The Washington Accelerator for Residential Production (WARP) is a Commerce-led effort funded through Section 1018 of the 2026 State Supplemental Capital Budget to develop recommendations to increase the rate and amount of housing production in Washington. The goals of the project are to:
- Eliminate barriers to building housing for homeownership and rental purposes.
- Determine and analyze primary cost drivers for the development of single-family homes, multifamily housing and middle housing and the impacts of those drivers on homeownership and rental housing in order to reduce the cost of housing production for developers and consumers.
- Accelerate housing development milestone timelines.
- Increase the production of housing units statewide based on goals that are attainable and sustainable.
Recommended actions may include state legislative and agency actions such as administrative changes, funding formula changes, policy changes and new or updated services. The recommendations will reflect Washington’s current development context and focus on opportunities to accelerate housing production and improve project feasibility. Recommendations will be clear, actionable and realistic — prioritized based on criteria for urgency or degree of effort.
Contact: Anne Fritzel, AICP, GMS housing section manager, at WARP@commerce.wa.gov.
Timeline
- April – July 2026: Review relevant reports, laws and recommendations and prepare for expert consultation.
- Aug. 2026 – Feb. 2027: Conduct meetings to bring together practitioners and subject matter experts with experience navigating the opportunities and challenges associated with housing production in Washington.
- Oct. 1, 2026: Preliminary report submitted to the Legislature.
- June 30, 2027: Final report submitted to the Legislature.
How to get involved
- Sign up to receive project updates and announcements. You can also use this form to request additional topics or provide recommendations to the project team.
- Participate in a meeting. Find meeting topics, dates and registration links in the table below. Participant expectations are listed below.
- Review final draft of materials as background and recommendations for each meeting is published shortly after each meeting.
Participant registration
Registration information for each meeting will be shared as it becomes available. The registration form will include questions to help the project team understand each participant’s interest, experience and expertise in each topic. Due to the broad interest in this topic and the need to keep meetings to a manageable size, some participants will be invited as panelists and some will be invited to observe.
Participant expectations
Participants should expect to receive and review materials in advance of each meeting. Materials will summarize how the relevant system currently works and identify housing production barriers and potential state actions that have been identified in Washington-based reports from the last ten years as well as submissions from Executive Order 25-02 and other action ideas. Summaries and potential state actions will be posted to this project web page two weeks after each meeting.
Project outcome
By March 2027, Commerce will conclude discussions to prepare the legislative report. The report will include background information and recommendations on each topic. The recommendations will reflect Washington’s current development context and focus on opportunities to accelerate housing production and improve project feasibility. Recommendations will be clear, actionable and realistic, and prioritized based on criteria for urgency or degree of effort.
Meeting schedule
| Topic | Date | Registration |
| Affordable housing funding | 3 p.m., Aug. 11, 2026 | View/download affordable housing funding meeting summary (PDF) |
| Infrastructure | 1:30 p.m., Sept. 16, 2026 | Register for the infrastructure meeting |
| Housing data and accountability | 1:30 p.m., Sept. 23, 2026 | Register for the housing data and accountability meeting |
| Revenue for affordable housing | 1:30 p.m., Oct. 13, 2026 | Register for the revenue for affordable housing meeting |
| Incentives and project feasibility | 9:30 a.m. Nov. 5, 2026 | Register for the incentives and project feasibility meeting |
| Regulations and permitting | 9:30 a.m. Dec. 3, 2026 | Register for the regulations and permitting meeting |
| Innovative housing types | 9:30 a.m., Jan. 6, 2027 | Register for the innovative housing types meeting |
| Financing, legal, insurance, real estate and taxes | 9:30 a.m., Jan. 27, 2027 | Register for the financing meeting |
| Construction costs | 9:30 a.m., Feb. 10, 2027 | Register for the construction costs and other topics meeting |
Meeting topic descriptions
This session will review opportunities to overcome barriers associated with affordable housing funding and financing, including considerations of:
- Grant processes and coordination, including ways to streamline and coordinate funding processes
- Grant requirements (labor and wage requirements and public works contracting)
- Award amounts
- Housing market needs
- Occupancy requirements and ongoing monitoring of affordable units
- New revenue models for publicly funded housing
- Public private partnerships for affordable housing
This session will focus on policy and funding options related to water, sewer, and stormwater infrastructure needed to support increased housing production. Discussion will include consideration of:
- Capital facility planning and financial challenges to expanding water, sewer, and stormwater infrastructure
- Utility availability and timing of infrastructure improvements
- Impact fees and system development charges
- Regional stormwater opportunities in high-density areas
Comments or recommendations related to power or transportation infrastructure can be submitted separately to warp@commerce.wa.gov.
Communities now have to plan for and accommodate housing for all income bands. To support accountability, the state needs centralized and reliable data about policy and regulatory changes and unit production by housing types and affordability levels. Topics will include:
- Projections of housing need, land capacity and constraints to growth
- Sources of and gaps in housing data
- Benchmarking progress in unit production by unit type
- Monitoring of housing production by affordability level (SB 5587)
- Centralized and up-to-date information about policies and regulatory changes across the state
This session will review options for generating revenue to fund affordable housing in Washington, including consideration of:
- Sales taxes for housing and related services
- Property tax levies for affordable housing
- Lodging taxes
- Fee-in-lieu options for zoning compliance
New housing development requires access to suitable land with appropriate zoning, uniform regulations, and efficient predictable permit processes. We will discuss topics including consideration of:
- Land use planning and developments regulations
- Permitting process and timeline (including staff capacity)
- Regulatory exemptions
- Standardization of zoning codes or other requirements
- Performance buildings and energy code pathways
- Infrastructure requirements for development
- Design review
New attainable housing development could be encouraged by considering and fostering new building techniques and building types. We will discuss barriers to the production of various housing types, including consideration of:
- Product types, including off-site construction techniques
- Policy and regulatory options, such as building code innovations
- Funding barriers and opportunities and new business models
- Implications for homeownership
Jurisdictions may use incentives such as tax exemptions, fee waivers and zoning allowances to reduce the development costs and incentivize certain types of housing development. We will discuss incentives including consideration of:
- Property tax incentives including the multifamily tax exemption (MFTE)
- Sales and use tax exemptions
- Inclusionary zoning and density bonuses
- Permit, impact and connection fee waivers and reductions
- Surplus land, partnerships and other incentives
- Land value capture, including tax increment financing
Access and cost of capital (through revenue and financing) is a key factor of development project feasibility. We will discuss funding, financing, and resource barriers to housing construction including consideration of:
- Availability of capital and financing for housing development
- Funding or institutional barriers for diverse housing types
- Funding or institutional barriers for new ownership models
A key challenge in meeting the housing needs of Washington is the cost to build housing, which has increased significantly in the past decade. We will identify key cost drivers, where costs have increased, and potential remedies that enable the production of housing at lower costs to developers and customers, including consideration of:
- Costs associated with building materials
- Costs associated with labor and workforce challenges
- Insurance and financing costs