here only represent eight months of data and thus do not represent a full year of development.

The permitting data was obtained from Tacoma’s Open Data Portal, a public database containing a variety of administrative data for the City.

Column 1 lists batches of permit applications, grouped by year and type. Column 2 lists the number of applications that plan to add housing units, with Column 3 listing the total number of potentially added units. Column 4 lists the number of applications approved as of August 31 of each year, and Column 5 lists the number of housing units that were approved.

Between the two study years, there were a total of 243 applications in 2025 and 188 applications in 2024. That increase in total applications is a good sign, as it indicates general interest in taking advantage of Home in Tacoma’s new flexibility. 

Looking just at the residential applications, that is a difference of 123 potential new units with only 26 additional additional applications in 2025 compared to 2024. Additionally, when looking at total housing units per residential application, the 2024 batch only notes 1 or 2 units per application whereas the 2025 batch notes between 1 and 6 units per application. 

All of this together suggests that alongside a bump up in construction activity, there is a demonstrable interest in constructing middle density housing in Tacoma in residential areas under the new Home in Tacoma policies. Brian Boudet, Tacoma’s Long Range Planning Manager, notes that where housing like townhomes, accessory dwelling units (ADUs), and duplexes were previously extremely uncommon, they are now seeing those types of applications from all over the city thanks to the loosening of zoning restrictions.

This optimistic outlook for residential housing is tempered by the significantly lower number of approved applications and approved housing units in 2025. This can be explained by the fact that 2024 permits have had more time to be reviewed, approved, finalized, and closed out. Many of the 2025 applications have yet to break ground, or are still in the review stage. By dividing the approved housing units (146) by the number of potential units (181) for 2024, we can calculate a housing unit approval rate of about 80% for that year. If the 2025 batch of applications is able to reach 80% housing unit approval, then about 243 new units would be approved for construction.

Now that we have some understanding of housing development in neighborhood residential areas, what is it looking like with larger-scale development in Tacoma’s urban neighborhoods? Commercial permit applications are picking up in Tacoma, doubling from 29 applications in 2024 to 58 in 2025. However, despite the increase in the number of applications, the number of potentially added housing units decreased by 398 between the study years. This indicates that the newer proposed developments are generally smaller in scale compared to previous years.

With such a small sample size, it is tough to pinpoint a cause or level of concern. Boudet said that the current regional economic slowdown could be making developers more hesitant, or less able to take on new construction projects. It has been a tumultuous time in the construction industry, with Trump’s tariffs driving up costs on building materials and economic uncertainty spooking investors.

So far, in terms of added housing, the 2025 commercial applications are beating the 2024 batch, with an housing unit approval rate of 44% compared to 2024’s 18%. So it appears that the 2025 commercial applications being smaller in scale is to their benefit in getting approved. Larger projects can take longer to go from application to approval due to their complexity and potential for mistakes and errors. 

Maria Lee, a spokesperson for the City of Tacoma, said that the City views “the permit review as an iterative, collaborative process,” and that more projects would ultimately make it through to approval. 

“It’s very common for an applicant to submit their initial design vision and then work with our experts to refine it,” Lee said. “Our feedback is rarely a ‘rejection’; it’s a road map. We provide specific comments that guide the applicant on how to bring their project into alignment with the code. This back-and-forth ensures the final project is safe, compliant, and contributes positively to the neighborhood, which is our ultimate shared goal.”

“When we look at the permits we’ve already issued, the data is very encouraging. Approximately two-thirds of all projects are approved in just one or two reviews,” Lee said in an email. “The high volume of activity is driven primarily by smaller-scale projects like single-family homes and Accessory Dwelling Units, which make up nearly 70% of these applications. These are often homeowners or small builders who are navigating these complex codes for the first time. The roughly 25% of applications that take three or more reviews are often those involving more complex sites or designs, where the new codes require more significant adjustments. This is consistent with what we’d expect after a major code update. We recognize there’s a learning curve, and we’re committed to helping people navigate it.”

Boudet recommends that anyone interested in housing development in Tacoma, whether a large developer seeking to build an apartment complex or single family homeowner looking to construct an ADU, use the pre-application services offered by the City before starting a permit application. The pre-application services will help a potential applicant scope out their project, assess feasibility and understand what they need to do to ensure the highest chance of approval before starting the time-intensive permit application.

