2025 Legislative Session Recap: Planning Wins, Challenges & What’s Next

WA State Legislative Session: 2025 Bills

Author: Robin Proebsting; Editors: Nabil Kamel, Brooke Eidem and Chris Collier

This Washington State legislative session concluded with a lot of hard choices for legislators, due in large part to budget constraints that limited the scope of which and how many bills the legislature could pass, together with the challenge of finding revenue sources to fund bill implementation. From the nearly 2,000 bills introduced, about 430 passed both chambers. The APA WA Legislative Committee tracked roughly 100 bills over the course of the session and actively engaged with a dozen, enabled by the organization and tracking by the chapter lobbyist, Mike Shaw. In addition to legislation, the Legislative Committee also tracked and advocated for funding of planning programs at the state’s universities, ultimately helping to secure $300,000 for Western Washington University’s planning program.

A list of planning-related bills that passed is below; of particular interest might be a couple of bills concerning land division: 1) HB 1096 (increasing housing options through lot splitting) and 2) SB 5559 (streamlining the subdivision process inside urban growth areas). There were also several bills tracked by the Legislative Committee that did not pass this session, but which might come back in future sessions, also below.

Bills of interest that passed this session:

Bill #	Short Description
HB 1039 (SSB 5301)	Concerning extending governmental services from cities to tribal lands.
E2SHB 1096	Increasing housing options through lot splitting.
ESHB 1135	Ensuring local government planning complies with the growth management act.
SHB 1353	Establishing a self-certification program for accessory dwelling unit project permit applications.
HB 1491	Mandating TOD zoning around select transit infrastructure. (Official summary: “Promoting transit-oriented housing development)
HB 1757	Modifying regulations for existing buildings used for residential purposes.
SHB 1935	Concerning the definition of project permit and project permit application.
E2SSB 5148 (HB 1235)	Ensuring compliance with the housing element requirements of the growth management act.
ESSB 5184 (HB 1299)	Concerning minimum parking requirements.
SSB 5298 (HB 1358)	Concerning the notice of sale or lease of manufactured/mobile home communities.
ESB 5471 (HB 1840)	Authorizing middle housing in unincorporated growth areas and unincorporated urban growth areas, certain limited areas of more intensive rural development, and fully contained communities.
ESSB 5509 (SHB 1212)	Concerning the siting of child care centers.
SSB 5558	Concerning growth management comprehensive plans.
ESB 5559	Streamlining the subdivision process inside urban growth areas.
SSB 5587	Concerning affordable housing development in counties not closing the gap between estimated existing housing units within the county and existing housing needs.
ESSB 5611	Streamlining and clarifying local governments' land use permitting workloads.

Bills that did not pass this session:

HB 1097	Extending governmental services beyond the urban growth area in specific circumstances.
HB 1160	Concerning local government design review and clear and objective standards.
HB 1195	Concerning compliance with siting, development permit processes and standards for STEP housing.
HB 1235	Ensuring compliance with the housing element requirements of the growth management act.
HB 1438	Ensuring efficient approval of certain housing permit applications.
HB 1818	Concerning the administration of plats.
SB 5555	Concerning zoning regulations in commercial, retail, and mixed-use areas in cities and code cities.
SB 5660	Making it possible for more properties to have access to water, storm drains, and sanitary sewage systems.

In the “off-season” the Legislative Committee will continue to work on tracking bill concepts likely to show up in the next session, meet with legislators, and maintain contact with organizations working in similar policy spaces.

We are grateful to APA WA’s support of the Legislative Committee’s work. Committee members will continue to advance the APA WA chapter legislative priorities and ensure that the interests of its members are accounted for in state legislation.

If you would like to learn more, please join us for a Friday 12pm (noon) meeting. Any level of involvement is welcome—from listening in and offering observations at our meetings to analyzing bills or testifying at the legislature—it’s all valuable. Contact us at [email protected] to learn more.