As Washington tries to create more housing for the future, it’s finding inspiration from the past.
It’s going to get easier to build boarding house-style buildings in Spokane.
That type of housing is now called co-living, and it’s what Washington state is requiring all its cities to allow more of.
“Co-living is a kind of residential development where you have the individual sleeping units which are rentable as individual units, but they do share the cooking facilities," said Spokane city planner Brandon Whitmarsh.
Whitmarsh told the plan commission last week that this isn’t a new idea.
“This is a housing type that was historically very common, similar to middle housing in the late 1800s, early 1900s as the city was experiencing a significant population boom," he said.
This kind of housing fell out of vogue after World War II.
Now the state is looking to bring co-living back.
Olympia says every city must allow co-living anywhere it allows housing with six units or more.
In Spokane, that’s almost everywhere within city limits. That could mean more housing options for people who make below the area median income, or AMI.
“This is the type of housing that throughout the state, the Department of Commerce is saying is seen at the market rate level to be affordable to households as low as 50% AMI," Whitmarsh said. "So, just recognizing that this has the potential to aid in filling that need without having [subsidies] like those 1590 funds or some other form of subsidized housing.”
1590 funds are local sales tax revenues that are used to subsidize housing.
The city will update its code to be in line with state law by the end of the year.