In addition, both the webpages for Tacoma Permits and Home in Tacoma contain tip sheets to help those considering developing middle housing to understand the rules and offer guidance to ensure compliance. 

With 25 years to reach Tacoma’s 2050 goal of 59,000 new homes, the city should be averaging 2,360 homes added per year. Even with Home in Tacoma housing reforms, the data suggests the city may miss that mark in 2025 permit approvals. Over the last two years, Tacoma has fallen shy of 2,000 units permitted per year, which typically translates into even fewer homes built as some permitted projects stall out. 

Tacoma’s growth has lagged behind long-term projections recently, adding 3,000 residents per year over the last two years, according to state estimates. Regional planners project Tacoma will grow by 100,000 people by 2050, translating to about 4,000 residents each year.

Boudet cautioned that these population estimates are highly optimistic and that in the past, Tacoma has fallen short of projected growth. He agrees that more housing is needed, but is uncertain if there will be 100,000 new Tacomans by 2050. Tacoma has been noted as a highly desirable city to live in in recent years, but it is unclear if that popularity will be maintained in the upcoming decades.

Boudet emphasizes that Home in Tacoma was never intended to be a silver bullet to Tacoma’s housing crisis. He acknowledged that housing in Tacoma has trended toward unaffordability in recent years, and that the problem is far too large to be solved by a single set of changes to zoning codes. Home in Tacoma was intended to be a step in the right direction, followed by other steps. Boudet noted that Home in Tacoma is only a small portion of the City’s multi-part Affordable Housing Action Strategy (AHAS).

One of the first listed objectives in the City’s AHAS is the creation of new affordable housing, with a 2028 goal of 6,000 units. As of December 2024, the City reports only 1,564 affordable homes have been built, with 854 “coming online” for a total of 2,418 new units, or about 500 per year since the start of 2019. Maintaining that rate of production through 2050 would result in 15,000 new units. 

Nonprofit and public-sector builders shouldering more of the load could help ensure Tacoma hits its housing goals, and would do even more heavy lifting on the affordability front. But all sectors would appear to need to pick up the pace to get there.

Who will take responsibility?

The other challenge for meeting growth targets is that crashes in the housing industry or the larger economy can sap momentum and lead projects to stall out. Completed permits still require builders to find financing and stay solvent to result in completed homes.

Tacoma is no stranger to stalled projects, with one recent example being an affordable housing project near Tacoma Dome intended to host 100 affordable housing units being frozen since March 2024,though there are signs that a new project owner intends to finish the project with double the original number of units. As of September 2025, the site has not seen any new activity.

This anticipated gap of housing units is one consequence of relying on private developers to build housing, despite relatively soft interest in Tacoma’s market. While Home in Tacoma opened up flexibility in residential zones and included some incentives, it does not mean that owners and developers will choose to take advantage of those benefits — especially as they face headwinds like high interest rates and rising costs for construction materials and labor. Some are still building, but not at a rate that will meet future needs and prevent many from getting priced out.

The City of Tacoma should consider removing hurdles or expanding incentives for homebuilders to increase the rate of development across the city. City leaders should also ramp up investment in social housing given the inconsistency and unpredictability of private development. City representatives demonstrate a clear commitment to assisting applicants through the permit process; they should put some of that energy towards getting permits in the door in the first place.

Home in Tacoma was absolutely a step in the right direction to help provide housing for all. But right now, how it is being implemented and coming to life appears like it is falling short of needs.

Tacoma’ Planning and Development Services plans to share their own progress report on the implementation of Home in Tacoma to City Council on Tuesday, September 30. 

The post Home in Tacoma Rezones Generate Small Permit Bump in First Months  first appeared on The Urbanist.

Tacoma, the state’s third-largest city, known affectionately to its inhabitants as “Grit City” (or “City of Destiny” if you prefer) is at a crossroads. The city’s primary election – ballots are due by August 5 – will shape the next four years in this growing urban center that’s home to 228,000 people.

Tacoma’s primary election will narrow the field in races for mayor and three city council positions, and one Pierce County Council seat via a special election in District 5. (Check out The Urbanist’s endorsements for how the elections committee landed after touching base with the candidates.)

