Washington accelerator for residential housing production

• Eliminate barriers to building housing for homeownership and rental purposes.
• Determine and analyze primary cost drivers for the development of single-family homes, multifamily housing and middle housing and the impacts of those drivers on homeownership and rental housing in order to reduce the cost of housing production for developers and consumers.
• Accelerate housing development milestone timelines.
• Increase the production of housing units statewide based on goals that are attainable and sustainable.

Recommended actions may include state legislative and agency actions such as administrative changes, funding formula changes, policy changes and new or updated services. The recommendations will reflect Washington’s current development context and focus on opportunities to accelerate housing production and improve project feasibility. Recommendations will be clear, actionable and realistic and prioritized based on criteria for urgency or degree of effort.

Contact: Anne Fritzel, AICP, GMS housing section manager, at WARP@commerce.wa.gov.

Timeline

• April–July 2026: Review relevant reports, laws and recommendations and prepare for expert consultation.
• Aug. 2026–Feb. 2027: Conduct meetings to bring together practitioners and subject matter experts with experience navigating the opportunities and challenges associated with housing production in Washington.
• Oct. 1, 2026: Preliminary report submitted to the Legislature.
• June 30, 2027: Final report submitted to the Legislature.

How to get involved

• Sign up to receive project updates and announcements. You can also use this form to request additional topics or provide recommendations to the project team.
• Participate in a meeting. Find meeting topics, dates and registration links in the table below. Participant expectations are listed below.
• Review final draft of materials as background and recommendations for each meeting is published shortly after each meeting.

Participant registration

Registration information for each meeting will be shared as it becomes available. The registration form will include questions to help the project team understand each participant’s interest, experience and expertise in each topic. Due to the broad interest in this topic and the need to keep meetings to a manageable size, some participants will be invited as panelists and some will be invited to observe.

Participant expectations

Participants should expect to receive and review materials in advance of each meeting. Materials will summarize how the relevant system currently works and identify housing production barriers and potential state actions that have been identified in Washington-based reports from the last ten years as well as submissions from Executive Order 25-02 and other action ideas. Summaries and potential state actions will be posted to this project web page two weeks after each meeting.

Project outcome

By March 2027, Commerce will conclude discussions to prepare the legislative report. The report will include background information and recommendations on each topic. The recommendations will reflect Washington’s current development context and focus on opportunities to accelerate housing production and improve project feasibility. Recommendations will be clear, actionable and realistic and prioritized based on criteria for urgency or degree of effort.

Meeting schedule

Meeting topic descriptions