Missing middle future fix

Full disclosure, I don’t know much about the technical details regarding the “Missing Middle” housing issue. I’ve never attended a single public meeting, I’ve just read about the subject in the Olympian. But I think I get the drift: Our community wants more small, affordable housing to be available on the market that young people or those with low incomes can afford as rental units or starter homes.

Most debates about Missing Middle land use regulations revolve around whether existing residential habitat will be negatively altered to provide this desired availability of affordable housing. Well, with this in mind, wouldn’t it be prudent to look to the future and adjust how we allow new housing development to occur now?

Virtually all new single-family homes built are uniform, 5,000 square foot plus mansions that sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Well, won’t this just eventually create the very same problem we are now dealing with regarding the availability of affordable housing within already developed areas? We need to build the future we want, not just the one that makes the most money for developers.

New housing developments should be required to build variable sized dwelling units to accommodate all income needs. Zoning should require that 20 percent each of homes built be 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 and 5,000 square feet. Furthermore, these variable-sized structures should be evenly placed throughout the development to promote cultural diversity.

Fixing the future is something we can do now rather than just altering the past.