The two largest fundraisers in Tacoma’s six-way mayor race are John Hines ($189,000) and Anders Ibsen ($175,000), leading the field by a wide margin. This suggests they are the favorites to make it through the top-two primary, unless another candidate pulls off an upset.

The next mayor will guide Tacoma throughout a pivotal and tumultuous time. The south Puget Sound metropolis, which celebrates its 150th birthday this year, faces a host of pressing issues as it continues a pattern of steady growth and faces the impact of federal funding cuts and destabilizing Trump Administration policy changes.

Housing issues

Housing and cost-of-living issues are some of the most pressing. Tacoma went bold in creating its 25-year One Tacoma comprehensive plan, which envisions a city of 325,000 residents by 2040. The plan, published in 2024 and approved earlier this year, has already prompted the city to pass a package of zoning changes known as “Home in Tacoma” — designed to promote increased density and middle housing options. 

The plan, which hews closely to new state guidelines set out in HB 1110, allows middle housing options in areas 1/8 mile from parks, neighborhood centers, schools and colleges – and within a ¼ mile of frequent transit. It also increases the number of zoned areas that allow for mutliplex options and other high-density options – though achieving the city’s housing goals of more than 59,000 units by 2040 will require even more ambitious zoning reforms.

Surging gun violence

In addition, Tacoma and its surrounding suburbs are in the midst of a troubling surge in gun violence – especially among young people. After a record number of homicides in 2022 (45 in Tacoma and a total of 79 for all of Pierce County) Mayor Victoria Woodards in 2023 called for action, seeking to nearly double funding for youth violence prevention programs. (Woodards is blocked from seeking a third term due to Tacoma’s term limits.)

Though the Tacoma Police Department put in place a violent crime reduction plan in 2022 that increased enforcement in “hot-spot” areas, results have been mixed, with violent crime dropping in hot spots but rising elsewhere. Tacoma Public Schools, in collaboration with the city and a host of nonprofits, started a teen activity program at 12 locations, Summer Late Nights, that helped drive a temporary dip in violence.

But this year, shootings resumed unabated. This spring, three teens died in two separated shooting incidents in Tacoma and Spanaway and in a letter to parents, schools superintendent Joshua J. Garcia wrote, “The death of a child hits me like a punch in the gut.”

Road safety challenges

Transportation is another critical challenge facing the city, with an increasing need for more transit and pedestrian safety improvements. 

Key to Tacoma’s transit future is Sound Transit’s recently announced light rail route connecting the Tacoma Dome district with Federal Way and destinations north, which is expected to be complete in 2035. Though a proposed future bus rapid transit (BRT) system is the responsibility of Pierce Transit and will likely require a new county transportation funding measure, the City of Tacoma will be integrally involved in the process of planning, creating dedicated bus lanes, and other aspects of the proposed “Stream” BRT network.

Pedestrian safety is also a serious concern. According to data from the Washington Traffic Safety Commission, there were 30 pedestrian traffic-related deaths in Pierce County in 2024, a 10-year-high. In Tacoma, deaths plus serious injuries to pedestrians rose to nearly 200 in 2023, nearly double the rate in 2019. This mirrored an alarming road safety trend throughout the South Sound. 

Despite adopting a Vision Zero plan in 2020, Tacoma began to backpedal on improvements, slashing its road safety budget by 90% in its 2025-2026 budget. Making matters worse, Tacoma voters in April narrowly rejected a street safety improvement levy that would have repaved 223 miles of streets, improved between 130 and 170 miles of bike infrastructure, and upgraded 250 to 300 miles of sidewalks.

Tacoma’s new mayor and city council will have to find an alternate plan to deal with Tacoma’s unsafe streets, which per capita are 4.5 times more deadly than Seattle’s.

With its city manager system, the position of mayor in Tacoma is a relatively ceremonial position – but the mayor does have a bully pulpit and can also set the direction of the council’s legislative and budget agendas.

On top of these challenges, the council and mayor will also have two large job vacancies to address: the powerful city manager position and Tacoma Chief of Police.

Former city manager Elizabeth Pauli, who had served since 2017, retired on July 1. One of the highest-paid public offices in the state, Tacoma’s city manager is the executive responsible for running city agencies and managing some 2,000 city employees. Interim executive Hyun Kim will serve until the new council makes its hiring decision next year. 

