About

I’m Chris Karnes, AICP, a Tacoma resident who has spent more than a decade shaping how the city plans, grows, and moves. I serve on the Tacoma Planning Commission in the public transportation seat, and as Vice-Chair of the Pierce County Planning Commission. My work sits at the intersection of transportation, housing, and land-use policy.

This blog is about the question underneath every city decision: what is allowed where? It is the thread that connects how we get around, where we live, and the streets, parks, trees, and schools that hold a neighborhood together, each shaping the others. My aim is to get into the weeds, to understand how those decisions fit together and how they came to be, and to use that understanding to reform the city for the people who live in it.

What I’ve worked on

One Tacoma 2050 (Comprehensive Plan update). I chaired the Planning Commission through the adoption of the 2025 update to the One Tacoma Comprehensive Plan, a next-generation rewrite that shifts Tacoma from a downtown-centric growth pattern to a city of complete, 15-minute neighborhoods. Under the Commission’s review, we advanced amendments across the Growth Strategy, Housing, Complete Neighborhoods, Environmental Protection, Economic Development, and Transportation elements, including drafting the transit policies behind the frequent transit network, the T Line, and the Green Transportation Hierarchy.

Tideflats Subarea Plan. I authored the Transit Oriented Development standards for the Seaport Transition TOD district, shaping zoning around Tacoma’s future light rail station (adopted 2025).

Home in Tacoma. I worked on the plan to replace single-family zoning with an inclusive framework that opens more of the city to a broader range of housing types, and to absorb growth in and around regional growth and mixed-use centers. This included the November 2024 expansion of Tacoma’s Reduced Parking Area along three transit corridors. Earlier, I co-chaired the Housing Equity Taskforce, which recommended changes to the city’s growth strategy and land use code to expand affordable housing.

Parking reform. I helped move Tacoma toward eliminating minimum off-street parking requirements citywide to lower housing costs and reduce car dependence, and I’ve advocated for unbundling parking from residential rent so tenants pay only for what they use.

Transportation evaluation reform. I’ve advocated for changing how Pierce County prioritizes transportation projects so the money reflects our goals. Right now projects are judged partly by how much car capacity they add. I’ve argued for replacing that test with one that rewards reducing car dependence and cutting one of the biggest contributors to climate change, so that funding goes to projects that actually support transit, biking, and walking.

Transit-oriented development. I served on the Transit Oriented Development Advisory Group that reviewed station locations for the Tacoma Dome Link Extension, carrying forward the city’s work to focus growth along rail.

Boards and commissions

  • Tacoma Planning Commission, public transportation representative (since 2019); Vice-Chair (2021–2022); Chair (2022–2025)
  • Pierce County Planning Commission, Vice-Chair (At-Large 2, Biology and Environment, appointed 2026)

Prior commissions

  • Pierce Transit Community Transportation Advisory Group (CTAG), Chair (2013–2018)
  • Sound Transit Citizen Oversight Panel (2018–2020)
  • Sustainable Tacoma Commission, Co-Chair (2017–2019)

In the media