Based on written and oral testimony about the Home in Tacoma project, I conclude that there is an overall generational disconnect between people who bought a home in the housing market 25 or 30 years ago and those who are trying to find a place to live today in the 2020s.
The Housing Market in 1996 People who bought earlier in areas zoned single family made the assumption that nothing would ever change.
For Tacoma to continue to be a welcoming city to people who make less than the regional median income, we must plan to build more housing in such a way that all people will be able to afford it, regardless of their income level or family size.
Access to affordable housing and access to transportation options like buses, light rail, bike lanes and sidewalks are deeply related. The old school of thought in real estate was to “drive until you qualify” in order to buy or rent a home, but people who go that route sometimes find that they get more than they bargained for by unwittingly exchanging housing costs for transportation costs.
I have the pleasure, honor and duty of serving on Tacoma’s Planning Commission. I was appointed in 2019 by the Tacoma City Council in the public transportation seat. I do my best to represent the interests of bus and rail riders and operators as well as the city’s interest in supporting public transportation.
The point of the Planning Commission is to ensure that the City’s plans are generally consistent with the overall Comprehensive Plan, otherwise known as the One Tacoma plan.
Pictured above: Bus Arrival prototype with data fed by R and OneBusAway API
Tacoma has not historically been known for being a city rich in technical talent. We have Infoblox, TrueBlue, Accumula and a handful of other growing tech companies, but until recently it has been hard to find anyone who knows their way around a spreadsheet, much less a database.
Learning technical skills in the South Sound is born out of necessity of getting the job done as quickly as possible and as cheaply as possible.