In addition, the council will need to approve a new chief of police after Tacoma Police Chief Avery Moore resigned in January after being suspended for “personal use of city assets.”

Mayor of Tacoma

Ibsen, who was endorsed by The Urbanist in the primary, is a former two-term member of the Tacoma City Council, first elected in 2011. On the council Ibsen worked to pass a tenant protection act in 2018, was behind the Tacoma Anchor Network, which coordinates the efforts of nonprofits, universities, hospitals, and other large institutions in the city on hiring and seeking grants. He’s currently the owner and manager of a Windermere real estate brokerage. 

In his Urbanist questionnaire, Ibsen said he supports “upzoning tied to transit expansion opportunities,” and notes that he campaigned for city council in 2015 on a platform of “livable density.” He observes that he’s “a big proponent of social housing,” In terms of pedestrian safety, he responded that “I want to see Tacoma’s streets safer and focus on what we know works: prioritizing people over cars.” 

On public safety, Ibsen wrote that making people in Tacoma feel safe “starts by addressing the roots of our public safety crisis by ensuring mental health professionals are available around the clock to respond to crises, so people get care, not handcuffs.”

Asked what his top priority will be as mayor, Ibsen said, “My number one priority is restoring public trust in City Hall by delivering real results on the issues people care about most, like addressing housing affordability, improving public safety, and promoting economic fairness. 

“I have spoken to thousands of many Tacoma residents the last several months — all corners of the city — and I hear the same thing at their doors: They all feel ignored by a city government that’s slow to respond yet quick to make excuses.”

When asked what he’ll do as mayor to address the narrow failure of the street improvement levy, Ibsen said, “The narrow failure of Tacoma Streets II was a loud and clear signal: people do want safer streets and public investment in their neighborhoods — but they also need to trust that their tax dollars are being spent wisely and transparently. Residents are tired of projects that drag on for years, with little accountability and poor communication from City Hall. 

“As mayor, I’ll work with public works and lead redesigns to our streets to naturally slow traffic and prevent crashes. I’ll also prioritize working directly with neighborhoods to identify high-risk areas and focus investments there first — especially in under-served communities.

John Hines, a former high school history teacher, ran against Ibsen for city council in 2015 and lost, then won that seat in 2019, defeating union activist Nathe Lawver. Hines won a second term in 2023. During his time on the council, Hines supported the Home in Tacoma land use reform packages, a 1/10th of 1% sales tax for affordable housing, as well as pushing to build tiny home villages.

Hines told Tacoma Weekly that one of his proudest accomplishments was sponsoring and passing an ordinance prohibiting public camping within 10 blocks of temporary shelters and 200 feet from shorelines and waterways.

In his Urbanist questionnaire, Hines said his top priorities include “building more housing at all income levels, creating a safer and more accessible transportation network, and advancing a green, inclusive economic development strategy.” On transit, Hines notes that “as a Pierce Transit Commissioner, I’ve prioritized expanding reliable, frequent transit so people can live car-free or car-light.” In terms of improving pedestrian safety, Hines touted his work renewing Tacoma’s Transportation Benefit District and support for using automatic speed camera ticket revenue to fund safety improvements.  

Asked this week what his number one priority is, Hines replied, “Public safety. We want this [to] be a safe place for everyone, and that includes having a fully staffed Police Department to address some of the criminal activity we’re having. And also our alternative response models: our HOPE team – how our Fire Department deals with mental health calls; community service officers that respond to non-emergency, non- violent calls; and our HEAL team, which does homelessness outreach and engagement. So, really addressing public safety from a holistic viewpoint.”

On the failure of the Tacoma Streets II safety levy to pass, Hines said, “That was a real setback for us. It’s one of my goals, as mayor, to come back with another package. What I want to do before we come back to the voters, is to really spend some time over the next year, building support for the package. So working with multimodal supporters — advocacy groups, people with disabilities, our chamber of commerce, community groups — to really build support ahead of time about what they want to see in the package for the voters. I think that will help us be more likely to pass it in the end, and really make transformational investments in our infrastructure.”

Others running for mayor are Whitney Stevens, a business owner, former chair of the Downtown Merchants Association, community activist and chair of the 27th Legislative District Democrats; and Jesus “Jesse” Carlos, a former US Army Ranger and member of the Tacoma Human Services Commission. Steve Haverly and Anthony Ginn will also appear on the primary ballot, but have yet to report any campaign contributions and did not participate in The Urbanist’s endorsement process.

