After more than a year of struggling to find solutions for its growing homeless population, Burien could be poised to kill a tiny house village its City Council previously agreed to before it gets off the ground.
In November of last year, Burien selected a Seattle City Light-owned property within its city limits to stand up 35 Pallet shelters. These are easy-to-assemble structures that would add to the city’s shelter capacity and offer many people living on Burien’s streets a safer, more stable place to live.
The money would come from King County’s unused federal pandemic funding, a rare gesture by the county to assist a local municipality with homelessness.
While the Burien City Council appears to be moving forward with a zoning code change that would allow the shelter to exist, two amendments, if approved, would disqualify the property that the City Council selected for the project.
King County officials said they are closely monitoring Burien’s actions but declined to speak about potential impacts until the council votes.
Kristin Elia, spokesperson for King County Executive Dow Constantine, said the upcoming vote will determine if the county needs to reassess its offer “given that [Burien has] not yet taken King County up on the Pallet shelters and $1 million to develop alternative housing options.”
Burien officials said to hold off on passing judgment until the final vote is tallied, when city staff will determine whether the final ordinance creates problems for the project, said Devin Chicras, spokesperson for the city of Burien.
For more than a year, the South King County city has struggled to get a grasp on its small but growing unsheltered homeless population, estimated last year to be between 100 and 200 people. It’s created division in the city of around 50,000 residents as encampments continue to pop up and as Burien leaders continue to fight with the King County Sheriff’s Office over the enforcement of its newest camping ban. The city is currently entangled in multiple lawsuits over the ban.
Burien has one family shelter and a nine-bed shelter for women. Many of the shelter beds are full at any given time.
Last summer, King County offered Burien $1 million to help set up a tiny house village to increase shelter capacity. The City Council members sat on the offer for about six months, until King County gave them a deadline to decide. Burien chose land owned by Seattle City Light, Seattle’s public utility for electricity.
According to the King County Regional Homeless Authority, it has the paperwork ready to send out to find a homeless service provider to run the site. The authority is just waiting for Burien to update its zoning code to allow the project to move forward.
But that’s where things become muddied.
During an April 29 Burien City Council meeting, council members decided between a staff-recommended zoning ordinance change, which would keep the project alive, or the city’s Planning Commission version, which would kill the project.
Planning Commission members publicly expressed their unhappiness with the shelter project.
The City Council voted 6-1 to advance the staff-recommended plan and place it on the following week’s consent agenda. But some council members also voted to add a requirement that the chosen lot needed to be at least 1 acre in size but not larger than 2 acres.
The Seattle City Light property, located at South 136th Street and Fourth Avenue South, is about 4.6 acres, according to Jenn Strang, spokesperson for Seattle City Light.
In an email obtained by The Seattle Times, Nigel Herbig, intergovernmental relations manager for the Regional Homelessness Authority, raised the conflict with the council on May 2, saying the amendment posed a “potential concern.”
In the following council meeting, held May 6, Councilmember Sarah Moore moved to get the maximum limit removed.
“Given the scarcity of properties that would already qualify for this, this, in effect, says ‘We don’t want tiny home villages in Burien and have a workaround for it,’ and I would welcome tiny home villages in Burien as a temporary place that people can be while connecting with services and seeking a more permanent place to live,” Moore said. Her motion failed 2-4 with one council member abstaining.
In that same meeting, council members pulled the transitional housing zoning ordinance from the consent agenda and continued to debate it.
They also voted to add a caveat that would prevent transitional housing, which includes tiny house shelters, from being placed within 500 feet of elementary or secondary schools, playgrounds, recreation centers, child care centers or public parks.
This change, too, would prohibit the Seattle City Light project because the property borders Kennedy Catholic High School.
No council members have outright acknowledged the mixed messages during meetings.
Burien Mayor Kevin Schilling has encouraged council members to consider the long-term implications of the zoning ordinance change, while also criticizing King County for its $1 million offer.
“Now, what we have the ability to do here,” Schilling said during the April 29 City Council meeting, “is amend that ridiculous process that happened last year from the county, which was just entirely political on their end, to utilize our ability as a council to say, ‘We are going through the proper process.’ ”
Councilmember Jimmy Matta did raise questions about whether this zoning ordinance complies with state law under House Bill 1220, which passed in 2021 and requires municipalities to plan for and accommodate affordable housing, emergency shelter and permanent supportive housing within its city borders.
To ensure that whatever the City Council decides doesn’t violate Washington law, the council ultimately decided to table the discussion until city staff could complete a legal review.
The next Burien City Council meeting is scheduled for Monday. The agenda does not contain the proposed zoning code.