Fight over housing in Seattle's Sodo neighborhood enters a new phase

Many people thought the long fight over whether the city can or should build housing near the baseball stadium was done in May. But it will now stretch out even longer, after an appeal filed last month that could also delay the city's broader plans for growth in Seattle.

The city is in the midst of updating its plan to manage growth over the next decade and advocates for allowing new apartments in Seattle's stadium district say the city's proposal unfairly denies any future possibility of those homes being built. They have appealed to the city's hearing examiner, saying such a blanket prohibition should have gone through a thorough environmental review and is out of step with Seattle's larger housing goals.

The public facilities district that oversees T-Mobile Park and the Seattle Building and Construction Trades Council are leading the appeal.

In some ways, the stadium district argument is a subversion of the more typical arguments about the city's growth plans. Many of those say the city is moving too quickly to add density. This is arguing the city's plans improperly ban it.

Seattle is updating its longterm growth plan in phases. The first phase, passed last year, gave the greenlight for new density in residential neighborhoods across the city and established new neighborhood centers" near the city's commercial areas where apartments could be built.

The second phase is under consideration now and would make the necessary zoning changes within those centers and near transit corridors. Though the council can continue its deliberations about the city's growth plan, it cannot take a final vote until the appeal is resolved. That could hold up the broader push to add new density around the city's commercial and transit corridors.

It's the proposed language in this phase that "would effectively tie the City's hands for at least the next ten years, precluding lawmakers from even considering the passage of reasonable, responsible, well supported legislation to allow any form of housing in the (stadium district)," the appeal argues.

At issue was a bill, proposed by former Councilmember Sara Nelson and passed by the council last year, 6-3, allowing development of new apartment buildings just south of T-Mobile Park. Previous regulations allowed only hotels.

The bill agitated fault lines between the city's growth and its maritime and industrial interests. The Port of Seattle and its associated unions fought the legislation as an incursion into their space that would lead to broader pressures on the industrial economy.

Boosters of the bill framed it as a clear win for housing in an underserved area that could spur growth of local artisan businesses and increase public safety around a part of town with boom-and-bust crowds.

Months after the bill's passage, the state Growth Management Hearing Board invalidated it, deeming it out of compliance with requirements around environmental review, public engagement and assessments of its impacts on the surrounding neighborhood.

The council, in May, voted to repeal the law.

Backers of new housing development in the area reluctantly accepted the council's decision to do so, but held out hope City Hall might pick up the issue again at a later date.

But in a section of the city's proposed comprehensive growth plan that regulates industrial planning in the greater Duwamish area, language seems to preclude such a measure, saying the rules "do not allow any residential uses" in the area nor allow any amendments to permit it in the future.

"Nowhere else in the entire Comprehensive Plan does the City impose such a drastic and far-reaching prohibition on the City's ability to amend its own land use codes to respond to future conditions or circumstances," a group of pro-stadium housing interests said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Mayor Katie Wilson did not return a request for comment.

In a media scrum Monday, Councilmember Bob Kettle said he supported the prohibition.

"In the days of uncertainty, as we're seeing in the tech community and other areas, what's a constant for us? It's our maritime, it's our port, he said.

A bill from Councilmember Eddie Lin would limit direct land use appeals to the city's hearing examiner, which are easy to file, lead to long delays and are eventually dismissed most of the time. If passed, appellants instead would need to go to the Growth Management Hearing Board or superior court. That will likely be voted on later this summer.

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This story was originally published June 9, 2026 at 6:41 AM.