Tumwater planners review housing element draft as city faces need for about 9,200 new homes

Tumwater — City planning staff told the Planning Commission on June 10 that a draft 2025 housing element aims to guide how the city will accommodate a state‑assigned share of Thurston County’s housing need and respond to local affordability and displacement risks.

Anna, city planning staff, said jurisdictions in Thurston County worked with the Thurston Regional Planning Council on a regional allocation that assigns Tumwater a need for 9,192 net new housing units between 2022 and 2045, including the city’s urban growth area. She said the element includes goals, policies and a technical appendix (part 2) and that staff plan to keep implementation actions in an appendix so they can be updated more often than the 10‑year plan.

Why it matters: staff and the consultants who worked on the county allocation told commissioners that the largest shortfalls will be in the lowest income bands — households at 0–30% and 30–50% of area median income (AMI) — and that the city must both identify capacity for those units and propose programs to preserve and create them. The element also includes a racially disparate‑impact and displacement analysis intended to identify policies that may unintentionally push people out of the city.

Key findings and numbers presented - Regional allocation: 9,192 net new housing units for Tumwater (2022–2045), per the regional process with Thurston Regional Planning Council (TRPC). Staff said that allocation reflects countywide planning under the Growth Management Act and House Bill 1220 (state law that revised regional housing planning). - Area median income examples: staff cited Thurston County AMI figures as of April 1, 2025 — roughly $93,000 for a two‑person household and $116,000 for a four‑person household. Staff emphasized that affordability depends on household size. - Projected growth: staff showed a city housing total that rises from about 12,000 to about 21,000 (presentation slides); staff said that implies adding roughly the units noted above (the presentation describes methodology in the housing needs allocation document). - Affordability and displacement metrics: staff said about 30% of Tumwater households are cost‑burdened (paying more than 30% of income for housing), 39% of residents fall into low/very low/extremely low income bands, and the non‑white population increased substantially (staff cited a 196% growth in non‑white population between 2010 and 2023). The city’s rental stock shows higher cost burden than ownership, staff said. - Existing stock and special needs: staff reported 1,280 manufactured/mobile home units in the city’s housing stock and identified permanent supportive housing (PSH) as a separate need that will rely on public funding and social services. - Land capacity: staff presented a TRPC land‑capacity analysis that compares allocated need to potential capacity in Tumwater and the urban growth area. The analysis shows an overall surplus in capacity, but staff said the surplus leaves “little wiggle room” specifically for 0–80% AMI housing (staff noted a surplus figure of 35 in the slide but did not specify the unit of that number in the presentation). - Affordability trend: staff showed county/regional affordability indices (Runstad Center for Real Estate Research data through 2024) that place Tumwater near Lacey’s trend line and noted overall declining affordability since 2021.

Options and draft actions discussed Staff and commissioners discussed a range of implementation ideas that are included as draft actions in the appendix rather than locked into the main goals and policies. Suggestions and items staff identified include: - Programs to preserve manufactured home parks, including a community‑land‑trust style approach and homeowner support for small‑scale ownership of mobile home communities. Commissioners and staff said stakeholders from manufactured home communities raised preservation as a priority. - Increasing staffing capacity and process improvements to speed accessory dwelling unit (ADU) permitting and reduce cost. Staff said the city has been working on interlocal preapproved ADU plan agreements with nearby cities and revised those plans after the state’s middle‑housing code changes. - Targeted incentives and removal of regulatory barriers to expand permanently income‑restricted affordable housing and to site emergency and supportive housing. - Outreach and data work: commissioners asked staff to present the housing data as a clearer narrative (who lives in Tumwater and how that is changing) and to pursue more targeted demographic outreach (including tribal and BIPOC engagement, renters, and seniors) to inform policy choices. - Operational tools: commissioners raised the possibility of using automated tools (including AI) to speed permit review; city management said the topic is being discussed but emphasized privacy, accuracy, energy/infrastructure impacts and a cautious approach.

Racially disparate impacts and displacement Staff said the displacement analysis relied on CHAS and other datasets; consultants used older federal CHAS datasets covering 2015–2019 and 2017–2021, which staff noted limit the analysis’s currency. The consultant’s work identified homeowner households as at risk of economic displacement through rising costs, taxes and rent pressures. Staff said a final displacement report had been delivered to the city the week of the meeting and would be reviewed for possible inclusion in the housing element appendix.

Public engagement and next steps Staff said the draft housing element and technical appendices were circulated for public review and that the public comment period would remain open through July 11, 2025. Presentation slides and appendices (including the displacement report) will be available online; staff asked commissioners to flag additional groups the city should reach out to. Staff said the implementation actions are intentionally placed in an appendix so the city can update them as new funding, opportunities or policies emerge.

Commissioner reaction Commissioners generally asked for clearer narrative framing of who Tumwater is planning for (household sizes, jobs locally vs. commutes), greater outreach to underrepresented groups, and practical steps to preserve existing affordable stock. Several commissioners asked staff to emphasize upstream causes of housing need (labor markets, childcare costs, commuting patterns) in the plan’s context.

Meeting context Commissioners reviewed the draft as part of the 2025 comprehensive plan periodic update. No formal action on the housing element was taken at this meeting; staff requested feedback and noted additional council work sessions and a December 2025 deadline for code updates related to middle housing.

Ending Staff said they will review the final displacement report, incorporate feedback, continue stakeholder outreach and return with revised materials and potential updates to the implementation actions. The planning commission also received a separate manager’s report and adjourned after the housing discussion.