Stevens’ questionnaire responses and background suggest a decidedly urbanist platform, but she has not garnered the same institutional support as frontrunners Ibsen and Hines.

Tacoma City Council

There are currently three Tacoma city council seats on the primary ballot: District 4, District 5, and the at-large seat, Position 6. The District 2 seat is also up but has only two candidates so both will advance to the general election without a primary. Seat 6 has a total of six candidates running. 

For District 4, The Urbanist Elections Committee endorsed Silong Chhun, who lives on Tacoma’s Eastside, immigrated to the U.S. from Cambodia in his youth, and who worked in communications for the Office of the Attorney General and former Governor Jay Inslee. Chhun is running against Sandesh Sadalge, who was appointed to the council seat in July 2024 to replace council member Catherine Ushka, who died in office after a battle with cervical cancer. Israel James McKinney is also running, but has not reported any fundraising yet.

In his Urbanist questionnaire, Chhun said one of his top priorities is support for the Workers Bill of Rights, which would raise Tacoma’s minimum wage to $20, and increasing tenant protections. He noted that he supports fast-tracking accessory dwelling units (ADUs), offering density bonuses in zoning, and speeding up permitting.

Sadalge, a small business owner, says on his campaign site he’ll work to increase affordable housing, address crime at the root causes and with “ well-funded, well-staffed, and well-trained police force and alternative response teams.”

In District 5, The Urbanist endorsed community activist Zev Rose Cook, who helped lead the successful campaign to pass a tenant protections ballot measure in Tacoma in 2023. Cook is facing incumbent  Joe Bushnell, who formerly worked for the Washington Hospitality Association, and who was elected in 2021 and supported a bill that banned homeless encampments near shelters and waterways, which passed in 2022.

The race has drawn attention with a controversial mailer funded by a political action committee (PAC) supportive of Bushnell that inaccurately claims that Cook supports defunding the police. 

In her Urbanist questionnaire, Cook says she supports raising the minimum wage, building a social housing system similar to one passed recently in Seattle, progressive income tax, and city-owned grocery stores. Bushnell, in his questionnaire, noted his support of the Homes in Tacoma zoning reform package, supporting construction of more ADUs and other duplexes/quadplexes, and pointed out he’d voted to fund 30 more police officers.

In Seat 5, the Urbanist endorsed Krista Perez, an author, small business owner, and child of immigrants who lives in Tacoma’s eastside. In the crowded field, Perez is even in fundraising ($34,000) with property manager Hilltop Business Improvement Area leader Jessica Johnston ($34,000) and above small business owner Latasha Palmer ($25,000). Others in the race are government employee Lindsay Willis, Hunter D. Henderson, a planner for the Washington State Department of Transportation, and Todd Briske, who unsuccessfully ran for Position 8 in 2023.

In Perez’s Urbanist questionnaire, she said she supports building more affordable housing, is fully supportive of the Home in Tacoma zone reform initiative, new sources of progressive revenue, and working to find an alternative to the failed Tacoma Street II levy, including “securing alternative funding for critical safety upgrades and working with city leaders, planners, and community organizations to prioritize people-first infrastructure. That means traffic-calming measures, better street lighting, safer crosswalks, and dedicated space for non-drivers.”

Pierce County Council District 5 race  

On the Pierce County council, Bryan Yambe is running to retain his seat in District 5, which he was appointed to in January 2025 after it was vacated by Marty Campbell, who was elected Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer. Yambe was elected three times to the Fife city council in 2015, 2019, and 2023, He’s been involved in the Pierce County Young Democrats, 25th Legislative District Democrats, and the Washington State Labor Council.

Yambe faces Kimber Starr, a former small business owner, and business owner Terry Wise.

Yambe, on his website, says supports increasing housing supply by streamlining permitting, expanding transit services, and creating more opportunities for first-time home buyers.

The post Tacoma Faces Pivotal Moment in Crowded Primary Election first appeared on The Urbanist.

In Tacoma, we apply different standards to dealing with private property stored in the right-of-way: if you’re homeless, you and what is yours are targeted for removal. If you’re a motorist, we say “stay.”

