City of Tukwila Comprehensive Plan Updates

Tiny Villages

The city of Tukwila has been embroiled for more than a year in disputes and litigation with King County regarding housing for asylum-seekers, including the tent encampment at Riverton Park United Methodist Church (RPUMC).

Recently, that dispute spilled over into the city of Kent. Asylum-seekers displaced from local hotels (and turned away from the Riverton Park site which is at capacity) have established an encampment next to the currently vacant Kent Econo Lodge that was purchased by King County during the Covid pandemic and subsequently rendered uninhabitable.

As it continues to grapple with the encampment issues, Tukwila has been considering new ordinances related to tiny villages, including the one at RPUMC.

In testimony before the Tukwila Planning Commission, Seattle King County REALTORS® encouraged the city to establish clear lines of demarcation in its codes between:

• Homeless Encampments
• Tiny Villages (with sleeping structures, but communal dining and restroom facilities), and
• Tiny Home Villages (with fully self-contained dwellings that have sleeping, cooking, restroom and living space) which are authorized by state law in connection with a Binding Site Plan.

Our REALTOR® testimony was intended to avoid the potential for Tiny Villages to be conflated with Tiny Home Villages. In our view, it is important to maintain this distinction because of the potential for Tiny Home Villages to provide future homeownership opportunities in connection with binding site plans (without the necessity of going through the platting or condominium process).

Development Code Clarifications

Seattle King County REALTORS® also testified before the Tukwila Planning Commission in support of several clarifications in the city’s development code including:

• Amendments to achieve congruence between single family and ADU development standards for new construction, as required by state law
• Clarifying that the 1,000 square foot limitation on ADUs in garages does not apply to detached ADUs that are not connected to a garage
• Elimination of ADU design requirements that were greater than those applied to single-family residential developments, while also maintaining other ADU incentives and enhancements in the city code.