Seattle's booming tech industry has brought an influx of new residents with big wallets. But an ensuing housing crunch has led to skyrocketing rents and home prices that have strained middle- and working-class families and deepened the city's homelessness crisis.
City officials are looking for ways to keep construction humming and help people of all incomes stay.
They're proposing allowing developers to build taller and denser in core areas across the city and requiring them to include units that working-class people can afford, or pay for projects to be built elsewhere.
Some worry increased heights and density will change the character of the single-family neighborhoods that dominate Seattle.
But others are backing the city's plan, which aims to create 6,200 new affordable units. They say growth and housing choices mean teachers, firefighters and other laborers can remain in Seattle alongside wealthy tech workers.
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