As of September 2024, the City has installed more than 1,000 rocks and boulders — at a cost of $163,000 — in planting strips across the city to deter homeless encampments. 

Planting strips are fair game, however, if you happen to arrive at your location and you cannot find a parking space curbside. Hop the curb and park on the planting strip; chances are no one will complain and parking enforcement won’t ticket you (even though driving or parking in this part of the right-of-way is against Washington State law).  

Throughout the city, you can find people parking (storing) their private property in the right-of-way, and neighbors and law enforcement largely willing to look the other way. 

This contradiction says a lot about Tacoma and Tacomans.

This intolerance towards the property of unhoused people in the right-of-way is evidenced in the high levels of complaints the City receives about “the homeless,” in laws passed that prevent setting up a camp near certain facilities that serve those experiencing housing insecurity or lack of housing, and in the hostile architecture deployed to prevent unhoused people from placing their property in the right-of-way.

Look around and you are likely to find evidence of the tolerant attitudes we have towards similar and, arguably, equally disruptive and destructive use of that right-of-way if those storing their property on planting strips are, we presume, property owners (or renters, at least), just like us. Find vehicles, trailers, boats, campers, and RVs parked on the planting strip throughout the city.

But homeless encampments bring crime and trash, we are told, and therefore detract from property values. Others say that the unhoused make them feel unsafe or uneasy. Tacoma, like many cities, is willing to remove unhoused people and their property when residents call to complain. 

A vehicle on the planting strip does not evoke similar feelings, responses, or enforcement. Some might defend this instance of storing private property in the right-of-way in opposite terms, arguing that parking on the planting strip does not pose a threat to the public. Except that it does: cars parked on the planting strip do not contribute to traffic calming and they obfuscate the sight lines of other drivers. This combination of factors—higher speeds and blind spots—put children and others at risk on our already dangerous roads. 

Sometimes it is oversized vanity trucks and RVs that are stored on planting strips because these exceed the available space allotted to vehicle storage at the curb. To park on the street would disadvantage other motorists, so let’s park on the planting strip and inconvenience non-motorists instead. You see this when an oversized vehicle’s front- or tail-end extends onto the sidewalk, forcing pedestrians onto the roadway.

For many, this is just “a Tacoma thing” (not that you don’t observe this behavior in other Washington cities — but you especially see it in the City of Destiny). For others it is another clear example of how a society and its communities use property and its ownership as a meaningful differentiator.

Private property comes with its privileges in our society and in Tacoma, too. It gives you a greater claim to public assets and to how presence and access to these is enforced. A lack of property — or giving the appearance that you don’t own anything — strips you of access and dignity.

Certainly, the City will say that it does not have enough resources to curb the illegal behavior that is parking on planting strips (and there are so many things that could be done on a planting strip that are not hostile and which promote the common good). 

Yet, the City is capable and resourced enough to enforce against unhoused people using the planting strip to store their things. 

Here is an opportunity to ask better questions about access, equity, and dignity in our city, as well as the uneven attitudes and standards we all apply to how we care for our common property. Because this is just as much about the willingness of our City to act on behalf of people with “real” property against those who don’t own it, as it is about our contradictory standards and what it says about us.

Tacoma is making strides in restoring and growing the urban tree canopy, an ambitious and laudable effort that has been partly articulated as a matter of equity. The right-of-way, particularly our planting strips, offers one of the most ready resources to make more progress. We can scale-up depaving and tree-planting to maximize the public good, or we can continue to cultivate rock gardens and de-facto parking lots.

The City has deployed rocks and boulders at more than 20 sites across Tacoma. As large as this figure reads, it represents a fraction of the vehicles and other private property you will find stored in planting strips across the city on any given day.

In Tacoma, an unhoused person stands to be left alone for longer if they put their car on the planting strip before turning in for the night than if they close their eyes in a tent. We should ask ourselves what the implications are when we apply different standards to whose property is accommodated in the planting strip — and why.

The post Op-Ed: The War Over Tacoma’s Planting Strips first appeared on The Urbanist.

As of Wednesday’s ballot count, 52% of the vote was against the levy. Turnout was sitting under 25%, with just over 34,000 total votes on the measure. Only a few hundred votes remained to be tallied, according to Pierce County estimates. Had the levy passed, Tacoma’s goal was to repave 223 miles of streets, improve between 130 and 170 miles of bike infrastructure, and upgrade 250 to 300 miles of sidewalks over the first 15 years of the new initiative. 

The City of Tacoma issued a statement Wednesday warning of the consequences of failing to replace the levy funding and pledging a second effort.

“Although the votes have not yet been certified, the City of Tacoma acknowledges that Proposition 1, the ballot initiative aimed at funding crucial public infrastructure projects, will most likely not pass,” the City said. “Our primary concern now is that, without these dedicated funds, we will struggle to keep up with the infrastructure needs of our city and maintain the improvements achieved under the current Streets Initiative, which ends December 2025. Looking ahead, we anticipate that the level of service residents rely on will unfortunately be diminished over time as maintaining and upgrading our infrastructure becomes increasingly more challenging.”

The city’s statement acknowledged that strained household budgets and financial anxiety could have created a headwinds for the levy.

“This measure represented a significant opportunity to continue investing in the essential systems that support our community’s quality of life, safety, and future economic growth,” the City’s statement continued. “Despite this setback, the City remains committed to addressing Tacoma’s infrastructure requirements. The City Council will be actively exploring all available options moving forward, including the possibility of bringing a revised funding measure back to the voters for consideration at an appropriate time in the future.”

Streets Initiative II would have been funded by a 0.5% increase in the city’s utility taxes and a property tax increase of 5 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. It was expected to raise $25 million in its first year and ramp up over time, providing a new baseline level of funding for the City of Tacoma to maintain and modernize its streets, pushing back against a growing maintenance backlog. While Streets Initiative I was term-limited to a decade, the new measure would be set to continue indefinitely to meet the needs of a city expecting to add more than 100,000 new residents in the next two decades.

Figuring out a plan B for transportation funding will likely be one of Tacoma Mayor Victroria Woodards’ last major tasks to deal with, as she wraps up the end of her second and final term, thanks to term limits. Councilmember John Hines, one of Streets Initiative II’s biggest champions, is among the candidates vying to replace Woodards.

Tacoma voters failing to back a transportation funding measure could also bode poorly for the prospect of other potential ballot measures on the horizon in Pierce County. Pierce Transit’s sales tax authority significantly lags behind other regional peers, and transit advocates have long been advocating for a transit-funding measure after a 2012 vote failed by a mere 915 votes.

Laura Svancarek, executive director of Downtown On The Go, told The Urbanist that “at this point, I think it’s mathematically impossible for SI2 to pull ahead.” A transportation-focused nonprofit, Downtown On The Go led the coalition backing the streets initiative.

“We’re very disappointed with the result,” Svancarek said. “Streets Initiative 2 would have provided transformational funding to address Tacoma’s most dangerous roadways while increasing neighborhood connectivity, and SI2 not passing has significant consequences. The loss of new funding for safety projects is disheartening, but the problems extend beyond that. Streets Initiative 1 expires at the end of 2025 regardless of these results, meaning that Public Works will see a notable decrease in dollars for needed maintenance and planned projects beginning in January.”

The initiative plan would have tackled some of the most dangerous corridors for people who walk and bike, hotspots identified in Tacoma’s 2022 Vision Zero Action Plan, such as Portland Avenue, S Tacoma Way, and S 74th Street. That would have jumpstarted progress after the City opted to slash most of its Vision Zero budget for 2025. Councilmember Kristina Walker was able to partially staunch the bleeding by adding back $1 million specifically for safety projects, but it was really the levy project that would have driven the safety action plan. Walker was executive director of Downtown On The Go from 2011 to 2020, before she ran for office and has made transportation issues a priority.

Tacoma has streets that are significantly more deadly than many of its neighbors. Grit City had 35 fatal crashes in 2023, compared to 27 for Seattle, despite Seattle’s population being more than three times larger. On a per capita basis, Tacoma streets are about 4.5 times more deadly than Seattle’s. In 2020, Tacoma adopted a Vision Zero pledge to end traffic deaths by 2035, hoping to reverse its troubling trend.

Downtown On The Go has pledged to fight for safe streets projects and seek ways to mitigate the lost streets funding.

“When budgets get tight, it’s active transportation, safety, and access projects face the brunt of delays and cancellations,” Svancarek said. “Downtown On the Go will continue to advocate for safe mobility for all Tacomans.”

The group has bike advocacy events planned in May for bike month. “On April 29, Tacoma City Council will declare May as Bike Month in Tacoma. Downtown On the Go and 2^nd Cycle Community Bike Shop invite advocates to speak up for biking at the council meeting,” Svancarek added. “It’s more important than ever for our elected leaders to understand the importance of investing in safe bike infrastructure.”

The post Tacoma Voters Narrowly Reject Levy in Street Safety Setback first appeared on The Urbanist.

Governor Ferguson seems to believe that we can make nice to Donald Trump, even having toyed with the idea of sending 200 National Guard troops to the Canadian border to assist with the Trump administration’s border policing. What about collaborating with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in our state? Does the Governor want to assist in the detainment and imprisonment of Washington residents by ICE? Or will he follow the example of Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who just flew to El Salvador in an attempt to free Kilmar Abrego Garcia from the penal colony in which Trump has imprisoned him.

We have our very own penal colony in Washington. More than 1500 people are imprisoned in the GEO company’s ICE detention facility in Tacoma. Their imprisonment is in direct violation of Article 1, Section 3 of the Washington state constitution. That article for “personal rights” states that “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” 

Having a private profit-making prison in our state is an insult to all of us and an assault on those who are taken prisoner with no due process. This is a violation of Article 1, Section 13 of our state constitution which states, “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless in case of rebellion or invasion the public safety requires it.”  

None of the people in the ICE prison have been afforded due process. They have been forcibly picked up by ICE. We should not stand by and just watch. The Attorney General should go after the GEO company for violation of the state’s constitution and demand due process for those incarcerated, and immediate release from imprisonment. 

The Governor and the Legislature have other levers to closing down the GEO facility. Representative Lillian Ortiz-Self introduced a bill, HB 1232, now passed by the Legislature and awaiting Governor’s Ferguson’s signature. This will enable the Department of Health to inspect the GEO facility and take enforcement actions when it is non-compliant (which it appears it is on a continual basis). This bill was passed on April 14. The Governor should sign it into law immediately. 

GEO is a private for-profit company. In 2017 then Attorney General Ferguson filed a lawsuit against GEO for paying incarcerated people $1 a day for cleaning and maintenance work at the facility (while GEO was receiving from ICE $100 a day for each of these people). At that time, GEO’s profit from the Tacoma facility was $20 million annually.

That was before the second Trump regime — now undoubtedly prison revenue is even more. The company was also ordered to hand over $17 million in back wages, plus $6 million for “unjust enrichment.” What did GEO do? In typical Trumpian fashion, it appealed the decision. 

GEO is registered as a foreign limited liability company. Its business license in our state expires next February. GEO gets $100.65 a day for each incarcerated person. The average stay is 36 days, before the detainee is sent out of our country or released back to his or her home in Washington. That’s $3600 per detainee from the federal government to GEO. The prison, with 1575 beds, is at capacity. That adds up to $57 million a year, to enhance GEO’s bottom line. In 2024, GEO’s net income exceeded $100 million. 

In 2003, the state of Washington helped to launch this insult to humanity with a loan of $57 million from the Washington Economic Development Finance Authority. And then again, in 2011 the Washington Economic Development Finance Authority loaned GEO another $54.4 million. 

An ambivalent but apparently good enough letter written by State Representative Laurie Jinkins, now the Speaker of the House, was submitted by GEO to help persuade the Finance Authority to make this loan. What did this loan amount to? A 1.5% reduction in the interest rate for construction, saving GEO at least $500,000. 

Our state government can not only loan money to dubious entities, it can also tax these entities. And that’s exactly what we should be doing in the next week. The Legislature should penalize those companies that detain residents by making imprisonment without due process untenable in Washington. The Legislature could tax GEO $50 for every person in their custody who is a victim of GEO’s violation of due process. That would be easy to track, as GEO has to keep an “inventory” of the people it locks up. Such a tax would bring in over $25 million annually. 

We can stand up to GEO, not just picket in front of their Tacoma mass holding cell, after financing their facility. Diminishing the profits of corporate imprisoners should be at the top of our agenda, for our Governor, our Legislature, and everyone else. 

The post Op-Ed: Ferguson Must Get Tough on Trump, Illegal Tacoma ICE Jail first appeared on The Urbanist.